The latest bad idea

For some reason, the Washington DC crowd these days is enamored of government by artificially created crises. Fiscal cliff, debt ceiling negotiations, sequester, whatever, the show goes on and on.

Lately, however, the people who have been hurt by round after round of arbitrary cuts aren't just taking it in silence.

Tonight in Charleston, over 100 people gathered to protest sequester-imposed cuts to the Head Start program, which so far has been forced to eliminate 82 jobs and 461 slots for young children. Among those who spoke out against these dumb cuts were parents and laid-off workers. Here's some coverage from the Gazette and Daily Mail.

Unless this situation gets fixed, I have a feeling that people affected by arbitrary cuts, whether young or old, are going to start showing up in the most inconvenient places to push our congressional delegation to make it go away. And I'll do all I can to make sure that happens.

The poetry of myth

El Cabrero has been on the road this week. Instead of ranting about current events, I'm trying to settle accounts with the ideas of Joseph Campbell, the famous student of mythology. My short take is that when he's good, he's really good. And the converse.

Here's some classic Campbell:

Whenever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed. The living images become only remote facts of a distant time or sky. Furthermore, it is never difficult to demonstrate that as science and history mythology is absurd. When a civilization begins to reinterpret its mythology in this way, the life goes out of it, temples become museums, and the link between the two perspectives is dissolved. Such a blight has certainly descended on the Bible and on a great part of the Christian cult.

To bring the images back to life, one has to seek, not interesting applications to modern affairs, but illuminating hints from the inspired past. When these are found, vast areas of half-dead iconography disclose again their permanently human meaning.

It's hard not to agree with a good bit of that, especially when you think about the lunacies of literalism, such as "creation science." I can't go all the way with Campbell and am allergic to his politics but he does have his moments.

JUST ONE LINK. Here's my latest rant on cuts to the Head Start program. Notice that I performed the charitable act of feeding a troll.

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A full load for a short week

Right wingers around the country are praying for an Affordable Care Act train wreck, but it just might not happen.

ONE WOULD HOPE SO. According to a new poll, political attitudes may be shifting away from conservatism.

BUT NOT BEFORE lots of poor kids get whacked from Head Start.

GOOD BEGINNINGS. As WV's 150th approaches, here's a look at the politics of statehood.

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