Pass the chronos, please

I often think about how the New Testament uses two Greek words for time, kairos and chronos. Times of kairos can be described as critical, make-or-break, pivot points, hinges of history, times of decision and all that. Chronos is like the ordinary run of times when things are not so...interesting. 

It seems like this truly is a time of kairos for the nation and the planet with so much at stake, including ensuring the future of democracy; dealing with catastrophic climate change; fighting off authoritarianism; addressing gross inequalities and such, all in the middle of a pandemic. And things seem pretty close to unraveling all over the place.

And, just to prove that God, the gods, Lady Fortuna and/or world history have a sense of humor, people from West Virginia are going to have a disproportionate impact for good or ill. Will the right to vote be guaranteed or will the forces of racist voter suppression win? Will we "build back better" with a stronger and cleaner infrastructure and more just economy for all? Will we take what may be a last chance to deal with climate?

Which also means, what are the most effective things that we can do here and now to move things in a more positive or at least less bad direction? A lot of my friends are working on it. And we're all feeling it.

I keep thinking about those lines from Lord of the Rings where Frodo said "I wish it need not have happened in my time." 

To which Gandalf replies, "So do I...and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

I wouldn't mind a good chunk of chronos right about now.

I had to ask

Today I attended a rally for union coal miners and retirees in danger of losing promised benefits from Patriot Coal. I'm proud that the American Friends Service Committee was one of many groups that signed on in support of those in danger of losing health benefits due to a corporate bankruptcy from a company that was set up to fail.

It so happened that I saw some old friends from my first big fight, the Pittston Coal strike. It turns out that one of the best union hell raisers I've ever known is now a preacher. For some reason this strikes me as a little weird, but it probably shouldn't. One former UMWA official told me a long time ago "Half our members are preachers."

 When I caught up with him he was busy preparing a sermon.

"What's it about?" I asked.

"Love," he said.

"For it or against it?" I responded.

"For it," he replied.

Just checking. You can't be too sure these days.

COVERAGE OF THE RALLY here.

POLITICAL? Meanwhile, former Massey CEO Don Blankenship claims that if he goes to jail for his role in the deaths of 29 miners at Upper Big Branch, it will be "political." I would have used a different word. Like maybe overdue.

TOLKIEN GEEKS, this link is just for you.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Uprooting the evil in the fields that we know

The Spousal Unit used to work for a social justice organization which shall remain nameless in New England. It was not unusual, depending on the news headlines, for people to call her up and scream "What are you going to do about Burma?" Or Bosnia. Or wherever the latest crisis was.

To my discredit, I found this to be hilarious. I mean no disrespect to anyone anywhere and don't mean to minimize global problems. But some people apparently believed that one could pull out pixie dust from some orifice and blow it halfway around the world and make everything OK.

We all have a limited reach and range of things which we can affect. That range will vary from time to time and situation to situation. Sometimes it might reach very far. But, as the Stoic philosopher Epictetus observed long ago, some things are within our control and others aren't. It makes more sense to me to focus on the things over which we have a degree of control.

(Did you guys notice the elegant way I avoided ending that sentence with a preposition? A preposition is a bad thing to end a sentence with.)

We can't do it all, but we probably can do some. Which leads to the last in a series of practical insights about working for social justice from The Lord of the Rings. As Aragorn, who knew a thing or two about a thing or two, put it,

...it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.

That's a pretty tall order as it is.

FIVE REASONS CONGRESSMAN RYAN'S BUDGET PROPOSALS ARE NOT COOL: this, this, this, this, and this.

MAKE THAT six.

THE BUTCHER'S BILL. Here's what gutting Medicare and Medicaid would mean for West Virginia.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, jobless claims dropped again.

YES, VIRGINA, THERE IS A class struggle.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The tales that really mattered

I like to quote Vernon Johns, an African-American pastor who was a pioneer in the civil rights movement. His father told him, "If you see a good fight, get in it."

But it seems to me that the best or most righteous fights or struggles are not the ones that you go out looking for; rather, they are the ones that come to you.

In one of the more hopeless parts of The Lord of the Rings, the sturdy hobbit Sam Gamgee expressed a similar idea. Reflecting on the adventures related in old stories and songs, he said

I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually--their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on--and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it might call a good end...I wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into?

That's a good question. I wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into as well.

GREED IS IN, but that doesn't make it right.

JUST SAY NO. West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller came out swinging against Republican proposals to kill Medicaid and Medicare. To their credit, acting governor Earl Ray Tomblin and WV's newest senator Joe Manchin also oppose the plan. (Note: to get to the story scroll down after clicking on the link.)

TWO MINUTE WARNING. The clock is running out on a chance to modernize WV's unemployment system.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING, dinosaurs probably had lice.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The estrangement that divides

The theme here lately, aside from current events, is The Lord of the Rings and its practical relevance to people interested in social justice. I've just re-read it (for the umpteenth time) and made notes as I went along for this explicit purpose. If you like this kind of thing, click on earlier posts.

If there is any major message in the trilogy, it is about the importance of coalitions, both their potential strength and their fragility. Opposing the Dark Lord takes all kinds of allies: different groups of humans, elves, dwarves, ents, eagles, etc.

But in the books, as in real life, it is all to easy for alliances to wither and fall apart, even between groups that are or should be on the same side. Haldir, an elf, expresses this about 1/3 of the way through:

Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all who still oppose him.

I can remember many struggles when people joined together to accomplish some goal or fight off some threat. When such a campaign is strong, people form bonds and may swear to always stick together and stay in touch. But time does its thing, other issues arise, people drift apart and sometimes find themselves on opposite sides of minor issues.

All this is probably inevitable to a degree, but this makes it harder for people to come together when they really need to. I guess one advantage of having a dangerous opponent is that this makes people join together whether they want to or not.

I guess the trick is to keep relationships intact in the relatively good times--if there are going to be any more of them--so that they will be there when needed.

KILLING MEDICAID. Here are some reasons why this is a really bad idea.

SPEAKING OF BAD IDEAS, here's a brief statement from the Economic Policy Institute about why Republican congressman Paul Ryan's proposed 2012 budget is one.

MORE ON THAT BAD IDEA here.

A BETTER IDEA can be found here.

A YEAR LATER. The milestone of the one year anniversary of Massey's Upper Big Branch disaster brought renewed calls for mine safety reform.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

"We must do without hope"

The theme lately here is the social realism of The Lord of the Rings. And despite all the strange beings in those books, there is a lot of it.

As I mentioned in the past, Tolkien admired aspects of Norse mythology, especially the belief that gods and good men would fight against the force of chaos even knowing they were destined to lose and with no belief in ultimate redemption. He called this willingness to act without hope a "theory of courage."

I think the evils of our own day might call for that kind of courage. The theme shows up more than once in the trilogy. At one point, after the apparent death of Gandalf, Aragorn tells the Fellowship,

"We must do without hope...at least we may yet be avenged. Let us gird ourselves and weep no more. Come! We have a long road, and much to do."

Sad but true.

Toward the end of The Return of the King, the hobbit Sam Gamgee, lost in the tunnels of the dark realm of Mordor after apparently losing his friend Frodo, has a similar moment:

But even as hope died in Sam, or seem to die, it was turned to a new strength. Sam's plain hobbit-face grew stern, almost grim, as the will hardened in him, and he felt through all his limbs a thrill, as if he was turning into some creature of stone and steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue.

There is a strength in resolve without and beyond hope. And we're probably going to need it.

ONE YEAR AGO TODAY, the disaster at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine killed 29 miners. Here's a look back at some painful memories and unanticipated changes.

FOR THEIR NEXT STUNT, House Republicans want to kill Medicare. More here.

THE 1 PERCENT (NON) SOLUTION. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz looks at America's problem with extreme inequality.

FIGHTING BACK. Unions and allies rallied in all 50 states to support workers rights on the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We had a pretty decent one in WV.

REALITY MINING? Here's a look at the new series "Coal."

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Torturing the hills

I'm blogging lately about the social realism of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and how it might apply to working for social justice.

As I've mentioned before, I reread the trilogy recently and made some notes. Here's a line that showed up about 259 pages into it, referring to the Dark Lord:

"...we see that Sauron can torture and destroy the very hills."

Good thing stuff like that doesn't happen in real life, huh?

ALMOST A YEAR after Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine disaster, a new lawsuit alleges that some miners survived the initial explosion. And Ken Ward of Coal Tattoo asks a good question: will corporate officials be held responsible?

LABOR PROTESTS AND GENDER POLITICS discussed here.

JUST SAYING NO to climate science.

DON'T SKIP A BEAT. Yoga can be good for your heart.

DE VERDAD? Being bilingual can be good for your brain.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Going bad

I've been blogging lately about Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings as a work of social realism that has a lot to say about working for social justice. This is installment #5.

In Philip Zimbardo's fascinating book on human evil, The Lucifer Effect, the author examines the many different ways otherwise good people can be induced to cross a line that is hard to see at first. In chapter 12 of that work, he quotes C.S. Lewis about the human desire to be part of the in crowd, the powerful set:

I believe that in all men's lives at certain periods, and in many men's lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside...Of all the passions the passion for the Inner Ring is most skilful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things.

Zimbardo writes that

a powerful force in transforming human behavior, pushing people across the boundary between good and evil, comes from the basic desire to be "in" and not "out." If we think of social power as arrayed in a set of concentric circles from the most powerful central or inner ring moving outward to the least socially significant outer ring, we can appreciate his focus on the centripetal pull of that central circle.

In LOTR, we see this happening in the case of the wizard Saruman, who started out as leader of the Wise but is drawn to the power of Sauron the Dark Lord. Saruman tells Gandalf

A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all. There is no hope left in Elves or dying Numenor. This then is the one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it. As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in means.

In other words, he wants to be one of the big dogs at the center of things. Sure, he may not go along with all of it, but he might have a chance here or there to make some things happen, all the while telling himself he isn't really changing. It sounds like an ambitious person today going to work for a powerful politician or a major CEO.

That's a well-trod path, unfortunately.

ZOMBIE ECONOMICS is alive and well.

BASEBALL SEASON just started. Here's economist Dean Baker going to bat for Social Security.

ANOTHER MEASURE. What does it really take to be (fairly) economically self-sufficient?

FRESH FIGS. Here is the latest edition of the Rev. Jim Lewis' Notes from Under the Fig Tree.

IRAQ. It isn't even safe to breathe there.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The long defeat

Lately I've been blogging about things that are totally realistic and relevant to social justice from The Lord of the Rings. This is installment #4.

El Cabrero is no elf or other immortal, but I have been around for a while. And when I look back on many struggles, some "won" some lost, I get kind of sad. It is possible--and fun--to help win a good fight every now and then. But it seems to me, with apologies to Dr. King, that the moral arc of the universe wings around randomly but tends to tilt towards plutocracy and oligarchy. Which is to say rule of, by, and for the wealthiest.

The first big fight I took part in was the Pittston strike. The union won a contract, but after a few years the company got out of coal and many were either laid off or had to work nonunion. Another big one was the Ravenswood lockout, when 1700 steelworkers were locked out of their jobs and "permanently" replaced. The union members won that one too, eventually getting their jobs back. Just lately though, the company that inherited the plant cut off retiree health benefits.

And so it goes.

There are a couple of lines from LOTR that sum this up pretty well, both spoken by the elves Elrond and the lady Galadriel, who fought against the Darkness for ages beyond human imagining. Elrond said,

"I have seen three ages in the West of the world, and many defeats and many fruitless victories."

Galadriel puts it this way,

"Through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat."

I ask again, where's the escapism?

THAT PINKO, EISENHOWER. Here are some musings on the relativity of left and right.

WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? Here are some interesting reflections on war.

FASTING FOR THE HUNGRY. Even foodies are doing it to protest proposed Republican cuts to nutrition and food security programs.

UPPER BIG BRANCH. The federal mine agency MSHA never hit the Massey mine with major fines for safety violations prior to last year's disaster.

HEAVY METAL. Metal books possibly dating to the 1st century AD could be the earliest surviving Christian writings.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Guarding from evil things folk that are heedless

The theme at Goat Rope lately is things from The Lord of the Rings that are totally realistic and relevant to working for social justice. This is installment #3. I have often thought about how much misery has been prevented by uncelebrated and unknown people who without fanfare do a lot of good and/or keep a lot of bad things from happening. They may be this schoolteacher or that old lady who sits on her porch and keeps an eye on the neighborhood or any number of people who work behind the scenes and away from the cameras. Every time I read the trilogy, things jump out at me that I missed before. I was particularly struck this time by the mostly unnamed Rangers of the North (Aragorn was their chief). These are looked down upon as discreditable vagrants by respectable people in the books, yet as the old and wise Tom Bombadil tells the hobbits,

"Few now remember them...yet some go wandering, sons of forgotten kings walking in loneliness, guarding from evil things folk that are heedless."

The great writer George Eliot, aka Mary Anne Evans, expressed the same idea at the end of Middlemarch:

"...the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

So here's to the unknown Rangers of our world, walking in loneliness and faithfully living a hidden life. Without them, we'd be a whole lot worse off.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING STANDARD OF LIVING discussed here. RIGHT WING DEMOCRACY CORRUPTING BILLIONAIRE SELF PITY discussed here. A BOGEY-WOMAN OF THE RIGHT, poverty advocate and frequent Glenn Beck Target Frances Fox Piven, speaks here. GOOD DOG! Here's a survival story from Japan about how a 12 year old Shih Tzu saved its 83 year old owner from the tsunami. GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Be not too eager to deal out death

I've recently re-read the Lord of the Rings cycle and this time around I've made notes on parts that seem relevant to working for social justice. Here's installment #2.

During the recent unlamented session of the WV legislature, there was a public hearing on bringing back the death penalty to the state, which hasn't had one since the early 1960s. I was one of the people who testified against it. All through my mind when I was on the stand, a passage from LOTR went through my mind.

When discussing the creature Gollum, Frodo the hobbit casually states that the creature deserves to die. Gandalf replies,

Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

I didn't go there since I figured quoting from a fictional wizard wouldn't exactly help my case. Instead, I focused on examples of fallible judgements. But I think Gandalf probably said it best.

THIS IS JUST GREAT, HE WROTE, IRONICALLY. GE, after making over $14 billion in profits and paying ZERO dollars in US income tax, is asking workers to make concessions.

THAT'S NOT ALL. GE isn't the only corporation to pay no taxes at a time when public services are being slashed.

GANDHI. A new biography will bust some bubbles. I'll stick to FDR and Walter Reuther.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING, the most common modern psychosis is the persecution complex. Or that's what they want you to believe anyway, just to lull you into a false sense of security so they can really get you.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

So do all who live to see such times

I mentioned a while back that a "friend" who shall remain nameless, except to say that his first name is Jeff and the initial of his last name is A. and that he is an ordained Methodist minister, pulled a fast one on me. Knowing that I was a recovering Tolkien addict, he loaned me two books about the writer.

I'm sure he knew full well that once I imbibed a little, I'd have to drink the whole thing. Here I am, over 1400 pages later, not counting the books he loaned me. Thanks, pal!

I have often said that The Lord of the Rings struck me as a work of social realism (once you take out the victory). This time around, I made notes on passages that struck me as relevant to working for social justice. Here's the first. Early in the Fellowship of the Ring, the wizard Gandalf lays some heavy news on the hobbit Frodo about the dark times coming and hard work ahead.

Gandalf says, "Always after a defeat and respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again."

Roger that! That kind of sums up the US since 1980.

Frodo speaks my mind, saying "I wish it need not have happened in my time."

Ditto! I don't know how many times I felt that way.

Gandalf replies, "So do I...and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

Yep. But that doesn't make it any easier.

Where's the escapism?

LOSING OUR WAY. Here's Bob Herbert's last column for the NY Times about the dark times we are living through.

AN EXAMPLE OF WHICH is the fact that congressional Republicans are gunning for Social Security and Medicare.

IT'S GETTING TO BE THAT TIME. As we approach the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, here's a Washington Post item on myths about the causes of southern secession. Short version: slavery might have had something to do with it.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Defeat is no refutation

In George Orwell's 1984, the evil O'Brien, a member of the Inner Party, says this to the hapless protagonist Winston:

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

What if you knew that was really going to be true, at least for the non-elite (as it seems to me to be some days)? Or what if you somehow knew that humans would fail to address climate change and thus bring about a disastrous future? Would you just give up?

To put it another way, is your interest in working for a better or less bad world based on a realistic hope of getting there or would you struggle on as skillfully as you could without it?

The willingness to continue the struggle without hope is what Tolkien called the "theory of courage," which he felt was expressed in the vision of Norse mythology. According to Tom Shippey, author of The Road to Middle-Earth,

The central pillar of that theory was Ragnarok--the day when gods and men would fight evil and the giants, and inevitably be defeated. Its great statement was that defeat is no refutation. The right side remains right even if it has no ultimate hope at all. In a sense this Northern mythology asks more of men, even makes more of them, than Christianity, for it offers them no heaven, no salvation, no reward for virtue except the sombre satisfaction of having done what is right.

This view of things speaks to my condition on many if not most days. I do believe it is possible with luck and technique and cunning to make some things a little better or less bad here and there. But I have no vision of a utopia or real hope for realizing some final goal of a truly just society and I don't think it's necessary to have either to keep up the fight.

HEALTH CARE REFORM turns one year old today.

"HAVE YOU NO DECENCY, SIR?" Apparently not. Here's an interesting op-ed on union busting in Wisconsin.

UPPER BIG BRANCH. New federal criminal charges have been filed in the wake of the Massey mine disaster investigation. Here are more details from Coal Tattoo.

CHUPACABRAS are (apparently) mythological monsters--the literal translation of the Spanish word is "goat-sucker." To find out more about such beasts, which are entirely unwelcome at Goat Rope Farm, click here and here.

NOTE: It is with some trepidation that I admit to scheduling this post to appear a few hours in advance so I can reacquaint myself with sleep. The last time I did this, the tsunami hit Japan. I trust (and hope) that there was no causal relation between the two events. If anything really bad happens between now and then, let me state emphatically once again that I was against it.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A theory of courage

Then the Awful Fight Began (1908) by George Wright, by way of wikipedia.

British writer and scholar J.R.R. Tolkien, in addition to being the author of whole Ring cycle, was one of the 20th century's greatest scholars of Anglo-Saxon language and literature. He was also the author of a famous and influential essay (originally a lecture) on Beowulf, which was called, appropriately enough, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics."

I find it interesting not just for what it has to say about the medieval poem but for his suggestion of "a theory of courage" even in the face of final defeat, something that I think has practical applications for people who care about social justice. We don't appear to be heading for a happy ending, after all.

Like his good friend C.S. Lewis, Tolkien was a pious Christian with a soft spot for paganism, especially the Northern European variety. According to some major strands of that tradition, things are not going to end well. The gods and good men are destined to fight against monsters at the end of the world--and lose. But they are willing to fight on any way with no hope of victory in time or even salvation beyond the grave.

As Tolkien put it in the Beowulf essay,

One of the most potent elements in that fusion is the Northern courage: the theory of courage, which is the great contribution of early Northern literature….I refer rather to the central position the creed of unyielding will holds in the North…..’The Northern Gods’, Ker said, ’have an exultant extravagance in their warfare which makes them more like Titans than Olympians; only they are on the right side, though it is not the side that wins. The winning side is Chaos and Unreason ‘- mythologically, the monsters –‘but the gods, who are defeated, think that defeat no refutation.’ And in their war men are their chosen allies, able when heroic to share in this ‘absolute resistance, perfect because without hope’.

In other words, Tolkien suggests that it is not only possible to carry on the struggle with no hope of final vindication, but that in some ways it is more admirable.

I think I'm with him on this one.

SLASH AND BURN. A new campaign tries to put a human face on proposed federal budget cuts.

SLASH SUBSIDIES, NOT BUDGETS. A new report from Good Jobs First argues that states can help close budget gaps by ending costly but ineffective corporate subsidies.

STALKING THE WIND. Here's a new development in the clean energy field: wind power without blades. The idea is for power to be generated by the vibration of wind stalks.

URGENT ANCIENT GIANT RABBIT UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The Beowulf cookbook

When pressing events don't intrude, I've been blogging about Beowulf lately. I mean, somebody's got to do it. If you aren't into that kind of thing, you can skip to the links and comments section.

After going over this first major work of English (sort of) literature several times, I think I've got the recipe down. It has four main ingredients:

1. A full cup of Tolkien. Old J.R.R. was a major medievalist and possibly the 20th century's greatest Beowulf scholar. He also got a lot of inspiration and ideas from the text for his fiction, including orcs, dragons sitting on hoards, the term Middle Earth, Rohan, and the whole ambiance thing;

2. An equal amount of the Sopranos. Each little kingdom is like a mob family, with a lord who distributes benefits (or "ring-giver") and loyal retainers. At any sign of weakness, another crew will muscle its way in. It's a culture of honor where violence can break out at any moment and feuds are common;

3. A full cup of pagan warrior ethic, in which the greatest immortality one can have is to live on in legend after death. The Greeks called this kleos; and

4. A tiny drop of Christianity, minus any references to Jesus.

Mix the first three ingredients and coat sparingly with the last one, bake for a few centuries and there you have it.

ONE MORE TIME, here's a de-bunking of several right wing lies about health care reform.

COAL KABUKI covered here. At least things remained peaceful as far as I could tell.

WAL-MART is moving to promote healthier foods. I still won't shop there, but in the spirit of fair play I'll give them 5 points.

URGENT SLIME MOLD UPDATE here.

TESTING, TESTING. It may work better than studying.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

With a friend like this...

I have this friend named Jeff who is really a nice guy. On the surface anyway. In fact, he's an ordained Methodist minister. But what kind of friend is it who knows that someone is an addicted to something and gets them going on a binge?

The addiction in question is one of several of mine, to wit reading Tolkien. It's not an everyday thing. I can go years or even decades without touching the stuff, but when something gets me started again, I can't stop myself and have to re-read the whole Ring cycle.

It all started innocently enough when we were musing, as we often do, that working for social justice in WV is a bit like being stuck in the early part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Dark lords rising, sinister forces threatening Middle Earth, damage being done that can never be undone. Many defeats and fruitless victories.

But then he tempted me with books I had not read on Tolkien's life and work and before you could say "Attercop!" (something giant spiders in The Hobbit hated to be called) I was hooked again. Now I'm several hundred pages into the whole thing again with more than that to go.

Thanks a lot, pal...

MIXED SIGNALS. Although jobless claims rose a bit last week, new job growth in the private sector surpassed expectations.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE. Despite a serious downturn, government policies--particularly those related to the Recovery Act--kept millions of Americans from falling into poverty.

NO SURPRISE, BUT STILL IMPORTANT. The wealth gap between the richest one percent and everyone else has gotten bigger in the Great Recession.

UPPER BIG BRANCH. More water problems have been found by investigators of the Massey mine disaster.

HAST ANY PHILOSOPHY IN THEE, SHEPHERD? These may be hard times for philosophy in an age of academic budget cuts, but it seems to be doing just fine at one community college.

PLAY ON. There's a movement to bring back imagination to children's play.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Back and forth

It's always a good thing on returning from a road trip to wind up with approximately the same number of domestic animals as were there when one departed. I'm happy to day that happened again. All the goats, peafowl, cats and turkeys are present and accounted for.

I'm also glad to report that Arpad (above) was there when we got back and apparently didn't eat anybody important while we were gone.

Every time I go back and forth from Vermont to West Virginia, I think about that hard-hitting work of social realism, The Lord of the Rings. As I've said before, the mountain state to the north reminds me of the Shire, whereas the one to the south is more like a threatened and embattled land on the edge of Mordor where the Dark Lord strives for absolute mastery.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, here's an interesting item from last week about Massey Energy.

SOS. Here's an op-ed by yours truly on the need for Congress to act to extend unemployment insurance.

DITTO. This editorial from Sunday's NY Times also highlights the need to help the unemployed--and urges political leaders to show a little backbone.

DEFICIT COMMISSION. Progressive groups are going to unveil non-draconian approaches to dealing with the deficit this week.

CATS AND DOGS. The latter may have bigger brains because they are more social.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The first ring

Plato got there first. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

El Cabrero has been musing this week about Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy and its practical applications for people interested in social justice (short version: there are some). It occurred to me, though, that part of the inspiration for Tolkien's epic came from an ancient work of Greek philosophy.

I'm referring to Plato's Republic, a long dialogue about the nature of justice that moves from the individual to the state. It's full of memorable images and stories or myths and one of these is the myth of Gyges.

In the discussion, Glaucon, Plato's brother, imagines a situation in which it would be hard for anyone to be just--a situation in which he or she has absolute power thanks to finding a magical ring. He tells the story of Gyges, a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia in what is now Turkey:

According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended.

Gyges found that the ring gave him the power of invisibility whenever he turned it on his finger. (There are times when I wouldn't mind having one of those.) Anyhow, Gyges arranges to visit the palace and with the help of the ring he seduces the queen, kills the king and becomes the ruler and ancestor of the fabulously wealthy King Croesus (search this blog for his story).

In Glaucon's view, such a ring of power would corrupt anyone:

Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point.

Sound familiar? He further argues that anyone who thinks otherwise is hopelessly naive:

If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. Enough of this.

In the Republic, Socrates argues, unconvincingly in my book, that a truly virtuous person would not be tempted. I'm with Glaucon--and Tolkien--on this one.

But there are definitely times when a little gizmo like that could come in handy.

CLUTTER AND MORE. Here's the latest edition of my friend the Rev. Jim Lewis' Notes from Under the Fig Tree. For some reason, this one reminds me of William Blake's poem London.

HEALTH CARE REFORM, if it's going to get things done, needs a public insurance component, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Goat Rope concurs.

IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT. Here's more on the ruling class hissy fit over the Employee Free Choice Act.

FOOD FIGHT. Here's Michael Pollan again on the movement for local and sustainable food.

A TORTURED CONVERSATION is well summarized here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Hobbits

This week at Goat Rope, El Cabrero is fessing up to being a Tolkien dork. It is my opinion that, far from being just escapist fantasy, The Lord of the Rings has some pretty practical applications for those struggling for social justice.

Here's one for today. In contrast to epics like the Iliad or the Aeneid, in which the big dogs get most of the airspace, with Tolkien a decisive role is played by the (literally) little people or hobbits.

These are often dismissively referred to in the books as "halfings" and often are not considered worthy of serious attention by the apparently more significant (i.e. bigger and louder) characters. But without them, all would have been lost.

It's yet another riff on the ancient theme in myths, folklore and religion that, as the psalm put it, the stone that the builders refused has become the cornerstone.

And it's a good reminder that one doesn't have to be a politician or the head of some major organization to make a difference. Ordinary people at the grassroots level can have far more power and influence than anyone expects (including themselves).

THE COLOR OF JOBLESSNESS. Unemployment is hitting college-educated African Americans much harder than others with similar levels of educational attainment.

GREEN BOTH WAYS. Investing in green jobs pays of in more ways than one, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

MOVING MOUNTAINS. Here's a Newsweek interview with an award-winning anti-mountaintop removal activist.

URGENT DINOSAUR UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The Fellowship of the Ring

Image courtesy of wikipedia.

The theme at Goat Rope lately is Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and some practical insights it offers about working for social justice. As I've argued here before, one mark of a good story is that it is one you can find as well as lose yourself in.

I remember reading somewhere that at least some leaders and participants in the Civil Rights movement--including the great Robert Moses--drew inspiration from Tolkien's trilogy for their work in the Deep South.

It makes perfect sense to me. Whatever Tolkien's shortcomings might or might not be, The Lord of the Rings makes perfect sense when you're engaged in a struggle against the odds for social justice. Over the next few days, I'm going to talk about some examples of this.

The first on is all too obvious. If you're going up against the latest version of the Dark Lord or Saruman, you need some strong and diverse coalitions.

Getting there isn't easy. In the trilogy, the good guys don't have much use for each other in the beginning. The humans from Gondor and Rohan, once allies, mistrust each other. Elves and dwarves have issues from way back. And nobody important cared about hobbits. It makes getting coal miners and environmentalists to work together on issues seem pretty simple. But it can be done, at least sometimes.

Sometimes things get so bad you have to either form coalitions or just give up. But coalitions, which tend to be at the organizational level, are only held together by relationships at the personal level, as exemplified in the story by the small band that sets out to try to destroy the ring.

In a small place like El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia, where nothing is ever forgotten, relationships are everything. One state politician once quipped "In West Virginia, everything's political except politics and that's personal."

If I had to choose between winning a big one and damaging coalitions and relationships versus losing a big one and maintaining them (and I have been there), I'd probably prefer the latter. Struggles come and go, and victory or defeat often depends on conditions you don't completely control. Relationships take a long time to build and are hard to repair when damaged.

Winning and keeping them would be my first choice though.

AFTER THE FALL. This NY Times article discusses Obama's post-recession (assuming we get there) vision for capitalism.

LOCAL FOOD makes sense in lots of ways, but it can be a pretty complex issue.

TAXES. Here's economist Dean Baker's contribution to a debate on the merits of progressive taxation.

WASTED. Bill McKibben discusses our wasteful habits and the possibility of changing them.

DOWN TO THE WIRE. For addicts of the late lamented HBO series The Wire, here's a lengthy interview between Bill Moyers and Wire creator David Simon.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED