It’s been 10 days since my husband had a heart attack. I spent the first few days shuttling between our house and the hospital. Then, I did my best to support Esteban’s recovery at home.

I worried on Monday that he was still in pain, but yesterday Esteban called me from the grocery store. “Need anything?” he asked in his usual upbeat tone. “Nope,” I answered, a bit surprised. “I’m good!”

I came home last night to find Esteban in the kitchen, making us a roast chicken with a side of potatoes and carrots. And this morning he got up early, drove himself to his cardiology appointment, and then went to work.

Anyway … Esteban’s first foray back into his world has left me with some time to kill this evening. So I’m very pleased to hop back in the news saddle and bring you the stories that caught my eye today.

Politically punk’d

It started as a battle over unions, but it’s becoming a political war: Over the past week, Democratic legislators have been squaring off against Wisconsin’s Republican governor, Scott Walker, over the state’s public employees.

In a nutshell, the governor wants to strip public-employee unions of their bargaining power, saying that it’s a necessary cost-saving measure for his state. The Democrats have responded by leaving the state. (If they’re not in Wisconsin to vote, the legislation can’t pass.)

Although I was annoyed by the governor’s hard-liner stance — and amused by the legislators’ response — I’d written off the entire episode as another case of Grown Men Who Need To Put On Their Big-Girl Panties.

That was, until I read today’s story about a left-leaning organization’s prank call to the governor.

Posing as millionaire businessman Dave Koch, the prankster got Gov. Walker to talk on tape with astounding candor:

At the end of the call, the prankster says: “I’ll tell you what Scott, once you crush these bastards, I’ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time.”

“Alright, that would be outstanding. Thanks for all the support and helping us move the cause forward. We appreciate it and we’re doing the just and right thing for the right reasons and it’s all about getting our freedoms back,” Walker said.

I must have missed a history lesson along the way … but when did union-busting by “crushing those bastards” become synonymous with “getting our freedoms back”?

Judge not, lest you be judged

Next up, we have the Catholic professor/blogger who has decided that Governor Andrew Cuomo does not deserve the rite of communion because he isn’t married to his live-in girlfriend. According to the Associated Press article,

Edward Peters … a conservative Catholic blogger and seminary professor in Detroit, called the living arrangement “public concubinage” and said that Cuomo taking Communion would be sacrilegious.

“Public concubinage?” Really?! The terminology strikes me as hilarious, but the petty-minded, vindictive judgmentalism is astounding. No matter which version of the Bible Peters may embrace, the scripture is clear: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

File under “Ironic”

Finally, I stopped in my tracks this morning when I heard that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “expressed outrage at what he said was ‘unimaginable’ repression in Libya, urging world leaders to listen to their people,” according to Pakistan’s Daily Times.

Ahmadinejad must have been out of town when his own election was declared suspect, and when an innocent woman was gunned down in his own streets during a protest against his government.

Talk about “outrage” and “unimaginable repression!”

As the day draws to a close, I can’t quite decide which I prefer as my primary source of entertainment: burning Jello or foaming at the mouth over the news.

Either way, I’m just grateful that my husband is on the mend.