Dog whistling in our time

I'd like to give a shoutout to Ian Haney Lopez's new book, Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class. The title gives a pretty good hint of what the book is about. I'm working my way through the book now and I keep thinking about how WV's political climate today is a classic example of dog whistling.  Anyhow, you can learn more about the book here.

SPEAKING OF WRECKING THE MIDDLE CLASS, check out this post from Robert Reich.

MIGHT AS WELL check out this one from Krugman while we're at it.

Social studies project

Just in time for Labor Day, here's the latest edition of The State of Working West Virginia. This report is the sixth in so many years and the theme this time is From Weirton Steel to Wal-Mart, the former having once been WV's largest employer while the latter, sadly, now holds that distinction. I worked in this with friends from the WV Center on Budget and Policy. The musical soundtrack as got to be Springsteen.

AND ON THAT NOTE, here's Robert Reich on how workers can get a fair shake in today's economy. Yeah, it'll take a lot of work.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The injured list

I am sad to report that Arpad, security chief at Goat Rope Farm, had a losing argument with a motor vehicle (he didn't start it) and will be taking a couple of months off from active duty. It really pains me to see the Big Boy in such pain. He had a broken tibia which required surgery to repair. As you might imagine, persuading him to get up and go outside to answer the call of nature is an ongoing challenge.

Fortunately, the vet said he should make a full recovery.

MAKING IT PLAIN. Here's Robert Reich on the Ryan budget and why it is the Mother of all Bad Ideas.

Best. Expression. Ever.

 Maybe I don't get out much, but, on one of my rare visits to Facebook, an old friend who happens to be an educator describes as really bad day as "like being pecked to death by ducks."

That could be a tired old cliche but it's the first time I've heard it and I'm jealous I didn't come up with that a long time ago.

I mean, think about it. Being pecked to death by ducks would take a really long time. It would probably not be all that bad to start with but would eventually get old and then probably really be bad.

I DON'T USUALLY LIKE DAVID BROOKS COLUMNS HERE, but this one on Springsteen gets a pass. (I wonder if he's figured out the Bruce isn't into that whole right wing thing?)

PATRIOTISM. What is it, really?

IF YOU LIVE IN WV AND WANT TO GET IN ON A GOOD FIGHT, click here and urge Gov. Tomblin to undo cuts in child care for working families.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Brave too

Much of West Virginia is still buzzing about Landau Eugene Murphy's winning of the America's Got Talent contest. The Logan County native has proven that Sinatra-style crooning can still work in unlikely places.

I was amused by this anecdote as reported by WV Metro News:

At one point, his rare talent prompted a wager. A friend bet Murphy he couldn't sing Sinatra and get away with it at a bar out in a rural area of the southern West Virginia county.

But like the judges on AGT, the bar goers were amazed, Murphy says with a smile.

"Ever since, I've never had to pay to go into that bar," said Murphy.

I'd say we can add courage to Murphy's other admirable qualities.

THE NEW AMERICA? Here's a sad look at the new reality for millions of Americans.

WHAT'S OFF THE AGENDA (BUT SHOULD BE ON IT) here.

HOW TO FLIRT LIKE AN ANIMAL here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Done deal

It looks like the sale of Massey Energy to Alpha Natural Resources is a done deal. Legal challenges to the sale have been turned back, while shareholders voted yesterday to approve it.

It really is the end of an era. For decades, Massey was a massive presence in West Virginia, not only in the coal industry, but in state politics, the media, and the courts. Its former CEO Don Blankenship was the face of Big Coal.

My initial reaction was to view the sale as a good thing. However, Ken Ward at Coal Tattoo had a great post yesterday about remaining questions regarding Alpha and promises that may have been made to retain key Massey personnel, including those connected to the management of the Upper Big Branch and Aracoma mines.

I can't help but think Alpha would have to get up pretty early in the morning to be worse than Massey in the Bad Old Days. We'll see.

Ward, who for my money is America's best coal reporter, posted this quote from Delaware Judge Leo Strine Jr. about Massey:

Convinced that it knew better than the public authorities charged with enforcing laws designed to make mining a safer and cleaner business, Massey management, with board knowledge, fostered an adversarial relationship with the company’s regulators and accepted as ordinary the idea that the company would regularly be accused of violating important safety regulations.

Of course, when a company has strong opinions about knowing better than the regulators, it is optimal to match that with a record of worker safety and environmental protection that is substantively spotless. But in the case of Massey, no such match existed, at least insofar as one credits actual judgments and other regulation-related losses suffered by the company under Blankenship’s tenure as CEO.

HOW WE GOT IN THIS MESS. Here's a brief from the Economic Policy Institute on the 10th anniversary of the Bush tax cuts.

THIS DIDN'T HELP EITHER. Here's a look at major companies that made big bucks but managed to have a negative tax rate.

SPEAKING OF MESSES, here's Robert Reich on the state of the US economy.

ALL THIS FROM TEETH? Scientists have found clues about the social structure of human ancestors from studying their teeth.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Coping. Or not.

In Robert Reich's Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, the author makes some interesting points. He sees the static or dwindling share of income for middle class and low income Americans to be a driving force behind the nation's economic problems. Since the late 1970s, incomes have been pretty much stuck for all but the wealthiest Americans.

Those outside of that happy circle had to cope as best they could with a changed reality that included a minimum wage that didn't keep up with the cost of living; assaults on unions; tax cuts for the wealthiest; shifting budget priorities; etc.

People coped as best they could as they tried to make up for stagnant incomes. Coping mechanisms included:

*more women entering the paid workforce. That's been pretty much maxed out.

*working longer hours. By the early years of this century, the average American family worked 350 hours more than the average European--and they worked 500 hours more than they did in 1979. You can max out there pretty easily too, assuming you can find work.

*drawing down savings and borrowing heavily. That didn't work out too well and isn't much of an option now.

Given the skewed priorities of those driving the agenda in Washington, things are likely to get worse, minus the coping mechanisms.

There's more about the book here.

GOVERNMENT BY PEOPLE WHO HATE YOU, CONTINUED. The House Republican plan to block grant Medicaid and related proposals (including the budget cap supported by WV's Joe Manchin) is going to hit seniors hardest of all. Seventy percent of people in nursing homes rely on Medicaid since even middle class families run through savings and assets quickly in such circumstances.

DENY THIS. Floods and extreme weather events keep piling up, even while politicians continue to deny climate change and/or block actions to deal with it.

DEFINITELY DENY THIS. From Coal Tattoo, here's info on yet another study of the health effects associated with mountaintop removal mining.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Happy birthday, health care reform!

West Virgina residents celebrate the first birth day of the Affordable Care Act. WV Senator Jay Rockefeller was guest of honor, but my picture of him didn't turn out so good.

I never really planned my life this way--not that I'm a huge believer in planning a life--but I've spent over 20 years working on health care issues. Not all the time, thank God, but here and there as threats or opportunities arose.

In several union struggles I tried to support, as far back as 1989, health care for active workers and retirees was a major factor. In the late 1990s, lots of folks here joined to support the state Children's Health Insurance Program, and we've worked to expand it ever since. Then there were efforts to improve or defend the state's Medicaid program.

All the while, though, in the back of my mind and the minds of many others the main goal was achieving universal health care. Yesterday, March 23 2011, marked the first anniversary of the passage of the Patient Protect and Affordable Care Act, referred to hereafter as the ACA. In Charleston, over 100 people gathered to celebrate this milestone.

Let me be the first to say that the act we got wasn't exactly the one I had in mind. The Gentle Reader may have noticed the sometimes vast difference between what one wants and what one gets. Of the different versions of reform kicked around since 2009, I liked the federal House version a bit better than the Senate's. I was disappointed that the public option was eventually dropped. But still, I worked as hard as I could to support the bill we had and would do it all again.

Of course, there was a price to pay in the form of a backlash and a well-funded campaign of misinformation. But one year later, the real benefits are starting to kick in for people in West Virginia and around the country. And West Virginia's senators, including the late great Robert C. Byrd and especially Jay Rockefeller, played a major role in its passage.

The West Virginia legislature, in a session that kind of drove me crazy, did at least take the major step this time around of creating a state insurance exchange, which will lay the basis for major reforms and expansions of care that will happen in 2014.

For all its warts, the Affordable Care Act is already reaching millions of Americans and will reach far more when fully implemented. If it survives, it will be a landmark piece of legislation. In fact, future generations may well wonder why it took so long for a country like the USA to get there.

In the meantime, we need to work to defend it and aid in its implementation.

BIG LIES. Robert Reich takes on deliberate misconceptions about job creation and job killing.

WOULD YOU BELIEVE dog therapy for law students?

URGENT AMAZONIAN FISH MANURE UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

SWEEPS

For several years, El Cabrero taught GED classes at Head Start centers in southern West Virginia. I got more out of it than my students, although several did graduate.

For one thing, I finally learned how to do ratio and proportion problems (cross multiply and divide).

For the literature part of the test, I would often bring in some of Blake's poems from Songs of Innocence and of Experience, which were nearly always enjoyed. There's something very accessible about Blake's style, even if his deeper meaning is hard to comprehend.

It was always interesting to see which poems different students would gravitate towards. One that often brought people to tears was "The Chimney Sweeper" from Songs of Innocence. For some historical background on the nasty, brutish and short lives of young chimney sweepers in Blake's England, click here.

Here is is:

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved: so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet; and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, -
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;
And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm;
So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.

I think the thing that really got to them was the image of their daily life as a living death--coffins of black--and that they could only play like children in their dreams.

CHARGES UPGRADED IN LOGAN CASE. From the Charleston Gazette:

Prosecutors upgraded charges on Tuesday against five of the six suspects accused of torturing and sexually abusing a 20-year-old Charleston woman in Logan County.

Each of the six defendants now faces accusations of first-degree sexual assault and kidnapping, which carry maximum terms of 35 years and life in prison, respectively, among other charges.

ANOTHER TAKE ON GLOBALIZATION. Here's former labor secretary Robert Reich's analysis of supercapitalism, its threat to democracy, and what to do about it.

WHO'D A THUNK IT? This Business Week article shows how cell phone technology is stimulating local ecnonomie in the developing world. I just wish mine worked where I live...

OKAY. A Nebraska state senator filed suit against God. Who's going to serve the papers? and how? And wasn't there a movie about that?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED