Head's up

Random animal picture.

It's all fun and games until somebody loses a head. At least that's the case in Beowulf, the theme here lately. I've been working my way through the first English epic for a while now and am on Monster #2 at this point. If this is your cup of mead, click on earlier posts. You'll also find links and more or less snide comments about current events below.

After Beowulf kills Grendel, there is much rejoicing in Heorot, the mead hall of Danish king Hrothgar. He hasn't been able to use his prize hall for years, since Grendel had the not-so-endearing habit of eating people who hung out there. The Danes reclaim the hall, although Beowulf sleeps somewhere else.

That night, Grendel's mother comes back for revenge. She is eventually driven off, but only after taking Hrothgar's trusted advisor Aeschere with her. They find his head the next day near the haunted mere, which is a lake or swamp where the monsters live.

After the attack, Hrothgar summons Beowulf and asks him to step up one more time. Beowulf gives the following classic lines, which kind of sum up his warrior ethic:

Wise sir, do not grieve. It is always better
to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.

This is one part of the poem where the thin veneer of Christianity gets even thinner, but I must admit to feeling that way myself some days. It's kind of the proto-Viking version of the old labor saying, "Don't mourn, organize!"

PLEASE STEP AWAY FROM THE BUDGET CUTTING KOOL-AID, Senator Manchin.

INSTEAD, consider this. A new poll shows a majority of Americans favors cutting military spending rather than cutting vital social programs.

DIRTY DEEDS done dirt cheap. Maybe we should impose a no fly zone over Wisconsin.

THE WORD OF THE DAY is philanthro-feudalism.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, this is totally Koched up.

NOTE: This post was scheduled in advance due to much sleep deprivation. Well may the world go.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Mama-san

I've read and re-read Beowulf several times in recent months and still can't find the part where Grendel's mother looks like Angelina Jolie, as she did in the 2007 movie version. Say what you want about Ms. Jolie, but she is hardly the "monstrous hell-bride" described in the poem, although the original term is ambiguous in Anglo-Saxon.

In that poem, she doesn't show up until the night after Beowulf's fight with Grendel, in which he tears off the monster's arm and hangs it as a trophy in Heorot, the mead hall.

(I guess people had other ideas about interior decorating in those days.)

After the mortally wounded Grendel runs off to the haunted mere (lake or swamp) where he lives with Mom in an underwater chamber, there is much feasting, drinking, story-telling and gift giving among the humans. It never seems to occur to anyone that Grendel had any family members who might seek revenge. This is kind of ironic, since the feud-oriented raiding culture of the North Sea as depicted in the poem was all about avenging family members. I guess there is a double irony in that the family that seeks revenge here is that of Cain, which originated killing within the family.

Holy double parallelism, Batman!

His mother, unnamed in the poem, broods over this injury and the bad fate of the children of Cain

She had been forced down into fearful waters,
the cold depths, after Cain had killed
his father's son, felled his own
brother with a sword. Branded an outlaw,
marked by having murdered, he moved into the wilds,
shunned company and joy. And from Cain there sprang
misbegotten spirits, among them Grendel,
the banished and accursed....
...But now his smother
had sallied forth on a savage journey,
grief-racked and ravenous, desperate for revenge.

It's not uncommon for mothers in the animal kingdom to be fierce where their young is concerned and I guess that's also the case with monsters.

FEDERAL BUDGET CUTS won't create more jobs.

THIS GUY thinks so too.

SUIT UP. Massey Energy just got hit with more lawsuits in the wake of last year's Upper Big Branch mine disaster.

PASS IT. Here's an item about some worthwhile legislation in WV which would create an Office of Minority Affairs. If you live in WV, please consider contacting your senators in support of HB 2161.

ELEPHANTS can co-operate. We, however, seem to have some issues in that department.

NOTE: Due to having to hit the road at an ungodly hour again, this post was scheduled in advance. Well may the world go.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Dis-arming Grendel

Aikido image by way of wikipedia.

Sometimes when reading various classics or works of literature, my mind gets sidetracked to certain obscure questions. These may be fairly random, like wondering why Victor Frankenstein took the trouble to stitch several bodies together before animating his monster instead of using just one. Or why in the Iliad King Priam of Troy didn't tell Paris and Helen to get a room in some other city and save a whole bunch of trouble.

At other times, the martial artist in me wonders about technical details. Example: just what throw did Orlando use against Charles in Shakespeare's As You Like It? Ditto with how Gilgamesh threw Enkidu in the world's oldest surviving epic (I suspect he used something like judo's uki otoshi).

A similar question arises in Beowulf's fight with Grendel. The hero vowed to use no arms against the monster. After a feast, he and his homies settle down to sleep in the cursed mead hall. Grendel kills one Geat before he turns to Beowulf, who pretends to be sleeping:

...Venturing closer,
his talon was raised to attack Beowulf
where he lay on the bed; he was bearing in
with open claw when the alert hero's
comeback and armlock forestalled him utterly.
The captain of evil discovered himself
in a handgrip harder than anything
he had ever encountered in any man
on the face of the earth. Every bone in his body
quailed and recoiled, but he could not escape.

Any grappler who has ever had their arm caught in a nasty joint lock will probably feel at least a twinge of sympathy for Grendel. It's no fun at all, even if the opponent doesn't yank off your arm like Beowulf did Grendel's. But the martial arts nerd in me asks, which armlock was it? Inquiring minds want to know!

(My guess was a bent arm lock like judo's ude garami.)

Believe it or not, I'm not the only person who thinks about things like this. While surfing the web, I found a scholar who reconstructed the fight based on a close reading of the text proposes a straight arm lock similar to aikido's ikkyo technique.

Bent or straight, take your pick. All you have to do is click on the links and then, you too, Gentle Reader, will be ready to take on a man-eating humanoid Grendel wannabe. As I've rhetorically asked before, is this a full service blog or what?

p.s. You might want to practice a time or two first.

WISCONSIN. A new poll finds that most Wisconsin residents are not amused by their governor's union busting.

WORLD HUNGER could be vastly reduced if women had more equal access to services, education and resources.

THIS IS KIND OF SAD. Here's an article about how psychiatry went from talking to people to dispensing pills with minimal human interaction.

APOCALYPSE NOW AND THEN. Here's a look at doomsday scenarios throughout history.

NOTE: This post was scheduled for publication in advance as I have to be on the road at an ungodly hour. If anything really bad happens in the meantime, let the record show that I was officially against it.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Empty handed

My years spent (some might say wasted) in practicing karate have left me with certain prejudices in favor of minimalism. I think it's cooler to accomplish things with relatively empty hands than with a whole bunch of gear.

Of course, I realize that we (along with crows, monkeys and several other animals) are tool users and we couldn't survive in the manner to which we've become accustomed without them. Still, I think there's more honor in limping through a distance run than tooling around all day in a four wheeler.

Relying on external aids isn't the same as doing something yourself. You can bulk up with steroids or have visions with hallucinogenic drugs, but that's the chemicals, not you. Anyone can go fast in a motor vehicle or do a lot of damage with firearms, but that's only due to the machines used. It's one thing to paddle a mile on a lake in a canoe, but something else to be able to swim it, however slowly.

That's one thing I like about Beowulf. In his approaching conflict with the man eating monster Grendel, he vows to use no weapon at all. This turns out to be a good thing, since we later learn that no weapon would work against him. As he puts in in Seamus Heaney's translation:

"When it comes to fighting, I count myself
as dangerous any day as Grendel.
So it won't be a cutting edge I'll wield
to mow him down, easily as I might.
He has no idea of the arts of war,
of shield or sword-play, although he does possess
a wild strength. No weapons, therefore
for either this night: unarmed he shall face me
if face me he dares. And my the Divine Lord
in His wisdom grant the glory of victory
to whichever side He sees fit."

As Odysseus put it in Homer's epic of homecoming,

There is no greater glory for a man as long as he lives than that which he wins with his own hands and feet.

THE FEDERAL BUDGET struggle is going to heat up as the House and Senate joust over competing visions.

THE POLITICS OF PLAYING CHICKEN is discussed here.

THE MISSING PIECE in the debate is the revenue side.

DEGREES ALONE won't get us to a more equitable society, according to this column by Krugman. It will also take union organizing.

URGENT ZOMBIE ANT UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

How it's done

Arpad has been known to formally boast all night.

The Goat Rope Beowulf jag continues. I've been amusing myself lately with something that occurs more than once in that Anglo-Saxon poem, to wit, formal boasting. Click on the last two days for background and how-to.

Before any self-respecting monster slayer gets down to business, he or she should make such a boast in the form of a public announcement in a mead hall (a beer joint may do in a pinch). A good formal boast should have information about the boaster and his family, all the badass stuff he or she as done, and exactly what mayhem he plans on inflicting upon whom.

There is more than one in the poem, but here's a pretty good example from Seamus Heaney's translation. This one comes when Beowulf first arrives in the kingdom of the Spear-Danes and announces his plan to kill the man-eating monster Grendel.

First an intro:

...I am Hygelac's kinsman,
one of his hall-troop. When I was younger,
I had great triumphs.

Then the business:

...Then news of Grendel,
hard to ignore, reached me at home:
sailors brought stories of the plight you suffer
in this legendary hall, how it lies deserted,
empty and useless once the evening light
hides itself under heaven's dome.

Then why he's the man for the job:

So every elder and experienced councilman
among my people supported my resolve
to come her to you, King Hrothgar,
because all knew of my awesome strength.
They had seen me boltered in the blood of enemies
when I battled and bound five bests,
raided a troll-nest and in the night-sea
slaughtered sea-brutes. I have suffered extremes
and avenged the Geats (their enemies brought it
upon themselves, I devastated them).

Then the plan:

Now I mean to be a match for Grendel,
settle the outcome in single combat.

And, just to make it interesting, he boast that he will do it unarmed:

...I have hard moreover that the monster scorns
in his reckless way to use weapons;
therefore, to heighten Hygelac's fame
and gladden his heart, I hearby renounce
sword and shelter of the broad shield...
...hand to hand is how it will be, a life-and-death
fight with the fiend. Whichever one death fells
must deem it a just judgement by God.

He seals the deal with a few references to blood and gore but you get the idea. Next time you plan on laying into a monster, make sure you set it up with a good boast like that.

CUTTING INVESTMENTS in the federal budget is a bad idea, according to over 300 economists.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, a number of progressive Christians are asking "What would Jesus cut?"

WISCONSIN. Has a certain governor overplayed his hand?

THEN THERE'S Ohio.

MORE MASSEY INDICTMENTS TO COME? Maybe.

HOW ABOUT A WALKING CACTUS? Here's an article about a weird ancient animal that once lived in China.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

That little monster problem

I've been on an on again/off again Beowulf jag here lately, although there are also links and comments about current events. Click on earlier posts if you like this kind of thing (although the last few days have been all about the labor protests in Wisconsin and elsewhere).

When Beowulf arrives in the land of the Danes with 14 warrior buddies on a quest for monster-killing glory, he is met by a coast-guard whose duty it is to check him out. This requires a bit of diplomacy on his part. It would not do, for example, for him to say

"I'm here to kill that monster you guys are too pansy to handle."

Or:

"I thought Denmark could use someone who wasn't a total candy ass to take care of your Grendel problem."

After all, having a man-eating monster you can't get rid of is a bit of a tender subject for a warrior king. (OK, so the pun was intended.)

Beowulf instead assures the guard of his good intentions and desire to help, saying,

So tell us if what we have heard is true
about this threat, whatever it is,
this danger abroad in the dark nights,
this corpse-maker mongering death
in the Shieldings' country. I come to proffer
my wholehearted help and counsel
I can show the wise Hrothgar a way
to defeat his enemy and find respite--
if any respite is to reach him, ever.
I can calm the turmoil and terror in his mind.
Otherwise, he must endure woes
and live with grief for as long as his hall
stands at the horizon, on its high ground.

That's good enough for the guard, who agrees to take the band to Hrothgar. It seems that even monster slaying requires diplomacy.

WHILE UNION SUPPORTERS STRUGGLE, President Obama is keeping a low profile. Meanwhile, back in Wisconsin, a crank Koch call to the governor has made some headlines.

THE LATEST BAD IDEA: turning Medicaid into a block grant program.

MORE ON RECENT BAD IDEAS here.

A LITTLE WV NEWS. Acting Governor Earl Ray Tomblin is calling for raising eligibility for the Children's Health Insurance Program from 250 to 300 percent of the federal poverty level.

NOTE TO SELF: in event of an attempt to shoplift a chainsaw, don't attempt to conceal it in pants.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Of monsters, cyclopes and the rule of law

It is a truth universally acknowledged that monsters and other giant cannibalistic humanoids get low marks when it comes to playing nicely with others and obeying the rule of law.

This was noted as far back as The Odyssey. In Homer's epic, Odysseus describes the cyclopes thus:

They live without a council or assembly
or any rule of law, in hollow caves
among the mountain tops.

(Cyclopes, by the way, is the classical plural form for the word cyclops. It has the additional advantage of looking and sounding cooler than "cyclopses.")

The monsters in Beowulf, the theme here lately, by the way, are a bit tone deaf as well when it comes to legal refinements after Grendel starts raiding the mead hall of king Hrothgar of the Spear Danes and preying on any victim he can find. The poem laments at some length the monster's lack of interest in negotiations, treaties or paying for damages:

Sad lays were sung about the beset king,
the vicious raids and ravages of Grendel,
his long and unrelenting feud,
nothing but war; how he would never
parley or make peace with any Dane
nor stop his death-dealing nor pay the death-price.
No counsellor could ever expect
fair reparation from those rabid hands.
All were endangered; young and old
were hunted down by that dark death-shadow
who lurked and swooped in the long nights
on the misty moors; nobody knows
where these reavers from hell roam on their errands.

It strikes me as a bit amusing that the narrator of this supposedly barbaric poem seems genuinely surprised and disappointed that the monster didn't play by the rules.

UNEMPLOYMENT. Jobless claims last week look better than they have since mid 2008.

AN UNUSUAL ECONOMIC INDICATOR, the divorce rate, may also signal an improving economy. Strange to say, the number of divorces tends to go down in recessions (they are kind of expensive).

A GOOD CALL. West Virginia has a new superintendent of schools, one backed by myself and many others I know. Congratulations to Dr. Jorea Marple.

URGENT SQUID SEX HORMONE UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Snack time

The theme here lately is Beowulf, although there are also links and comments about current events. If you like this kind of thing, please click on earlier posts. I think it's about time for the monster to eat somebody.

Mead halls must have been interesting if not sanitary places in old North Sea raiding societies. They were generally big enough to hold a lord, his retainers, and any associated women. They were places of feasting, drinking, boasting, and listening to bards and were associated with comfort, fellowship and safety--a bright spot in a dark world.

At least some of the time, they were places of sleeping as well. Drink enough mead--not my favorite potable beverage by the way--and you'll doze off or pass out. It was just on such an occasion in the great mead hall Heorot that the monster Grendel makes his first raid. In Seamus Heaney's translation,

...he came upon them, a company of the best
asleep from their feasting, insensible to pain
and human sorrow. Suddenly then
the God-cursed brute was creating havoc
greedy and grim, he grabbed thirty men
from their resting places and rushed to his lair,
flushed up and inflamed from the raid,
blundering back with the butchered corpses.

I'd call that a major midnight snack. The raid was a major Nike stomp for Hrothgar, king of the Spear-Danes. Heorot was a monument to his success and vanity, but after a few raids, the hall was deserted. Another translation (by Howell D. Chickering, Jr.) puts it this way:

Then it was easy to find a few men
who [sought] rest elsewhere, at some distance,
slept in the outbuildings, once the full hate
of the mighty hall-server was truly told,
made clear as a beacon by signs too plain.
Whoever escaped kept further away.

I think I'd probably do the same.

THEN AND NOW. Here's a look at how income inequality has changed. Sneak preview: growth in incomes is concentrated at the top.

HEALTH CARE REFORM will strengthen the US economy in at least four ways, according to this blog post from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

URGENT FROG UPDATE here. Sneak preview: this one has teeth.

HOW DOES A FLEA FLEE? Not from the knee.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A fiend out of hell

The theme at Goat Rope these days is Beowulf, although you will also find links and comments about current events. If you like this kind of thing, please click on earlier posts.

I've been blogging on this subject for a while now but am just getting around to the cool parts, i.e. the monsters. You may recall there are three in all, Grendel, a kind of humanoid man eating giant; his unnamed mother, who was if anything nastier than her son; and a dragon. Grendel first appears after Hrothgar, king of the Spear Danes, builds Heorot, his grand mead hall. All that nightly carousing by drunken proto-Vikings gets on Grendel's last nerve.

Things were going just fine for Hrothgar and his drunken buddies, but trouble was waiting in the wings. Here's a passage from Seamus Heaney's translation:

So times were pleasant for the people there
until finally one, a fiend out of hell,
began to work his evil in the world.
Grendel was the name of this grim demon
haunting the marches, marauding round the heath
and the desolate fens; he had dwelt for a time
in misery among the banished monsters,
Cain's clan, whom the creator had outlawed
and condemned as outcasts. For the killing of Abel
the Eternal Lord had exacted a price:
Cain got no good from committing that murder
because the Almighty made him anathema
and out of the curse of his exile there sprang ogres and elves and evil phantoms
and the giants too who strove with God
time and again until He gave them their reward.

The Anglo-Saxons had a real thing about the story of Cain, and found in it an explanation and origin for all kinds of nasty creatures that inhabit northern European folklore. More on that tomorrow.

REJECTING THE FRAME. Economist Dean Baker takes on one of his favorite targets here.

AMERICAN WORKERS. Does American business need them any more?

HEALTH CARE REFORM. What will the US Supreme Court do when it lands in the docket?

OH GOOD. Meat eating machines and furniture are here.

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN on walking.

BACK TO MONSTERS. Here's an interesting if lengthy New Yorker profile of filmmaker, author and monster fan Guillermo del Toro.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Dealing with monsters

Say what you want about human conflict, but literature would be a lot duller--or maybe even non-existent--without it. I remember a high school English class when a teacher explained that pretty much all of it had to do with conflict, either between characters, between characters and nature, or within characters. There might be some exceptions in this post-modern age, but he had a point

Imagine, for example, how dull Beowulf might have been if the creatures in it were expert at resolving conflict. In the epic, the monster Grendel is bothered by the noise of king Hrothgar's mead hall, where he and his boys revel all night:

Then a powerful demon, a prowler through the dark,
nursed a hard grievance. It harrowed him
to hear the din of the loud banquet
every day in the hall, the harp being struck
and the clear song of a skilled poet
telling with mastery of man's beginnings.

Eventually, he starts eating people there. Imagine instead this scenario instead:

GRENDEL: Sorry to bother you, Hrothgar, but I've been having a little trouble sleeping since you built your mead hall. I know that this is very important for you but would appreciate it if you could keep the noise level down a bit. The thing is, I have a tendency to eat a bunch of people when I get upset and I'd rather that not happen.

HROTHGAR: Gee, Grendel, I never thought about that. We always have such a great time drinking, feasting and listening to the bard that I never thought this could bother anybody. But you have to understand that someone in my position has to have a place like that to give gifts and keep my boys happy--otherwise they wouldn't fight for me when I needed it.

GRENDEL: I totally appreciate that. Maybe we could agree that you guys could revel for a while but try keeping it down after, say, midnight. And since you've recently converted to Catholicism, maybe you could try something like bingo when it gets late.

HROTHGAR: Bingo...I never thought of that. How about we try this for a few weeks and see how it works: we'll tone it down after midnight and will even cut you in some livestock every now and then if you'll refrain from eating my guys.

GRENDEL: Deal. Thanks! See you around.

That just doesn't do it for me.

DUMBING DOWN. Here's Leonard Pitts on our falling away from science.

SWORDS TO PLOWS. Literally. This story is about an effort to help combat veterans from the current wars to try their hand at organic farming.

FOOD, FLOODS AND CLIMATE discussed here.

URGENT BLACK WIDOW SPIDER UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A demon-haunted world

Back in the 1990s, Carl Sagan wrote a book titled The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. The theme here lately is Beowulf and Sagan's title--minus the science--is a pretty good description of the world of the poem.

The seas literally teem with monsters, as is related in the story of a swimming match between Beowulf and his friend Brecca where the former, swimming for days with sword and armor, has to overcome nine sea beasts.

The land isn't much better. All kinds of nasty creatures, such as Grendel and his mother, prowl the lonely areas and attack humans and animals at will. Such monsters, which are said to be the offspring of the children of Cain, the primal murderer. Grendel, the poet says, he

haunted the moors, the wild Marshes, and made his home in a hell.
Not hell but hell on earth. He was spawned in that slime
Of Cain, murderous creatures banished
By God, punished forever for the crime of Abel's death.

The haunted mere or swamp (lake?) where Grendel and his mother live is likewise full of monsters and nasty giant water snakes.

Then there are dragons, irritable fire-breathing monsters with venomous bites who dwell on hoarded gold and don't take kindly to being disturbed.

As noted in yesterday's post, the human world wasn't a whole lot nicer. All of which makes for a pretty good story, if not a very nice place to live.

STATE OF THE UNION. It would probably be trite beyond words to say that the state of the union address seemed political to me but there you have it. There were things to like and not to like. I am concerned that the proposed freeze in federal spending could have a recessionary effect. More on that to come.

WHAT HE SAID. Here's NY Times columnist Bob Herbert talking sense on Social Security and the real cause of budget deficits.

HEALTH CARE REFORM seems to be moving ahead in West Virginia.

GENGHIS KHAN left a greener world behind him. His methods, however, are not recommended for emulation.

TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE to remember.

URGENT DINOSAUR UPDATE here. This newly discovered one had just one finger. I could think of things to say but will spare the reader.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED