City hall is closed for Presidents Day, so I'm catching up on the story in Wisconsin, where public employees---teachers, social workers, and other unionized state employees---are staging massive protests over Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to cut their pay and eliminate their collective bargaining rights. Here are a few interesting stories and posts about the protests.

If you're not caught up on the details of what's going down in Wisconsin, Jezebel has an extremely thorough primer. (And AlterNet stresses a key part of the story: the workers have agreed to Walker's wage demands—which this is ostensibly about—just not his union busting ones.)

Another good backgrounder from Mother Jones.

Dana Goldstein points out that Walker's war on unions is not just anti-Democratic Party but sexist, too, "since predominantly male professions are deliberately protected while female ones are targeted." Indeed, the vast majority of workers who'd lose out under Walker's proposal are women.

Speaking of women: Mother Jones has the goods on Walker's position on abortion. Short version: He thinks they should be illegal in every circumstance, including to save the life of the woman.

Historian Angus Johnston crunches the numbers and finds that, even controlling for income, race, English-language fluency, and other demographic variables, schools perform better in states with teachers' unions.

Amanda Marcotte on the sexism of anti-union blather : "Even though we spend a lot of time in our culture waxing on endlessly about how the job of raising the next generation is the Most Important Job In The World, it’s also a job we expect women to do most of the work in, so we expect those who do it to be paid in crayon drawings from children and bemused pity from other adults."

Some perspective from a fourth-generation Wisconsinite .

History lesson (from my journalistic alma mater): The original template for Wisconsin Dems' flight across the border.