14 November—Update on the Connecticut Department of Transportation. Following that notoriously inept and/or just plain arrogant (like most state bureaucracies) agency’s original failure or refusal to even acknowledge my calls chronicled on 30 October: six phone calls in two weeks to three ConnDOT phone numbers: one to the obviously misnamed customer care center, two to the obviously misnamed communications office, three to the alleged direct line to the commissioner. During normal business hours on week days. All six calls picked up by answering machines, the commissioner’s direct line with an outgoing message not by the commissioner. Six messages left. Not a single call-back.

Further proof that ConnDOT office staff collect handsome paychecks and fringes for not doing their jobs. In other words, business as usual for the Connecticut Department of Transportation. And my op-ed in the Republican-American probably wasn’t received too well in ConnDOT HQ.

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Not to disparage or in any way belittle the under-appreciated, underpaid virtual peons and serfs among screen writers and actors who have been striking for a much deserved better deal, but had I not read and heard about the writers’ and actors’ strikes, I shouldn’t have known they were on.

So-called A-listers like George Clooney, Meryl Streep, and Tyler Perry demonstrated an impressive degree of magnanimity in aid of their less fortunate colleagues. It was reported about a month ago that Clooney and other top stars had offered $150 million to the actors union over three years as part of a proposal to end the actors’ strike as it neared its 100th day. Clooney also said that the big stars would collect residuals only after lower-paid actors received theirs.

“A lot of the top earners want to be part of the solution,” Clooney said. “We think it’s fair for us to pay more into the union.” Absolutely. Not to be cynical, or in any way belittle the top earners, but none of them would be earning bupkes (as they say in the trade) as long as a strike keeps them from working. Outside of their investments, of course. Still, it was a commendable, splendid gesture.

But SAG-AFTRA’s president, actress Fran Drescher, shot down the offer, opining that only employers can pay for workers’ benefits. Easy for her to say. The union’s negotiating committee agreed.

What would Ronald Reagan have done in his two terms as Screen Actors Guild president?

So now that everybody’s working again, will we notice the difference?