Some shameless punning on the Farm Bill

 

(You've goat to read this)

As someone who has dabbled in farming, I find it difficult to write about an important topic like the federal Farm Bill without indulging in at least a few agricultural puns—even though punning has a baad reputation.

The 17^th century English poet John Dryden, for example, referred to punning as “the lowest and most groveling kind of wit.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Senior, 19^th century American physician and poet, said “A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide.”

Mark Twain, whose pen name was itself a pun (the pen pun was unintentional by the way), wrote that “no circumstances, however dismal, will ever be considered a sufficient excuse for the admission of that last and saddest evidence of intellectual poverty, the Pun.”

 I have no beef with such writers or their sage advice, but at the risk of being corny it’s still chard not to.

The Farm Bill is a huge piece of legislation that comes up every hive years and Congress has goat to pass this year. It’s an omnibus bill, meaning that it combines several distinct acts that clover everything from hunger to flood control. But it helps to take it one bite at a time.

Here are some things that ordinary people all over the US and especially in West Virginia need to bee in the bill and that we need to count on Senators Capito and Manchin and Congresswoman Miller to support:

*Food assistance. Let’s face it. Millions of Americans barley get enough to eat--as in 33 million nationwide and over 200,000 here. That situation has gotten worse with the ex-pear-ation of COVID-era safety net provisions and recently passed federal legislation. Last time around, in 2018, our senators carroted enough to support a clean Farm Bill without more restrictions for food insecure people even though they were going against the grain. Let’s hope they do that again.

*Flood control. Irrigation is berry important to farming, but I think most of us would prefer that it not happen to our roads, homes, businesses, and towns. And that it should water our fields without washing them away. A good Farm Bill would help farmers recover from disasters, pre-pear for future ones, and support conservation practices that can reduce flooding.

*Support small farms and farmers. Millions of taxpayer dollars go to subsidize large scale corporate and industrial operations that are inhumane to animals, farmworkers and unsustainable for the environment. You don’t need a fertile imagination to realize that the money would be beet-er spent supporting smaller family farms and local food systems.

*Address climate change. You don’t have to be a farmer to realize that the weather is getting weirder and weirder, but you cane’t help but notice it if you are. A good Farm Bill should provide encourage-mint for regenerative agricultural measures that would conserve soil, prevent erosion, regrow forests, encourage cover crops, store carbon, and reduce emissions.

*Support creative approaches. It wood be win all around if the Farm Bill put more resources into school and community garden projects, urban agriculture, and small scale local projects that fight hunger and keep resources in the local economy. Also, it would be good to take steps to open farming opportunities to people who have been discriminated against in the past.

*Be kinder to our four-legged and feathered friends. Industrial livestock production crowds cattle, hogs, chickens, and other critters into Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations known as CAFOs. Aside from causing unnecessary misery, these create a-maize-ing amounts of animal waste and pollution and encourage the overuse of antibiotics that weaken their effect. They’re nothing to crow about and taxpayers shouldn’t relish the chance to subsidize them.

*Local processing. If the Strengthening Local Processing Act was part of the package, this would be an alternative to CAFOs by supporting local processing of animal products. Surely a meating of the minds is possible here.

*A missing piece. One thing that’s been lacking from previous Farm Bills is protections for the people who dew the work. Lettuce not forget that farm work is difficult and hazardous and much of it is done by children. Nothing against emergency responders, but risks are even higher in this field. Farming is routinely considered to be among the most dangerous occupations. Also, some farmworkers experience wage theft but are too intimidated to pursue redress, which drives down wages for everyone.

*Child care. And how can we forget the kids? Senator Brown from Ohio has rounded up bipartisan support for including the Expanding Childcare in Rural America Act, which would provide more child care in rural communities. Farm work can eat up some long hours in places where there often aren’t good child care providers. It would be great if every child barn in a farming community could enjoy good care when the adults are fending off possums and such.

I realize that this is quite a grocery list, but this is a REALLY big bill and there’s no time for stalling. If we want a decent bill for everyone, we need to turnip the noise and kale our representatives this summer. It’s time to broc and roll.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

A little good news on child care

For the last couple years, child care in West Virginia has been in a tough spot, as noted in this post during the 2023 legislative session. Not surprisingly, this situation was made worse by the pandemic. Until very recently, child care providers were reimbursed based on attendance rather than enrollment. And that's a problem. Or was.

To quote from that earlier post,

 

In an era of pandemics, new variations on old illnesses, extreme weather events and the general weirdness of our time, attendance at school or child care varies widely.

Anyone with kids in school or child care knows that classrooms can empty out quickly when a new bug makes the rounds. Basing child care reimbursement on who happens to be there on any given day is no way to run this proverbial railroad. It provides no stability of care for parents who need to work and no stability of income for those who make that possible.

Enrollment-based reimbursement will help keep existing providers open, encourage new ones and help retain employees by providing a measure of stability and predictability of funding.

Child advocates, child care providers and parents tried hard in the last two legislative sessions to make this change in what has been called "the industry that makes other industries possible." Although the idea gained some traction, the legislation didn't make it across the line.

The good news is that it looks like that advocacy wasn't wasted. The WV Department of Health and Human Resources recently made this announcement:

The WV Department of Health & Human Resources (DHHR), Bureau for Family Assistance today announced additional funding to allow child care providers to be reimbursed based on enrollment through August 2024. 

The pay-by-enrollment methodology was instituted during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency using federally allocated funds to provide financial stability and continued assurance of available child care, and was projected to be exhausted by September 2023.

“By reprioritizing use of available funds, DHHR can help child care providers continue to keep their doors open and help working families get the care they need as the child care operational budgets continue to stabilize post-pandemic,” said Janie Cole, Commissioner of DHHR’s Bureau for Family Assistance. “High quality child care supports both parents and children and is a critical investment in our state’s future.”

That's a huge win for workers, employers, kids and families. 

 

Time to step up for child care

 Politicians in West Virginia talk a lot about the state’s low workforce participation rate and the need to increase it. There’s one easy and proven thing that can make that happen: support for child care for working families. 

The numbers tell the story.

First there’s the issue of unmet need. According to Mountain State Spotlight, there are around 68,000 West Virginia children under age 6 with two working parents, not to mention plenty over that age who still need a safe place to be while parents work. But there are only around 40,000 child care slots.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 12.5% of West Virginia workers missed work in 2021 for reasons related to child care. 

Then there’s the question of availability. More than 60% of West Virginians live in child care “deserts,” where the nearest provider is over 50 miles away.

There’s also the problem of costs. Numbers vary, but according to one recent estimate, the average cost of child care in West Virginia is $845 per month or $10,140 per year. That’s more than twice the cost for full time undergraduate tuition and fees from my alma mater of Marshall University. That contrast is telling because families often have more economic stability as children approach adulthood than when they’re just getting started.

Federal COVID relief funding helped many families cope with child care costs, to the tune of $330 million over the last few years, but that funding is winding down. In November, 7,288 children from 4,596 families with essential workers earning more than 85% of state median income lost this support. No doubt some of these parents will have little choice but to leave the workforce.

The situation is likely to get a lot worse when federal child care stabilization payments to qualified providers dry up at the end of September.

All of these challenges make it hard for quality child care providers stay open. We shouldn’t forget that in addition to helping parents go to work, these centers also provide jobs themselves, although they may not pay enough for their own workers to afford, you guessed it, child care.

Obviously, there are a lot of issues at work here, ranging from changes in the economy and family life to stagnant wages to inadequate investment in early childhood.

However, there is one relatively simple measure that would help to keep child care providers open and families going to work. It involves paying child care providers based on enrollment rather than attendance. In an era of pandemics, new variations on old illnesses, extreme weather events and the general weirdness of our time, attendance at school or child care varies widely.

