The power on the page

Juno is a serious reader.

On my current pile of books lately is a gift from a friend titled A Reader on Reading by Alberto Manguel. It's a pretty wide ranging tome, interspersed with quotes from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

While reading it, I stumbled on some eloquent lines about the power of literature to help people deal with life and all its injustices and challenges. Here goes:

There may be no poem, however powerful, that can remove one ounce of pain or transform a single moment of injustice. But there may be no poem, however poorly written, that may not contain, for its secret and elected reader, a consolation, a call to arms, a glimmer of happiness, an epiphany. Something there is in the modest page that, mysteriously and unexpectedly, allows us, not wisdom, but the possibility of wisdom, caught between the experience of everyday life and the experience of literary reality.

Him write pretty but me think him right.

A LITTLE GOOD NEWS. I've blogged a lot this summer about the need for Congress and the Senate in particular to pass some additional fiscal relief to the states. Yesterday, the measure finally passed with a vote of 61-38. The House will be called back into session probably next week to finalize the bill.

The downside, as I mentioned yesterday, is that the package includes a rollback of expanded food stamp or SNAP benefits from the Recovery Act which will take place in 2014. But we can fight that one out another day.

ANOTHER UNLIKELY AGREEMENT. Things are really getting weird. Now I'm agreeing with former Reagan budget director David Stockman on letting Bush era tax cuts expire.

UPPER BIG BRANCH UPDATE. Here's an interesting item from Ken Ward's Coal Tattoo about the latest twist in the investigation. This item from AOL News suggests that Massey's aggressive defense tactics have not been too well received.

DREAM ON. We all do it. But should we try to manipulate our dreams?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED