Travel gods

I have always felt an affinity for Odysseus. Not that I sacked Troy or blinded a cyclops or anything that dramatic. It's just that

1. much of my life involves the use of cunning (or at least attempts thereof);

2. I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get home; and

3. he and I both seem to have offended the travel gods at some point in the past. In his case, it was Poseidon. I'm not sure which Olympian has jusrisdiction over air travel.

Today, I'm hoping to make it home through what promises to be stormy skies. I hope it won't take me 10 years like it did him.

AN INTERESTING QUESTION was raised by Ken Ward at Coal Tattoo today. My guess is the answer would be no.

GOOD HEALTH ADVICE: keep moving.

URGENT FLYING DINOSAUR WITH COOL TEETH UPDATE here.

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

One mile at a time

A random animal picture in which Arpad explores his feminine side.

The long-running fight over health care reform reached a milestone Saturday as the House of Representatives narrowly passed its version. It has a lot of good features, including a major expansion of Medicaid, a public option, regulations on the insurance industry and subsidies to help people purchase insurance.

I would have preferred that it would have left the Children's Health Insurance Program intact, something WV Senator Jay Rockefeller amended into the Senate bill, but maybe that will be resolved in conference after--if--the Senate passes its version.

This has been a long, tiring fight, with plenty of drama and melodrama--and we're far from done. A lot of effort will be required to get something through the Senate and to arrive at some kind of compromise between the houses.

It reminds me of running a marathon. Having completed a few of those (none too rapidly, let it be admitted), I've found it to be a good strategy not to focus on running the whole 26.2 miles. Instead, focus on the mile you're running. Once you finish that one, focus on the next.

We just passed another mile marker. Now let's focus on the next.

HEALTH CARE WHACKADOODLE-ISM. Here's a mini-encyclopedia of it.

WHILE WE'RE AT IT, here's Krugman on the same.

STATE BUDGET WOES. West Virginia has its share, although so far it hasn't been as hard hit as many states.

ODYSSEUS LIVES! Long time readers of Goat Rope know that El Cabrero has a great deal of fondness for the epics of Homer and what they can still teach us today (search Iliad, Odyssey, Homer in the top left corner for earlier series on them). Here's an op-ed from the NY Times about the Odyssey and what it can teach us about the difficulties and dangers for veterans on their homecoming.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

One more road trip for the road!

The last round is on Odysseus.

Welcome to the very last day of Goat Rope's long running series on the Odyssey of Homer. You'll also find links and comments about current events. If you are a classics geek like El Cabrero, check the blog archives. The series started Aug. 4 and has run on weekdays since then, hitting the major stops of his journey.

I've argued all along that this epic has a lot to say both about the difficulties veterans returning from combat have in coming home and the human condition in general. It has often been noted in this series that Odysseus was a deeply flawed character and a disastrous leader. Still, I have a soft spot for the old buzzard and can relate to many of his misadventures. Perhaps the Gentle Reader can too.

As mentioned before, writers long after Homer have been fascinated by the character of Ulysses/Odysseus. Some of them had trouble believing that the hero of the epic would be content to stay at home in Ithaca. That is the theme of Tennyson's poem Ulysses, which I'll quote in its entirety. I was going to highlight my favorite parts but I just discovered I like it all. Here goes:

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle —
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me —
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

So there you have it, folks. We may not be spring chickens anymore but we're not dead yet either. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield--let's roll!

CORRECTION DEPARTMENT. Email subscribers to Goat Rope may have accidentally gotten an earlier version of a post planned for the weekend yesterday afternoon. My bad.

AFTER THE BAILOUT, the work is just beginning. Here is an analysis from the American Friends Service Committee.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, here's economist Dean Baker on the latest developments and here's Paul Krugman on the same.

BULLYING. Why are some children targets? Here are some counter intuitive findings from current research.

JUST HANG ON TILL 2208. Physicist Stephen Hawking thinks that if the human race can hold on for another 200 years, we just might make it. Of course, this may involve leaving the planet.

GENTLEMEN PUPPIES. In a display of unparalleled gallantry and chivalry, young male puppies will often allow females to win when they play their puppy games. Now that's updog. (Could they have ulterior motives? Do they thing that far ahead?)

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: INTERPLANETARY

A hell of a trip

William Blake's rendition of Ulysses and Diomedes in hell.

Goat Rope is winding up on long series on the Odyssey of Homer. You'll also find links and comments about current events. At this point, we've covered the epic pretty well and are now looking at what other writers have done with the character of Odysseus, aka Ulysses.

As noted in yesterday's post, Plato imagined that he would choose a calm, non eventful life next time around. But other writers, such as Dante, just weren't buying it. They imagined that Ulysses wouldn't be able to give up the itch for more travel and more adventures.

In Dante's Inferno, he wound up (or down) in the Eighth Circle of hell, a place reserved for fraud for the whole Trojan horse thing. Dante, after all, was a fan of Rome and the mythical founder of that city was the Trojan prince Aeneas. But it sounds like the real reason for his punishment was an endless thirst for adventure which leads him to set out again.

From the horse's mouth:

"When I

From Circe had departed, who concealed me
More than a year there near unto Gaeta,
Or ever yet Aeneas named it so,

Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence
For my old father, nor the due affection
Which joyous should have made Penelope,

Could overcome within me the desire
I had to be experienced of the world,
And of the vice and virtue of mankind;

But I put forth on the high open sea
With one sole ship, and that small company
By which I never had deserted been..."

(Dante, of course, never read Homer. In the medieval period, knowledge of Greek was mostly lost in the west and he didn't know the whole story--like the fact that Odysseus returned alone from his wanderings.)

In Dante's version, Ulysses/Odysseus made the blasphemous decision to push beyond the boundaries of the known world and sail out into the ocean where his ship met disaster:

I and my company were old and slow
When at that narrow passage we arrived
Where Hercules his landmarks set as signals,

That man no farther onward should adventure.
On the right hand behind me left I Seville,
And on the other already had left Ceuta.

'O brothers, who amid a hundred thousand
Perils,' I said, 'have come unto the West,
To this so inconsiderable vigil

Which is remaining of your senses still
Be ye unwilling to deny the knowledge,
Following the sun, of the unpeopled world.

Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;
Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,
But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.'

So eager did I render my companions,
With this brief exhortation, for the voyage,
That then I hardly could have held them back.

And having turned our stern unto the morning,
We of the oars made wings for our mad flight,
Evermore gaining on the larboard side.

Already all the stars of the other pole
The night beheld, and ours so very low
It did not rise above the ocean floor.

Five times rekindled and as many quenched
Had been the splendour underneath the moon,
Since we had entered into the deep pass,

When there appeared to us a mountain, dim
From distance, and it seemed to me so high
As I had never any one beheld.

Joyful were we, and soon it turned to weeping;
For out of the new land a whirlwind rose,
And smote upon the fore part of the ship.

Three times it made her whirl with all the waters,
At the fourth time it made the stern uplift,
And the prow downward go, as pleased Another,

Until the sea above us closed again."

As we'll see tomorrow, Tennyson picked up on this theme as well.

UNGOOD NEWS. The economic meltdown has wiped out $2 trillion in retirement savings.

LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE. Some economists see the financial meltdown as a chance to promote a more sustainable economy that looks beyond short term profits.

WHEN FACTS DON'T MATTER. Here's more on a recent study of the lasting effects of misinformation.

I KNOW YOU'RE ASKING YOURSELF THIS QUESTION, to wit: what do fish that live five miles below the surface of the ocean do and what do they look like? Your answer awaits here.

THIS IS TOTALLY WEIRD, but El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia is actually leading the nation in economic growth.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: INCOMPREHENSIBLE

The afterlife of an epic

Plato (left) and Aristotle in a detail from Raphael's The School of Athens. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

This is the very last week here of a long running series on the Odyssey of Homer and what it has to say to us today. You'll also find links and comments about (some) current events. If you like the classics, check the blog archives. The series started August 4 and has run on weekdays since then, hitting most of the stops of Odysseus on his 10 year journey home.

Given the popularity of this story over the ages, it's no surprise that people would have a hard time leaving it alone. The figure of Odysseus keeps showing up in works of literature over the ages.

One place where he showed up in classical Greece was in Plato's Republic. This is a little ironic since Plato didn't have a very high impression of Homer or at least of the moral value of his epics (probably because he didn't get it).

Toward the end of Plato's most famous dialogue comes a discussion of the afterlife commonly known as "the myth of Er." In the story, Er is a soldier who has what we would call a near death experience in which he gets to explore the afterlife and return to tell the tale.

In the afterlife, souls are rewarded or punished for their deeds on earth. For the very wicked, the punishment seems to last forever. Others, after a suitable interval, have a chance to choose their next life. Some humans choose to live as animals and vice versa. Many souls make grave mistakes at this point, choosing what seems to be a pleasant life even though it may lead to further punishment and sufferings.

After all his travels and sufferings, Odysseus has had his fill of adventure and the quest for glory. He chooses a dull life that others rejected. As Plato put it,

There came also the soul of Odysseus having yet to make a choice, and his lot happened to be the last of them all. Now the recollection of former tolls had disenchanted him of ambition, and he went about for a considerable time in search of the life of a private man who had no cares; he had some difficulty in finding this, which was lying about and had been neglected by everybody else; and when he saw it, he said that he would have done the had his lot been first instead of last, and that he was delighted to have it.

As we'll see tomorrow, Dante envisioned a whole different scenario for Odysseus...in hell.

WEIGHING IN ON THE MELTDOWN. Here are the views of five economists on where the economic mess is likely to go from, of all places, al Jazeera.

COAL STRUGGLE MAKES CNN. Some coalfield groups and residents are proposing wind energy as an alternative to mountaintop removal mining. The story is going national.

LATIN LIVES. Who said it was a dead language anyway?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Where will it end?

Athena, courtesy of wikipedia.

We're almost done with a long series on the Odyssey of Homer. You'll also find links and comments about current events. When I started writing about what this timeless classic had to say to us today, I never thought it would last this long. What can I say? Homer is the man (or maybe, as some have speculated, the woman).

For many readers, the least satisfying part of the book is the ending. Odysseus, Telemachus and some faithful servants finally wreak terrible vengeance on the 108 suitors and the unfaithful maids and servants. In a contest, Odysseus strings a bow as only he can do and a massacre ensues.

(The goat herder Melanthius comes to a particularly nasty end. El Cabrero's one complaint about the bard is that he was a little rough on a fellow goat herder. I'm not sure you can really blame the guy for being such a jerk: this is an occupational hazard of hanging out with goats. But I digress...)

The people of Ithaca are not happy about this slaughter. Nor are they particularly pleased with a commander who loses every single one of his 600 men after the war was over.

A fresh conflict is about to ensue between Odysseus, son Telemachus, father Laertes, and servants and a mob of Ithacans when the gods intervened. Athena cries out

"in a piercing voice that stopped all fighters cold,
"Hold back, you men of Ithaca, back from brutal war!
Break off--shed no more blood--make peace at once!"

With that,

...Terror blanched their faces,
they went limp with fear, weapons slipped from their hands
and strewed the ground at the goddess' ringing voice...

At her command, they made a pact of peace.

It is kind of hard to believe (even in an epic with all kinds of gods and monsters and wonders). But it does raise this point: how does the spiral of violence come to an end, with one provocation being answered by yet another with no end in sight and with all sides feeling justified in doing what they do?

Homer seems to suggest that we do need some kind of divine intervention for that to happen. If it's on the menu, I'll take it. Another reading is to say that our only hope is in what the goddess Athena embodies: wisdom, craft and strategy.

Or maybe they're the same thing.

THE END OF AFFLUENZA? Maybe.

PAYBACK. Here's an interesting item on our innate sense sense of justice, the desire to punish cheaters, and capacity for forgiveness.

THE RECESSION AND YOUR HEALTH. Economic downturns can have some interesting effects.

GET THE PICTURE on climate change? If not, click here.

WARM BLOODED. Half of all mammal species are in decline and one fourth are headed for extinction, according to this report. Here's more on the topic.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The bed of Odysseus

Odysseus and Penelope by Francesco Primaticcio (1563), courtesy of wikipedia.

Along with links and comments about current events, the ongoing theme at Goat Rope for quite a while now has been the Odyssey of Homer. El Cabrero is striving mightily to wind it up but it takes a while to stop at train or turn a ship around. I'm trying though.

Whatever else you can say about Odysseus, as strange as it may seem he really did have a loving bond with his wife Penelope. This is true despite his 20 years of wandering and the occasional dalliance with a goddess or two. After all, he gave up Calypso's offer of immortality to go home to her.

One symbol of the power of that bond is the story of their bed. Toward the end of the epic, Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, gradually reveals himself to his family and faithful servants. It's hard to tell when the recognition occurred since they are all operating under stress from the threat of more than 100 insolent suitors. It's sort of a game of classics geeks to speculate about what did Penelope know and when.

Penelope in particular is skeptical of anyone who claims to have knowledge of Odysseus after many years of lies and rumors. She also fears being deceived by someone who claims to be her husband. When at last they talk, she pretends to doubt him, which leads him to protest

"Strange woman! So hard--the gods of Olympus
made you harder than any other woman in the world!
What other wife could have a spirit so unbending?
Holding back from her husband, home at last for her
after bearing twenty years of brutal struggle."

As a way of giving him a final test (or of just messing with him), she asks the maid to move their bed so that the stranger can sleep on it--alone.

Now here's the thing about that bed. It is absolutely immovable by any mortal, have been built around the stump of an olive tree. He is devastated at the thought that anyone could have moved it:

"Woman--your words, they cut me to the core!
Who could move my bed? Impossible task,
even for some skilled craftsman--unless a god
came down in person, quick to lend a hand,
lifted out with ease and moved it elsewhere.
Not a man on earth, not even at peak strength,
would find it easy to prise it up and shift it, no,
a great sign, a hallmark lies in its construction."

With that, she knows she's got her man:

"...now, since you have revealed such overwhelming proof-
the secret sign of our bed, which no one's ever seen
but you and I and a single maid, Actoris,
the servant my father gave me when I came,
who kept the doors of our room you built so well...
you've conquered my heart, my hard heart, at last!"

The goddess Athena even gives the couple a special break:

She held back the night, and night lingered long
at the western edge of the earth, while in the east
she reined in Dawn of the golden throne at Ocean's banks.
commanding her not to yoke the windswift team that brings men light...

They had a lot of catching up to do. The lengthened night gave them time to love, talk and sleep.

There are some powerful images in the Odyssey, like Penelope's loom, and this is one of them. The image of this immovable bed symbolizes a deep bond between a couple that not even the ravages of the years can uproot. You don't see a whole lot of that these days.

OH GOOD. The US lost 159,000 jobs in September, the biggest loss since March 2003, according to this Jobs Byte from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

ON A SIMILAR NOTE, this snapshot from the Economic Policy Institute looks at trade deficit related job losses in 2007.

HOMO ECONOMICUS don't live around here.

WAKE UP. Here's an item on the medical utility of mindfulness meditation.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Dream weaver, Penelope, the bailout and more

Along with links and comments about current events, Goat Rope is winding down a long series on the Odyssey of Homer. Much of the series has focused on the misadventures of Odysseus' homecoming and how these shed light both on ordinary life and particularly on veterans coming home from war.

One character who has not received her due here has been the faithful wife Penelope, who in her own was was as crafty as her husband. Incidentally, Margaret Atwood wrote The Penelopiad to tell the whole story from her point of view.

With Odysseus gone and presumed dead, her status was unclear. There was little or now place in that society for an independent woman of child-bearing years. Now that her son Telemachus is coming of age, she is under enormous pressure to remarry. Over 100 suitors are basically camped out at her home and are devouring the family's estate. They even plot the murder of Telemachus.

To gain time, she says she must complete her duties by weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus' father Laertes, which she secretly unravels at night until her secret is revealed by a treacherous maid.

In the epic cycle, she is seen as the ideal wife, in direct contrast to Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon who murders her husband on his homecoming to revenge his sacrifice of her daughter Iphigenia (although there are many here among us who would say Agamemnon had it coming).

My favorite scene with Penelope in the Odyssey is her discussion of the nature of dreams. As you may have noticed, some dreams make sense and some don't. Here's her explanation:

"Ah my friend," seasoned Penelope dissented,
"dreams are hard to unravel, wayward, drifting things--
not all we glimpse in them will come to pass...
Two gates there are for our evanescent dreams,
one is made of ivory, the other made of horn.
Those that pass through the ivory cleanly carved
are will-o'-the-wisps, their message bears no fruit.
The dreams that pass through the gates of polished horn
are fraught with truth, for the dreamer who can see them..."

The problem is it's kind of hard to tell true dreams and false ones apart sometimes, whether we're awake or asleep.

WELFARE FOR WALL STREET UPDATE. The House is likely to vote today on the Wall Street bailout. Here's an action alert and analysis from the American Friends Service Committee.

SCAPEGOAT. Right wingers are trying to blame the Community Reinvestment Act (and minorities) for the Wall Street meltdown. That would be another dog that don't hunt.

URBAN PLOWBOY. Here's an interesting item on the future of urban farming.

SCORE ONE FOR SIGMUND. A new medical study finds that old school psychodynamic therapy works as well as other treatments for certain mental disorders.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: WHO KNOWS?

Man's best friend and an important action alert on the bailout

Note: The Goat Rope is nearing the end of a series of posts about the Odyssey of Homer, although you'll also find links and comments about current events. If you like this kind of thing, please click on earlier posts.

What person born with a living soul isn't a sucker for a dog story? There's a great little dog nugget towards the end of the Odyssey. Odysseus, after 10 years of war and 10 more years of wandering, has finally made it home to Ithaca. He is disguised as a beggar as he approaches his home, where over 100 insolent suitors are devouring the resources of his family.

Odysseus is generally pretty good at self-control in a dangerous situation and at hiding his emotions, but he wasn't prepared for this:

Now, as they talked on, a dog that lay there
lifted up his muzzle, pricked his ears...
It was Argos, long-enduring Odysseus' dog
he trained as a puppy once, but little joy he got
since all too soon he shipped to sacred Troy.
In the old days young hunters loved to set him
coursing after the wild goats and deer and hares.
But now with his master gone he lay there, castaway,
on piles of dung from mules and cattle, heaps collecting
out before the gates till Odysseus' self-serving men
could cart it off to manure the king's estates.
Infested with ticks, half-dead from neglect,
here lay the hound, old Argos.

Out of everyone Odysseus meets during his homecoming, the only critter who recognizes and greets him right away is the dog:

But the moment he sensed Odysseus standing by
he thumped his tail, nuzzling low, and his ears dropped,
though he had no strength to drag himself an inch
toward his master.

Odysseus can't run up to greet the dog, because this would reveal his identity to the murderous suitors. So he turns his head, sheds a tear, and asks the swineherd Eumaeus about him. He replies

"Here--it's all too true--here's the dog of a man
who died in foreign parts. But if he had now
the form and flair he had in his glory days--
as Odysseus left him, sailing off to Troy--
you'd be amazed to see such speed, such strength.
No quarry he chased in the deepest, darkest woods
could ever slip this hound. A champion tracker too!
Ah, but he's run out of luck now, poor fellow...
his master's dead and gone, so far from home,
and the heartless women tend him not at all....."

Odysseus never got the chance to try to make up for lost time:

...the dark shadow of death closed down on Argos' eyes
the instant he saw Odysseus, twenty years away.

A little dog-reality note: the point of this story is about the loyalty and love of the dog and about his neglect. However, El Cabrero can vouch for the fact that lying on a manure pile is not a sign of neglect. The dogs of my acquaintance love to lay in, roll around upon, and sometimes eat all kinds of stinky stuff, manure and dead things included. And any dog--then or now--that lived 20 years couldn't have had it all that bad. But I still fell for it.

SPEAKING OF DOGS, the Senate's bailout bill may have passed, but it don't hunt. The House may vote on it by Friday at latest word. Here's the full text of an action alert urging people to contact their representatives and ask them to fill in the blanks in the legislation:

Take Action: Let Congress Know the Bailout Solution Should not be Driven by Fear

The financial crisis in the United States today is not in the Dow Jones but in our communities, where millions of people are threatened by home foreclosures and a sluggish economy. This is a deep and wide crisis that should receive thoughtful attention, not a panicked response driven by fear.

Today the Senate will vote on a revised version of the Emergency Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which the House of Representatives rejected on Sept. 29 by a 228-205 margin. Although it is likely to pass in the Senate, this bill still fails to address the causes of the crisis or its impact on most people. The House is likely to take up the issue again on Friday.

Congress should develop and pass stronger legislation that meets the following principles:

Bankruptcy Protection - This bill must grant authority for bankruptcy judges to restructure mortgages and allow government to work with loan servicers on new mortgage terms, thereby providing stability and security for local communities and the economy as a whole.

A Strong Economic Recovery Package - Congress must adopt measures that will create jobs for workers who have lost their employment and invest in the needs of local communities.

Taxpayer Protection - The public’s massive investment in our financial institutions must be vigorously protected. Tough independent oversight, transparency, and an assurance of repayment from the financial service companies must be mandatory. The public must receive significant return for the assets we acquire.

Regulatory Framework – To address the causes of recent financial failures, the financial system should be regulated in ways that support sound lending and investment, and that also protect taxpayers and consumers. The regulatory framework should be revisited to restore good governance in our financial institutions.

Limitations on Executive Compensation - Strict limits on compensation and severance packages for senior executives must be enacted on any institution receiving taxpayer-funded assistance.

Your Voice is Needed! Call your House Representative Today.

The Congressional switchboard, fax and email systems are crashing do to volume, so the only way to reach your Representative is to call their DC office directly. Click here to enter your address and find your Representative and their direct phone number.

Ask your Representative not to act out of fear and take the time to do this right for the long-term well-being of your community.

The American Friends Service Committee is providing a toll-free number to the congressional switchboard: 1-800-473-6711.

ONE MORE THING ON THAT: Here's an opinion piece from AFSC General Secretary Mary Ellen McNish about the values that should guide a response to the crisis.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Is a court-martial in order?

Image courtesy of wikipedia.

The theme at Goat Rope lately has been the Odyssey of Homer, along with links and comments about current events. We're almost done, but there are a few loose ends.

One of which is about Odysseus' style as a leader. It's tempting to wonder how a contemporary military officer would be treated after performing as badly as he did during his homecoming (my guess is the Bush administration would probably promote him).

To recap, he lost 12 ships and 600 or so men--after the fighting was over. As Jonathan Shay sums it up in Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming reminds us,

*he loses control of his troops and suffers 72 casualties in a botched and unnecessary pirate raid on the Circoneans;

*he puts himself and his men at risk needlessly and impulsively (the whole Cyclops thing);

*he protects his own ship but loses the rest when they approach the land of the Laestrygonians;

*he can't even be bothered to count his men when he leaves the island of Circe;

*he can't control his men when they violate the command not to kill and eat the sun god Helios' cattle. (Note: all of these have been the subjects of previous posts.)

As Shay puts it after looking over the evidence from the Iliad and the Odyssey,

As a staff officer, strategist, independent intelligence operative, and solo fighter, Odysseus was brilliant. As a troop leader, he was a catastrophe. Homer's great epics show him in full depth and perspective.

One thing hasn't changed from then to now in war as well as "peace," ordinary people pay the price for bad leadership.

SPEAKING OF PAYING FOR BAD LEADERSHIP, it looks like the Senate will vote today on the Wall Street bailout bill. The new version raises FDIC depositor's insurance from $100,000 to $250,000 and includes more business tax cuts--as if blowing $700 billion on corporate welfare wasn't enough.

Many groups around the country are opposing the bailout as it now stands for its lack of support for ordinary Americans. Here's an alternate vision that a number of groups have supported. Actions opposing the bailout will occur in several states today and progressive groups have been scrambling to keep up with the latest developments.

WHILE WE'RE TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THE ECONOMIC CRISIS, we could always buy local.

HERE'S A LITTLE REMINDER that whatever happens with the bailout, there's nothing new about corporate welfare.

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT. I've said this before and I'll say it again: what if everyone's Social Security was privately invested on Wall Street? Some people, who shall remain nameless, still want to do that.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The wolf himself

Image courtesy of wikipedia.

Goat Rope is in the process of winding up a long series of reflections on the Odyssey of Homer, although you'll also find links and comments about current events.

Odysseus, the eponymous main character, is a hero in the ancient Greek sense of someone who lived a larger than normal life and whose deeds are remembered after his death. The word did not imply moral superiority and some of the most famous Greek heroes did some pretty nasty things.

Such is the case with our boy. As we've seen along the way, he's a terrible commander who is directly or indirectly responsible for the death of around 600 of his men on 12 ships--and that was after the war was over. He is secretive, totally lacking in social trust, excessive in his desire for revenge, and impulsive. He lies nearly every time he speaks, even when there's no good reason to do so. What's his deal, anyway?

The VA psychiatrist and classical scholar Jonathan Shay has some interesting thoughts about this. First, while Odysseus has been through many grueling ordeals at war and on his way home, he doesn't seem to have suffered from the classic symptoms of war-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a direct result. But there are interesting clues of an earlier trauma.

In his homecoming, he is recognized by his nurse Eurycleia by a scar on his thigh that he received as a child:

Bending closer
she started to bathe her master...then,
in a flash, she knew the scar--
that old wound
made years ago by a boar's white tusk when Odysseus
went to Parnassus, out to see [his grandfather] Autolycus and his sons.
The man was his mother's noble father, one who excelled
the world at thievery, that and subtle, shifty oaths.

Autolycus means something like "wolf-like" or "the wolf himself" or even "werewolf." It was he who gave him the name Odysseus, which means something like "man of pain" or "he who gives and receives pain."

When he was a boy, he went to visit Autolycus and nearly died on that hunt. Some commentators have seen this as a turning point in his development. This may have given him a sense that those who were responsible for his well-being couldn't be trusted. As Shay put it,

I see it as a darker transformation, when Odysseus concluded that no one was to be trusted, when he concluded that unless you beat them to it or get over on them first, other people only want to hurt, exploit, or humiliate you...

Shay notes that some of his patients who had the most difficult symptoms experienced abuse and neglect in childhood and adolescence prior to their military service.

...If the expectation that other people plan only harm, exploitation, and humiliation produces a cynical "strike first" attitude, trauma can produce an active, self-starting predator. Odysseus' scar alerts us to the interconnection of childhood trauma, combat trauma, and a veteran's character.

El Cabrero is well aware of the limited practical utility of psychoanalyzing literary characters, but there you have it. Let's just say he had issues.

THE BIG NEWS of course is the failure of the Wall Street bailout bill in the House. El Cabrero has mixed feelings about that. The bill was a vast improvement over what was originally proposed but didn't go far enough in helping ordinary Americans. The best advice I've heard is for people to take a deep breath and then start advocating again for a package that provides more protection for homeowners, an ownership state in every firm that receives public assistance and increased regulation of the financial industry. Congress also needs to consider another targeted stimulus package aimed at the hardest hit Americans.

RETHINKING "FREE" TRADE. Lots of economists are.

STALEMATE. A BBC poll conducted in 23 nations found that 59 percent of respondents believed that the Bush administration's "war on terror" either hasn't weakened al-Qaeda or made it stronger. Let me guess...the decision to invade Iraq didn't help.

URGENT DEEP SEA FISH COMMUNICATION UPDATE. Stop the presses! It appears that the cusk-eel uses some form of sonic communication, which is to say it makes noises to other cusk-eels. Take that, all you cusk-eel communication skeptics out there!

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

Odysseus and Telemachus open a can on the suitors. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

Along with links and comments about current events, the theme at Goat Rope lately has been the Odyssey of Homer and what it has to say to us today. We're almost done. So far we've followed his wanderings from Troy to his home at Ithaca. It has involved 10 years of fighting and 10 more of various adventures and (largely self-inflicted) disasters.

Now, like many veterans returning from war, he finds himself at home but doesn't recognize the place. Disguised as a beggar, he will be abused by arrogant suitors even within his own house.

You probably remember how the story ends. In the home stretch, Odysseus will wreak terrible vengeance on the suitors who have been devouring his substance, abusing the hospitality (xenia) of his house, harassing his faithful wife Penelope, and plotting the murder of his son Telemachus. In the end the people of Ithaca are so upset by the carnage that another battle almost ensues until the gods intervene and make peace.

But first he must alternately deceive and then reveal himself to those he knew, including the swineherd Eumaeus, Telemachus, his nurse Euraycleia, Penelope herself, and his father Laertes.

He is clearly in a dangerous position. Aside from the 108 suitors, many in Ithaca are angry over the fact that not a single one of his fellow countrymen survived the journey, largely due to the mistakes of their commander. But so ingrained is his tendency to resort to lies and stratagems (Greek: metis) that he often lies even when he has no reason to do so.

Not only that, but we've seen all the way along that he is secretive to a fault, that he conceals vital information from his men, and that he has absolutely no social trust. What is his major malfunction?

Maybe a scar holds the key. More on that tomorrow.

BAILOUT. Here's the latest on the compromise version of the Wall Street bailout, which is likely to be voted on in the House today. Short version: it's a little better than that originally proposed but leaves out a lot. Holy free market, Batman!

INJUSTICE KILLS. This article reviews research on inequality and health.

THE POLITICS OF RACE is the topic of this op-ed by yours truly.

MOTHER GOOSE! 50 million years ago, giant geese-like birds with a 5 meter wingspan and bony teeth flew over England. I want one!

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ?????

The letdown and the meltdown

Ithaca today, courtesy of wikipedia.

Have you ever wanted something badly for a long time only to be let down when you get it? That's what happened to Odysseus who for twenty years has longed for nothing so much as to see his home in Ithaca.

And when the voyage home finally happens, he totally missed it. The Phaeacians who have hosted the hero take him home on one of their swift sailing ships laden with gifts. During the journey,

an irresistible sleep fell deeply on his eyes, the sweetest,
soundest oblivion, still as the sleep of death itself.

He's still asleep when they land. The Phaeacians carry him and his gifts off the ship and leave without waking them. When he finally wakes up, he doesn't know where he is. In despair, he cried out as he did before:

"Man of misery, whose land have I lit on now?
What are they here--violent, savage, lawless?
or friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?"

As Jonathan Shay has noted, it's not uncommon for veterans returning from combat to have trouble recognizing the place they left behind. And for many, as for Odysseus, some of the worst problems occur when than finally get there.

BACK TO THE BAILOUT. El Cabrero and amigos from WV Citizen Action Group, the state AFL-CIO and Direct Action Welfare Group held a press conference yesterday about the Wall Street bailout proposal. We called for greater regulation of the finance industry, limits on CEO pay for companies getting corporate welfare, an equity share for American taxpayers, help for people dealing with foreclosure, and a stimulus package targeted at those who need it most.

This was part of a series of events all around the country calling for the same things. Here's CNN coverage of national efforts.

It now looks like a deal almost reached in Congress went up in smoke.

ON TOPIC, here economist Dean Baker's latest piece on the bailout and here's Paul Krugman's column on the need for grownups.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH, here's a snapshot from the Economic Policy Institute about unemployment trends across the states.

URGENT DINOSAUR UPDATE. The latest discovery is the smallest American dinosaur, which was chicken sized. This means the chickens on Goat Rope Farm are dinosaur sized.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: UNFATHOMABLE

Do you want fries with that?

The Colossus of Rhodes in ancient times was a statue of the sun god Helios.

A classical theme in many myths and folktales is the "whatever you do, don't do this" scenario. You can pretty much bet that people are going to wind up doing what they're not supposed to.

Think Adam and Even in paradise eating the forbidden fruit or Pandora opening the forbidden jar (it wasn't a box in the original myth) or Bluebeard telling his wife not to unlock the door to a forbidden room.

In the Odyssey, the hero has been warned by Circe not to harm or allow his men to harm the cattle of the sun god Helios, aka Hyperion:

Leave the beasts unharmed, your mind set on home,
and you all may still reach Ithaca--bent with hardship,
true--but harm them in any way, and I can see it now:
your ship destroyed, your men destroyed as well!
And even if you escape, you'll come home late,
all shipmates lost, and come a broken man.

You guessed it. It ain't going to be pretty.

After Odysseus and his men suffer through the dangers of Scylla and Charybdis, they come to the island of Thrinacia, home of the sun god's herd. In one of many classic failures of leadership, Odysseus yields to his exhausted men in stopping at the island instead of pulling rank and ordering them to sail on to safety. All he does is extract a promise from them to leave the cattle alone.

The plan was just to stay there for one night, but the winds shifted for a whole month. Meanwhile food supplies were used up. While Odysseus wigs out and nods off, his hungry men make the fatal decision.

Helios is outraged, as is Zeus himself. Terrible signs appear: the meat itself begins to moo and the hides of the slain cattle crawl on the ground. For six days, they all feast on the forbidden food.

And, as promised, when they finally do begin to sail, the ship is destroyed in a storm and Odysseus alone survives to wash up on the island of the goddess Calypso, where he will stay seven years.

This episode concludes Odysseus' own retelling of his story to the Phaeacians, where he arrived after finally escaping from Calypso's island. The final part of the story is about to begin as the Phaeacians are about to finally take him home to Ithaca.

Talk about a long strange trip...

SPEAKING OF LONG STRANGE TRIPS, I'm ready for this administration's joy ride to be over. Here's what we could have done with the cost of the proposed Wall Street bailout:

51.6 million people with health care for four years OR

181.2 million homes with renewable electricity for four years OR

2.9 million elementary school teachers for four years OR

27 million four-year scholarships for university students

All this is from the National Priorities Project. Click here to see what the costs would be to your state or district.

WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT: Call Congress toll free at 1-800-473-6711 and urge a real solution that includes greater oversight, regulation and accountability of the finance industry, help for people being hurt by the crisis and investments in economic recovery. The number is provided by the American Friends Service Committee.

THE ROLE OF DEREGULATION in the credit crisis is discussed here.

NEEDED: A NEW NEW DEAL. Here's a Gazette op-ed by amigo Gary Zuckett on fixing the economy.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: MUY ALTO

Some days you eat the bear...

The Gentle Reader may perhaps have noticed that sometimes there are no pleasant alternatives and any course of action is going to be nasty. The Odyssey of Homer gives a great image for those occasions. I am referring, of course, to the dual dangers of Scylla and Charybdis.

Charybdis is a whirlpool that can suck ships straight to the bottom of the sea. Scylla is a twelve-legged six-headed monster with six long necks that likes to eat people. And Odysseus and his men have to sail between them.

Oh yeah, there was one other option. They could have tried to sail between the Clashing Rocks, which squish anything that goes between them. "Not even the birds can escape them...," as Circe warns Odysseus before the event.

You takes your pick. Either lose the whole ship or expect six more men to wind up as somebody's dinner.

There are times in life when even courage and cunning can't get you through. Odysseus asks Circe whether he might overcome Scylla with force of arms and is rebuked:

'So stubborn!' the lovely goddess countered.
'Hell-bent yet again on battle and feats of arms?
Can't you bow to the deathless gods themselves?
Scylla's no mortal, she's and immortal devastation,
terrible, savage, wild, no fighting her, no defense--
just flee the creature, that's the only way.
Waste any time, arming for battle beside her rock,
I fear she'll lunge out again with all of her six heads
and seize as many men...'

In typical fashion, Odysseus neglects to inform his men of the danger and likewise ignores Circe's advice. He puts on his armour and attempts in vain to resist. Scylla gets a good meal:

Just as an angler poised on a jutting rock
flings his treacherous bait in the offshore swell...
...so now they writhed,
gasping as Scylla swung them up her cliff, and there
at her cavern's moth she bolted them down raw--
screaming out, flinging their arms toward me,
lost in that mortal struggle...
Of all the pitiful things I've had to witness,
suffering, searching out the pathways of the sea,
this wrenched my heart the most.

Spending much time in Scylla/Charybdis situations can drive anyone over the edge of sanity. It's something that happens fairly regularly in war, causing traumatic stress the effects of which can last for years on those who survive them.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, the American people are being asked to sail between the Scylla of a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street and the Charybdis of a massive recession. This time, there's another alternative, i.e., a package that includes an economic stimulus aimed at ordinary Americans, accountability and stricter regulation for failing firms, and help for homeowners facing foreclosure. Tomorrow is likely to be a national day of action, with protests around the country and call-ins to Congress. Stay tuned for more.

NO BLANK CHECKS. Here's Dean Baker's latest on the Wall Street bailout.

AND MORE. Here's more bad stuff 'bout the bailout from Alternet.

OK, JUST ONE MORE on socialism for the rich.

POLITICS ON THE BRAIN, revisited.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Strapped to the mast, the siren song of the Wall Street bailout, and more

"Ulysses and the Sirens" by John William Waterhouse, courtesy of wikipedia.

"Siren" is a word that entered the English language from the Odyssey although the contrast between the real ones and the mythological ones is pretty stark. Sirens on emergency vehicles and loud and aversive, nothing that most people would like to listen to day in and day out.

The mythological sirens are mysterious female beings whose beautiful singing lures sailors to certain death. Their song is irresistible.

Odysseus, forewarned by the goddess Circe, puts beeswax in the ears of his men but is--of course--too driven by curiosity to miss out. He has his men tie him to the mast with strict orders to ignore his entreaties to let him go.

This is a great image. I've always found it compelling and have been in situations where I hear things that are tempting and distracting but have to focus on the task at hand or the journey home. It's a kind of universal thing. But, as with many places in the Odyssey, the danger of the sirens has a special meaning for a combat veteran like Odysseus trying to get home.

What did they sing? Here goes:

"Come closer, famous Odysseus--Achaea's pride and glory--
moor your ship on our coast so you can hear our song!
Never has any sailor passed our shores in his black craft
until he has heard the honeyed voices pouring from our lips,
and once he hears to his heart's content sails on, a wiser man."

Of course they are lying. But what makes them so dangerous is their subject:

"...We know all the pains that Achaeans and Trojans once endured
on the spreading plain of Troy when the gods willed it so--
all that comes to pass on the fertile earth, we know it all!"

The danger they represent is the danger of getting stuck in the past, of going over the scenes of war over and over again, of obsessing over what "really" happened, of missing out on the present. As Jonathan Shay puts it

The "voice" of the Sirens, scholars tell us, is the "voice" of the Iliad, the voice of a wartime past experienced as more real and meaningful than the present.

If Odysseus is going to make it home, he as to put the drive for kleos or glory behind him. (Note: kleos specifically means living in such a way as to be remembered in song after one dies.) This was also the theme of his encounter with the ghost of Achilles in the underworld in last Friday's post. Part of what he has to put behind him is the romantization of death and war as something romantic and glorious.

Next time: Scylla and Charybdis.

SPEAKING OF SIRENS--the US Congress would do well not to listen to the Bush Wall Street bailout plan/siren song. Short version:

*No blank-check bailout for Wall Street. Any plan to save the economy must put Main Street first.

*Congress should not blindly rush to pass bad legislation. They should take their time and get it right – even if it means a delay in adjournment.

*Putting Main Street first means, at a minimum: a) much more oversight, control over and regulation of financial institutions; b) limitations on CEO compensation; c) an economic recovery package to get the economy moving again; d) provisions to protect people facing foreclosures.

By the way,here's Dean Baker on the elements of a progressive response.

THIS WOULD NOT BE COOL. LITERALLY. Abrupt climate change is a distinct possibility.

MISMEASUREMENT. This Boston Globe commentary highlights the obsolete official federal poverty measure. This might be good to update since it looks like lots of us are going to get poorer unless things change.

ON A DIFFERENT NOTE, pleasant smells can make for pleasant dreams.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Metaphor and reality

El Cabrero would like to thank regular readers of Goat Rope for putting up with a long series on the Odyssey of Homer. As I've written before, I think this epic of homecoming has universal human appeal but also can shed light on the difficulty many veterans have on returning from war.

I happened to grow up between the wars, but my father served in World War II, having enlisted shortly after asking, and I quote, "Where the #*%@ is Pearl Harbor?" He made it back in one piece but had trouble with his homecoming throughout his life. So have some other people I know who served in Vietnam or Iraq.

To recap, many of the misadventures Odysseus had on his long way home can be seen as metaphors for the many different ways people can lose their homecoming. Indeed, Odysseus can be seen as an example of how not to do it. As Jonathan Shay, a psychiatrist who works with veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress syndrome, wrote

Odysseus was absent from home for twenty years. Ten of those were the Trojan War itself. The remaining ten years were...what? The only account we have of them is Odysseus' fabulous tales told to the Phaeacian courtiers in Books 9-12. Might they have been ten years at home, but not home? Ten years of wildness, drinking, drugging, living on the edge, violence, sex addiction, not-so-petty crime, and of "bunkering in," becoming unapproachable and withdrawn? If so would not Odysseus have been just as "absent" a son to Anticleia, just as "absent" a husband to Penelope, and "absent" a father to Telemachus as if he still had been overseas? Could not these ten years have been told in metaphor as the very same story told in the Odyssey?

Get ready for the sirens...

THE DEBT OF NATIONS. Here's a view from Canada on the current US financial crisis. And here's Paul Krugman with more of the same.

HOW MANY ECONOMISTS DOES IT TAKE to change a light bulb? For many, the answer until recently was "None. The market will take care of it." As this item from the UK points out, it won't.

LOSING IT. The number of foreclosures in West Virginia has been greatly underreported, according to an investigation by the Charleston Gazette.

FEAR THIS. Here's more on the recent study of the psychology and politics of fear mentioned here last week.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Farewell to glory, plus stuff on the economy, fear, and whales

Statue of the death of Achilles, courtesy of wikipedia.

Goat Rope is all about the Odyssey of Homer these days, although you'll also find links and comments about current events. If you like this stuff, click back on earlier posts.

The visit Odysseus makes to the underworld is a turning point in the story. It can be seen as a kind of initiation, marking the end of Odysseus the warrior and the beginning of his return (although he ain't there yet).

He meets many people in the underworld. There's a sad encounter with the shade of his mother Anticlea, who died of grief after despairing of her son's return. There's a failed meeting with the ghost of Ajax, a mighty Greek warrior who went mad and committed suicide at Troy largely through the actions of Odysseus. Odysseus wants to make up but Ajax refuses to speak.

Lots of veterans--of war and peace--have lost people after having let them down in life and experience regret and survivor's guilt.

But one of the most important encounters is with the ghost of the warrior Achilles, who was given a choice between long life without fame and an early death but enduring fame. The Homeric term for fame or glory was kleos, which meant in part living on in song after one's death. Since the underworld was pretty grim, that was often regarded as the only meaningful form of immortality.

He did get fame--we're still talking about him today. But kleos turns out to have been an empty promise.

Odysseus, thinking him the most fortunate of men, greets him thus:

...Achilles,
there's not a man in the world more blest than you--
there never has been, never will be one.
Time was, when you were alive, we Argives
honored you as a god, and now down here, I see,
you lord it over the dead in all your power.
So grieve no more at dying, great Achilles.

He's not buying it. In a shocking renunciation of the cult of glory, Achilles replies

No winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus!
By god, I'd rather slave on earth for another man--
some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive--
than rule down here over all the breathless dead.

I think this farewell to and disparagement of glory--coming from someone who got more of it than anyone else--marks the key difference between the Iliad as a poem of kleos to the Odyssey as a poem of nostos or homecoming.

One last word: Achilles' renunciation of the "glory" of war calls to mind a saying of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman:

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.

BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A JOB? Job seekers outnumber jobs about about three to one, according to the latest Economic Policy Institute snapshot. Here's a related issue brief on the subject.

SOCIALISM FOR THE RICH, FREE ENTERPRISE FOR THE POOR. That pretty well sums up Wall Street bailouts while millions of American families are feeling the squeeze. I can't claim originality on this one, but free enterprisers in a recession are kind of like the proverbial atheists in foxholes.

ON A RELATED NOTE, this item argues that gouging the poor lies at the root of the credit/housing meltdown.

WITHOUT A NET. As the economy tanks, millions of workers are watching the value of their 401(k)s evaporate. This McClatchy article suggests that the economic crisis may lead Americans to re-evaluate the current social contract.

THE FIX. Here's Paul Krugman on what the bailout might look like.

THE FEAR FACTOR. A new study finds some interesting connections between political views and the response to fear.

URGENT ANCIENT WHALE UPDATE. The early ones used their back legs to swim--a feature missing on more recent models. El Cabrero doesn't know about y'all but I find the evolution of aquatic mammals fascinating.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: DON'T EVEN ASK

The blind seer, and an action alert, and more

The shade of Tiresias appears to Odysseus after the latter offers a sacrifice.

The theme here lately is the Odyssey of Homer, along with links and comments about current events. If this is your fist visit, please click on earlier posts. Right now were on his voyage to the land of the dead.

To recap, the goddess Circe tells Odysseus that if he wants to make it home after years of fighting at Troy and wandering the seas, he has to visit the underworld to consults with the shade of the seer Tiresias, who is one of the most fascinating figures of Greek mythology.

A prophet of the city of Thebes, he had the distinction of spending several years as a woman as punishment from Hera for whacking a pair of copulating snakes with a stick. Note: while El Cabrero is opposed to whacking snakes, let it be noted that it didn't take much to tick Hera off.

After changing back into a man, he was called upon by Zeus and Hera to settle an argument over whether males or females enjoyed sex the most. (Zeus said women did and Hera vice versa.) When he basically answered that women get 9/10s of the pleasure, Hera struck him blind as punishment. Zeus couldn't do anything about that but did give him foresight.

(Important safety tip: if you are ever called upon to resolve a dispute between Olympian gods, decline the honor.)

In the myth of Oedipus, Tiresias is summoned by that tyrant to explain the source of a mysterious plague ravaging Thebes, which was actually caused by the Oedipus himself who inadvertently killed his father and married his mother.

The confrontation between the two is the focal point of Sophocles' great tragedy Oedipus Tyrannus. The parallelism between the two is striking: Tiresias is blind but sees what is happening. Oedipus can see but is blind to what he did--and when he sees it he blinds himself.

At this point in the Odyssey, Tiresias will tell its hero what lies ahead and what he must do if he is to make it home. The news isn't good:

A sweet smooth journey home, renowned Odysseus,
that is what you seek,
but a god will make it hard for you--I know--
you will never escape the one who shakes the earth,
quaking with anger at you still, still enraged
because you blinded the Cyclops, his dear son...

Still they have a slim chance, provided that when they land on the island of Thrinacia he and his men don't eat the cattle of the sun god Helios. If they do that, his men will die

And even if you escape, you'll come home late
and come a broken man--all shipmates lost,
alone in a stranger's ship--
and you will find a world of pain at home,
crude, arrogant men devouring all your goods...

And even if he deals with that, he must make one more journey to appease Poseidon, by carrying his oar so far inland that people mistake it for a winnowing fan and there make appropriate sacrifices.

If, and it's a big if, he does all that, he can expect to die peacefully in old age in his home with his family.

We'll see how that works out.

ACTION ALERT. The American Friends Service Committee and allied groups are urging people to call their senators and representatives today toll free at 1-888-245-0215 to urge the passage of a second economic stimulus package targeted at those who need it most before Congress goes home.

The package should include extended unemployment benefits, an increase to food stamps and home heating assistance, aid to states for Medicaid, job creation through investments in infrastructure and youth employment programs. Obviously the $720 million we are spending each day in Iraq isn't helping either...

SUNDOWN ON THE GOLDEN CALF of market fundamentalism? Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz thinks so.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, here are two reports aimed at driving some nails in the coffin of supply side economics and related but contradictory bogus dogmas on tax cuts as the cure for all things.

DEPRESSION OR SADNESS? The tendency to medicalize emotions makes it hard to distinguish between the two.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED