Lesbian Pop Culture Reviews

The Whole 9 Yards: Year in Review

We associate the number nine with extremes: highs (cloud nine), lows (the ninth Psalm, predicting the coming of the Antichrist), good luck and bad. Considering the spectrum of events we lived through in 2010-2011—from the greatest victories to the worst tragedies—the number nine seems a particularly apt symbol for the past twelve months’ happenings. On the plus side, DADT was repealed; on the minus side, a near-apocalyptic disaster devastated Japan. Last year, we opened our Annual Year in Review with the crisis in Haiti, which proves again that life is fragile.

28. BREAKING LABOR’S BACK

Outraged union members in Wisconsin staged a raucous two-week demonstration inside the state capitol building in response to Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget. Part of a nationwide, anti-union Republican strategy, Walker’s budget slashed thousands of union jobs—including teachers, police and public workers—from the state payroll and, most contentiously, abolished the unions’ right to collective bargaining. Portions of Walker’s anti-union plan have passed the Wisconsin state legislature, turning back the clock nearly a hundred years and stunning unions throughout America, who now wonder if they’ll be next on the firing line.

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