This and that

It's disappointing but not surprising that the WV legislature passed a gutted version of its Marcellus Shale bill aimed a regulating the new natural gas boom at the behest of Governor Earl Ray Tomblin.

Holy "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," Batman!

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, the WV Board of Education passed an anti-bullying policy that explicitly protects gay and lesbian students. That ought to give a couple religious right groups something to howl at the moon about.

WINDOWS AND MIRRORS. If you are in the Charleston area today and tomorrow (that would be Thursday Dec. 15 and Friday Dec. 16) come check out "Windows and Mirrors," a traveling art exhibit about the war in Afghanistan. It will be shown at Mountaineer Good News Garage, 221 Hale Street, from 5-8 tonight and from 10-2 on Friday. Here's coverage about it from the Gazette and the West Virginia News Service. Or you can read all about it here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Babies and bullies

Scottish philosopher David Hume.

The debate about the origin of morality is an old one in philosophy. Two major strands emerged in western philosophy in the 18th century.

One of these was associated with thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment such as David Hume and Adam Smith. This tradition found the basis of morality to be in the emotions, as expressed in the title of Smith's work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. By contrast, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant attempted to base morality on reason.

Two hundred plus years later--and with lots of water under the bridge--it looks like the Scottish Enlightenment holds up pretty well in light of evolutionary biology and research on the emotions.

A major ingredient of morality is empathy, which is nothing if not putting yourself in the place of another and trying to feel what he or she feels.

Here's an interesting item about how an innovative project is combating bullying by reawakening empathy.

Note: props are required, including a live infant.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW (and more) about unemployment insurance and why Congress needs to extend it ASAP.

DEALING WITH DEBT. Paul Krugman is unimpressed with the deficit commission.

INTERESTING TAKE on the political scene here.

URGENT SEA LION UPDATE here.

IF YOU EVER WONDERED JUST HOW cats drink the way they do, click here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Well...

There are all kinds of jokes about political corruption and election hijinks in West Virginia. One that you can't get through an election year without hearing several times is "Vote early, vote often. And remember--it's not the way they're cast, it's the way they're counted."

Then there all the jokes about dead people voting, particularly in the southern counties.

(Speaking as a native, I don't see what the big deal is about casting ballots for dead people, provided you vote for them the way they would have voted themselves. It's kind of like the hillbilly version of the communion of saints. Switching parties on the dead or voting for somebody they'd hate, however, should be punished severely. That's just wrong.)

Still and all, y'all know what day it is and what to do, if you haven't already done it.

HELL HAS BEEN DEFINED as truth realized too late. The reality of climate change might be like that too.

NOT THAT REALITY MATTERS, but here's one of WV's best state senators talking sense on health care reform.

BULLYING GOES POST-MODERN. This Gazette item looks at bullying, cyber as well as old school.

PRAYER AND MORE are discussed in the latest edition of the Rev. Jim Lewis' Notes from Under the Fig Tree (although I'd still like to see him fit under the fig trees at Goat Rope Farm and take notes--they are low riders).

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A flickering lamp

One of the three signs of being according to the Buddha was something called anatta, which is one of those great words that don't translate directly into English. It literally means something like "without self" but insubstantial might be closer to it. (The other two signs of being are suffering and impermanence, the subjects of the last two day's posts.)

Basically, it means that nothing is as solid as it appears and that all things are composed of other elements that rise and fall based upon changing conditions. He even took it so far as to mean that we don't have a lasting self but are rather a changing bundle of sensations, perceptions, form, consciousness, and mental reactions.

One of my favorite expressions of this idea from Buddhist scriptures has appeared here before. It's from the Diamond Sutra of Mahayana Buddhism and is incidentally the world's oldest printed book. Toward the end, the Buddha says,

Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.

Believe it or not, that's another very practical Buddhist idea for those interested in social justice. It often seems like we are up against incredibly powerful opponents, be they institutions, corporations, regimes or whatever. But as political theorists of non-violence such as Gene Sharp, Robert Helvey and others have argued, social and political power is not monolithic; it comes from many sources and requires the cooperation of many disparate elements.

Powerful entities, in other words, are not as powerful as they may seem; they are themselves insubstantial and impermanent and require many sources of support. They come into being and pass away according to changing conditions. Change the conditions or remove the "pillars of support" on which they rest and things can change.

FUN, GAMES AND MAYHEM. This probably won't surprise many people, but research suggests that graphic and violent video games can desensitize players and encourage aggressive behavior at least among some people.

RUNNING THE NUMBERS on bullying.

THE LONG WAY HOME. Homelessness is a growing problem for returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

WHITE TEA. A new report finds that some racist groups are seeking affiliation with the Tea Party, although party leaders have publicly repudiated racism.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The poisoned arrow

Sometimes people, including myself, get hung up on speculative questions that don't really help much in the here and now. This reminds me of one of the Buddha's parables. According to the story (full text here), the Buddha is approached by someone interested in abstract questions about the cosmos, life after death and everything.

The Buddha responded that such questions aren't really much help in the goal of liberation from suffering. To paraphrase, he said it was as if someone who was shot with a poisoned arrow refused all medical treatment until he found out who shot the arrow, what they looked like, what his day job was, what kind of wood the arrow was made of, what kinds of feathers it had, and what the bow looked like. If that were to happen, "The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him."

IS THAT ALL? The Economic Policy Institute calculates that the US economy is short 11.5 million jobs.

SOMETHING ELSE TO DENY ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE: major parts of the world are drying up.

SPECIAL TREAT FOR LINGUISTICS DORKS here.

MEAN GIRL BLUES. Here's an interesting article on girl bullying.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating

Goat Rope is still plowing, albeit not in a straight line, through Hamlet. We're all the way to one of my favorite parts, the gravedigger scene at the beginning of Act 5. If Shakespeare doesn't do it for you, you can scroll down to the links and comments section below.

Harold Bloom has noted that Hamlet plays Falstaff to himself, meaning that he provides his own comic relief. In fact, there's only one person in the whole play who can hold his own with him in a verbal sparring match and that person is a gravedigger. Here's some banter between the digger and his companion before Hamlet and Horatio arrive on the scene:

First Clown : ...There is no ancient
gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers:
they hold up Adam's profession.

Second Clown: Was he a gentleman?

First Clown: He was the first that ever bore arms.

Second Clown: Why, he had none.

First Clown: What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the
Scripture? The Scripture says 'Adam digged:'
could he dig without arms?

I suppose every profession has its own pride of place, but our friend makes a strong case for his own:

First Clown: What is he that builds stronger than either the
mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

Second Clown: The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a
thousand tenants.

First Clown: I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows
does well; but how does it well? it does well to
those that do ill: now thou dost ill to say the
gallows is built stronger than the church: argal,
the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come.

Second Clown: 'Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or
a carpenter?'

First Clown: Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

Second Clown: Marry, now I can tell.

First Clown: To't.

Second Clown:Mass, I cannot tell.

First Clown: Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull
ass will not mend his pace with beating; and, when
you are asked this question next, say 'a
grave-maker: 'the houses that he makes last till
doomsday.

I think he may have a point.

SPEAKING OF GRAVES, a lot more people will be in them if we don't reform health care. Here's a report on this from Families USA and here's some WV coverage of the same issue.

GOT FIGS? Here's the latest edition of the Rev. Jim Lewis' Notes from Under the Fig Tree. I see he's got a little Shakespeare of his own going on this time.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, there's seems to be a drop in children's bullying.

THE BUTLER DIDN'T DO IT, an asteroid did.

URGENT INDONESIAN HOBBIT UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A history of violence

The punishment of Tantalus.

"I know this house's ancestry--
it's pedigree of sin."

Violence seems to run through families, generations, countries and even entire regions of the world, with outrage breeding outrage. Sadly, sometimes those who were its victims become its perpetrators.

Ending that seemingly endless cycle and establishing a higher social order is the theme of the Oresteia by Aeschylus. Although its message is profoundly political, the dramatic trilogy focuses on how violence played out in one family...and what a family it was.

Here's a short summary of the backstory of the drama:

1. Tantalus served up his son Pelops (literally) at a banquet for the gods. They were not amused and he was one of the few ancients to qualify for personalized eternal damnation by being "tantalized" with food and drink but forever unable to get it. The gods reconstructed Pelops physically but not morally.

2. Pelops sabotaged the chariot of his father-in-law to be, which led to his death. Then he double crossed and murdered they guy who helped him do it. The guy not surprisingly cursed the house with his last breath.

3. Pelops sons Atreus and Thyestes set a new standard for nastiness. First, they contested for power. Then Thyestes seduced the wife of Atreus. Then, after a family meeting for "reconciliation," Atreus kills Thyestes children and serves them for dinner to their unknowing father. One, Aegisthus, got away.

Nice guys, huh?

In the play proper, the merry dance goes on:

4. Agamemnon, son of Atreus, sacrifices his own daughter Iphigenia in order to get fair winds to sail for Troy at the beginning of that war.

5. On his return, Clytemnestra with the help of her lover Aegisthus (remember him?) kills Agamemnon.

6. Orestes, son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, kills his own mother at the order of Apollo.

Then it really gets messy.

While all that sounds like an incredible downer, the plays are actually optimistic about the possibility of people, with the help of divine wisdom, to rise above all that and break the endless cycle.

More to come.

GO, SUPREMES! The big news around here is the US Supreme Court's decision regarding Massey Energy and whether a state justice elected with money from CEO Don Blankenship should recuse himself form cases involving the company. The court said he should. Here's the NY Times on it. Here's the Washington Post. And here's the Charleston Gazette.

A "WARRIOR GENE?" Some scientists think they've found one that is associated with violence. Hmmm...maybe that explains the whole Atreus thing.

ON THAT NOTE, global spending on weapons is through the roof.

BULLY FOR YOU. The research is in, and some strategies seem to work in confronting bullying.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Art or propaganda?

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

Goat Rope has been spending time lately with the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, especially with his theories about literature, poetry and tragedy.

The contrast between Aristotle and his teacher Plato is often pretty striking and that is particularly the case with regard to what we would call literature and what they would call poetry.

Aristotle felt at home in the world of matter and the senses while Plato did not. Humans had their place in the natural order of things and art had its origin in human nature.

In his Republic, Plato argued, with the voice of Socrates, that poetry had a great power to do good or ill. He believed that works of art should be carefully controlled, sanitized and censored in the interests of public morality and social order. Needless to say, tyrannical regimes, closed societies and authoritarian movements throughout history have agreed.

(I think Socrates wasn't such a good influence on him after all.)

Aristotle's Poetics, on the other hand, isn't all that interested in art as propaganda. He views it as something important for its own sake and instead focuses on what made a particular kind of literary work great.

I think Aristotle won that one. With maybe a few exceptions, works of propaganda make lousy literature. They're not usually even all that effective as propaganda.

JOBS. The NY Times reports what may be the beginning of good news about the economy.

HEALTH ED. Researchers suggest the poor health of many West Virginians is related to low educational attainment.

GETTING SERIOUS. Here's a look at the far right's first 100 days.

APPALACHIA. Here's a call for turning the nation's sacrifice zone into a sacred zone.

BABY NAMES have bubbles too.

BEING BULLIED as a child can lead to serious psychological effects, according to this research.

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

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

He meant to do that.

In the 1950s, members of a UFO cult were convinced that the world as we know it was about to end at a given date (sound familiar?) When the date came and went, members were in a quandary.

They were in the distinctly uncomfortable situation of holding two conflicting ideas at the same time. On the one hand, they believed strongly that the aliens were going to come at a given time--except that the aliens didn't show.

They could have said, "Jeez, what was I thinking?"--but they didn't. Instead, they began to proselytise aggressively for their new religion, something they had never done before. After all, the saucer people were nice enough to spare us, right?

You can read about all this in psychologist Leon Festinger's engaging book, When Prophecy Fails.

Festinger called that conflicted state of mind "cognitive dissonance." It's a complicated idea but a commonplace reality. Here's the abbreviated Goat Rope version:

People don't like to think they were really, REALLY wrong about something and, as a way of avoiding that situation, they often construct elaborate rationalizations to justify things.

Let's take a hypothetical case. Suppose a national leader led his country to an unnecessary war and it turned out that the justifications for it were bogus. (Remember, this is just a hypothetical situation.) The leader could say "My bad." That would be a gutsy leader. Or, more likely, he could hold forth about "staying the course."

(Aren't you glad stuff like this never really happens?)

To use another scenario, suppose you have rounded up a bunch of prisoners and have begun to abuse them. Most people would be very uncomfortable thinking that they were abusing a random assortment of folks. It's a lot easier when you tell yourself and the world that these are dangerous terrorists.

For that matter, it's a lot easier to justify enslaving a group of people if you can construct an ideological justification for it. For this reason, some researchers have argued that slavery led to racism rather than vice versa.

In any case, cognitive dissonance and our attempts to escape from it contribute vastly to the world's violence, evil, and misery.

I'LL TAKE ONE! A British think tank is calling for a "Green New Deal" to confront the world's economic and environmental woes.

BULLY FOR YOU (NOT). Investigators have found a link between bullying and being bullied and suicide in children.

A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC MOMENT? From the AFLCIO blog, here's a report from Netroots Nation about how the US may be on the edge of progressive reform.

NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON. Meanwhile, the BBC reports that the US is slipping on the development index in terms of life expectancy, health and other factors.

MIRROR, MIRROR. Take a look.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED