Two passings

I was saddened by two recent deaths, one of some I admired from afar and the other much closer to home. I know I'm not alone in mourning the passing of Ursula K. LeGuin, whose science fiction and fantasy novels meant a lot to me.

Her books made a big impression, although I lost track of her more recent work. I loved the gentle Taoism of the Earthsea Trilogy as well as works like The Dispossessed and The Word for World is Forest. One that's been on my mind a lot lately is The Left Hand of Darkness, which really shakes up the notion of gender among other things. She was a brilliant thinker and writer of fiction and nonfiction and even once translated the Tao Te Ching.

This week also saw the passing of the Rev. Dennis Sparks, who for several years was executive director of the WV Council of Churches, which was a very influential position. Dennis used his position to fight for social justice not only by advocating for the disadvantaged but by providing an opportunity and platform for people to speak for themselves. The good guys won some on his watch.

Dennis and I always teased each other about religion. I hope he goes to wherever good if slightly heretical Campbellites go. I don't think Ursula expected to go anywhere, which I'm sure was fine with her.

COLLECTIVE MADNESS

Caption: This is a mad crowd.

This week, in addition to news and links on current events, El Cabrero is passing out nuggets from the less whacked out portions of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil for your entertainment and edification.

Is this a full service blog or what?

I may have used today's selection before but it's another one that should be widely posted in public places to remind us of the dangers of group behavior:

Madness is something rare in individuals--but in groups, parties, peoples, ages it is the rule.

Although we are social animals and not all groups are nasty, it is the official Goat Rope verdict that the dude wasn't too far off the mark. Aside from the occasional sociopath, people tend to be fairly harmless taken one at a time. Put a bunch of us together at the same time and place, add a few other choice ingredients, and all bets are off.

(Note: the positive and negative sides of group behavior are frequent Goat Rope themes. If you're interested, search the blog for tags such as group psychology, group behavior, conflict, conformity, obedience.)

GAPS. According to a new study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, millions of low wage Americans struggle to make ends meet due to the gap between employer-provided wages and benefits and public work support programs. Here's a shorter article on the subject by CEPR's Heather Boushey.

ON TOP OF ALL THAT, workplace stress can be lethal.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS HOLD THEIR OWN. According to a Washington Post article on study released last week,

Low-income students who attend urban public high schools generally do just as well as private-school students with similar backgrounds, according to a study being released Wednesday.

Students at independent private schools and most parochial schools scored the same on 12th-grade achievement tests in core academic subjects as those in traditional public high schools when income and other family characteristics were taken into account, according to the study by the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy.

There's been a lot of public school bashing in the last few years, but the study found that when one controls for factors such as parental involvement, the difference in achievement between public and private schools tends to evaporate.

CHURCHES WEIGH IN. The West Virginia Council of Churches issued a statement on mountaintop removal mining last week. It stopped short of calling for abolition but urged strict enforcement of existing laws and opposed their weakening. Here's AP coverage and here's the statement.

AMERICA IN A FUNK? Some public opinion surveys would indicate one. This is a good follow-up to last week's series on optimism and pessimism.

IT'S ALL GOOD. Here's one on Reaganomics from The Onion.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED