Good sunny Monday to you all.  The say we may get some hit or miss showers later and over night.  I hope so because everything, other than my containers and pots, is very dry.  Our temperatures outside did hit the low 90s yesterday forcing us to put the air on.  Even the cat didn't want to be outside.

The news last night presented a snippet of an interview Chicago Mayor Emanuel gave with Fareed Zakaria that irritated me.  He said rather baldly what most dealing with pension plans of one kind or another have only glided over.  Workers cannot, he insisted, continue to trust the promises made in the past.  In other words, simply because a string of politicians have scammed the pension plans by deferring their portions or by borrowing the money to make those payments, workers should accept the fact that part of the compensation promised for their work won't be forthcoming.  They should accept being defrauded.  The workers fulfilled their part of the bargain but our politicians aren't willing to follow through.  How many more 'promises' out there will our politicians renege on because they have so mismanaged our public affairs that the money has disappeared?

As I wrote that paragraph I had a flash back to a conversation I had with my then academic advisor some decades ago.  He described his negotiations with the Dean and other university officials when he was considering their job offer.  One gushed about the weather and how wonderful it was: blue skies, sunny days and outdoor sports year round.  My advisor said he looked them in the eye and asked if they would compensate him for the blizzards, hail, cloudy days, and rain.  They decided to get serious about the 'bread-and-butter' issues like salary, health care, and pension.  He should be retired now and I hope he is enjoying his all of his retirement benefits without the possibility that the pension is considered as much of a promise as blue skies, sunny days and outdoor sports year round.