As many of you know, the Царица is herself a public school teacher in a tough part of town to the east of Muscovy. She has been impressed with the yanked carpet the Wisconsin state Republican senators pulled on their democrat counterparts, and mentioned yesterday evening that this proves the Wisconsin republicans are much, much smarter than the other half of the aisle.

But what do her colleagues say? In nearly every respect, her colleagues are the archetypical union school teachers; what is their reaction to the events in Wisconsin?

Overall, unimpressed. Teachers are saying:

• The union picked the wrong fight out of greed, and lost.
• The protestors are clearly not teachers, and no one really thinks these protestors are in any way representative of the average public school teacher; in fact, teachers are turned off by the appearance and behavior of the protestors and wish them to go away.
• The local union is suggesting that Illinois teachers form caravans this weekend to drive up to Madison; not only have they managed to pull together barely a carful from her district, but the ones who are going were no surprise to the rest. In fact, if you had to eliminate the worst teachers in the district, all of them would be on the list.
• It has not gone unnoticed that even with the full force of the cuts going into effect, the average Wisconsin teacher still has a vastly better deal than any teacher in Illinois.
• Teachers shutting down schools by walking out is dangerous and irresponsible. Even though her district has of course been involved in labor disputes with her union, the Царица and her colleagues have never supported a picket line and always showed up for work because the kids, bluntly, have no other place to go. That teachers would simply not work over this is beyond her ken, and her colleagues agree.
• Worst of all, she says, this is going to be a tremendous hit to the vocation of teaching. The image of the underpaid, hard-working, caring teacher—a stereotype that has helped elevate the title to one of immense respect—has now been upended. Anyone who wants to dump on a teacher for being an over-compensated, lazy-ass greedy bastard only has to point to Madison, Wisconsin, to prove the point. The teachers’ union has done them no favors with this stunt.

In case you were interested.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.