Anyone with kids in school or child care knows that classrooms can empty out quickly when a new bug makes the rounds. Basing child care reimbursement on who happens to be there on any given day is no way to run this proverbial railroad. It provides no stability of care for parents who need to work and no stability of income for those who make that possible.

Enrollment-based reimbursement will help keep existing providers open, encourage new ones and help retain employees by providing a measure of stability and predictability of funding.

Child care has been called “the industry that supports all other industries,” but it’s more than that. We know from studies of human development that the period from birth to age 5 is the time of the brain’s most rapid development and that positive or adverse experience in early childhood can have lifelong implications.

West Virginia’s children and working parents deserve affordable and high-quality child care and those who provide that care themselves deserve a living wage.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Too good to be true?

 A month or so back, I spoke with New York Times reporter Jason DeParle, who was working on a story about child poverty in West Virginia. That article came out yesterday (or was it the day before?) and it had some surprising conclusions, the biggest one being that child poverty declined dramatically in the US over the last few decades and that this change was even more dramatic in West Virginia:

 Child poverty has plunged over the last generation, and few places have experienced larger declines than West Virginia, a state that once epitomized childhood deprivation. Poverty among the state’s children fell nearly three-quarters from 1993 to 2019, according to a comprehensive analysis by Child Trends, a nonpartisan research group, conducted in partnership with The New York Times. That compares to a 59 percent drop nationwide.

If West Virginia’s child poverty rate was as high now as in 1993, nearly 80,000 additional children would be poor, a population larger than the state capital, Charleston.

That was news to me, especially considering that these changes didn't include the vast influx of COVID related federal aid from the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan. It kinda sounds too good to be true, although my WV comrades have worked on that issue for years and years.

Just when I was beginning to think my life wasn't a total waste, a friend--we can call him Mr. Buzzkill--sent me this response to the national poverty numbers in the Times article. Short version: different poverty measures show vastly different results.

However that data fights wind up, I did find some encouragement in the story itself, which profiles some West Virginia families living in or near poverty. It showed how years of undramatic grunt work on policy at the state and even county level can eventually show some real positive changes for real people. 

I'm talking about things people worked on here, offensively and defensively, like EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) outreach, defending SNAP, advocating for access to education for people in the "welfare" system and challenging its more draconian aspects, supporting state adoption and expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program to 300 percent of the federal poverty level over13 years, Medicaid expansion, free school breakfast and lunch, defending child care, support services for people on or leaving TANF, raising the state minimum wage and such can really make a difference in the lives of real people.

I think at least those programs and policies that so many West Virginias have fought for made things less bad than they would otherwise have been. I'll take that.

 

WV Groups call on Senator Manchin to Build Back Better

 For the last year, all eyes have been fixed on West Virginia, a state long economically exploited and stereotyped in the national media. In a narrowly divided Senate, our own Senator Joe Manchin would cast a deciding vote on groundbreaking policies that will affect millions of Americans for years to come.

With so much hanging in the balance, ordinary West Virginians mobilized as never before in support of a Build Back Better agenda that could revitalize our economic and community life. Many issues are riding on the outcome: Poverty, care for children and the elderly, health coverage, access to education, jobs, infrastructure, climate and more. While different groups and people  on the ground here had many priorities, we made a conscious effort not to be divided. 

We recognize the same people who gain from child and earned income tax credits need child care to work and help when sickness or disaster strikes. And that a changing climate makes us all look at the sky with a new fear.

When the outlines of the plan announced by President Biden were revealed, we celebrated. The Child Tax Credit alone has the potential to reduce child poverty by nearly half, doing for our children what Social Security has done for elderly Americans

Working parents constantly struggle to meet child care costs, which can exceed college tuition. Capping these expenses for families earning up to 250 percent of median family income would ensure quality care for around 20 million children while parents work or attend school. Improvements to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act will expand home care for seniors and people with disabilities, extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans and hold down premiums for many more.

We would get funding for Pell grants and job training programs. We could expand child nutrition programs. Additional investments in affordable housing will help stabilize and improve the quality of life for many families. The framework also represents the largest effort to confront the many threats of climate change in American history while rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and helping the Appalachian region transition to a more prosperous and sustainable economy.

We recognize that no deal will be possible without the vote of Senator Manchin and it’s time for him to make a commitment to support Build Back Better. We call on Senator Manchin, his colleagues in Congress, and the Senate to move to pass this transformative legislation.

This wouldn’t be the first time our senator has influenced national policy in the interests of ordinary Americans. In 2017, he helped preserve the Affordable Care Act when it was in danger of repeal, while opposing irresponsible tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. He played a critical role in the passage of the American Rescue Plan earlier this year. We urge him to step up again for West Virginia and the nation. 

We regard the Build Back Better agenda as a major down payment for America’s future, one which we hope will eventually ensure a healthy and inclusive society in which all people can live a life with dignity and thrive. An ancient Chinese proverb says that “a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step.” This is a good first step, with many more to come.

(Note: this statement was signed by a number of West Virginia organizations, including Young West Virginia, West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, West Virginia Citizen Action Group, Rattle the Windows, American Friends Service Committee West Virginia, Community Change, TEAM for West Virginia Children, National Association of Social Workers West Virginia Chapter, Race Matters West Virginia.)

Raising the floor

Recently, I worked on a report about the state of West Virginia's low-wage workers with the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy. Some results weren't surprising. The number of low-wage jobs, defined in this case as 150 percent of the federal poverty level for a family of two ($11.59 per hour or under $24,108 per year) has grown by 14.5 percent since 2001, while employment in high wage industries has declined by 2.8 percent.

Key industries employing low-wage workers include grocery stores, retail, food services and personal care for children or the elderly. Nearly one in four West Virginians works at such a job. For many, these jobs are no longer a stepping stone to a better gig but rather a lifelong path. Fifty-five percent of the state's children (200,900 in all) live in a household with at least one low-wage worker.

While most such workers in West Virginia are white, African-Americans are more likely to earn low wages. The rates are 23 and 31 percent, respectively. Fifty-six percent of low-wage workers are women. Younger workers are more likely to earn low wages than those in their prime. Rates shoot up again for workers 65 and older. Still, nearly half of all workers over 35 have low-wage jobs.

One major factor affecting wage levels is, unsurprisingly, educational attainment. Fully 44 percent of those without high school diplomas earned low wages. For high school graduates and those with some college, the rate dropped to 28 percent. Rates of low earners dropped to 12 percent for people with associate's degrees and less than 10 percent for those with a bachelor's degree or more.

One obvious policy change to raise earnings and our state's abysmal statistics would be to put more resources into affordable post-secondary education rather than unproductive tax cuts. Indeed, cuts enacted over the last 10 years were more than enough to pay tuition and fees for a public college education for every student in the state.

It's pretty clear that anything that helps people move from low to living wages - or keeps people from sinking lower -would strengthen West Virginia's economy, boost demand for goods and services provided by local businesses, and help increase the state's chronically low workforce participation rate.

Some other steps in that direction include:

*Protecting West Virginia's Medicaid program. This federal-state partnership provides care to nearly one out of three West Virginians, including 170,000 people from working families earning under 138 percent of the federal poverty level. It also supports thousands of jobs in health care and other sectors. Losing that would be a huge hit to the state's economy and drive thousands of West Virginians into deeper levels of poverty and misery.

*Enacting a refundable state earned income tax credit (EITC). So far 29 states and the District of Columbia have enacted such credits to help people build assets, pay off debts and offset the impact of regressive taxes. The EITC is a proven tool to fight poverty, increase labor-force participation and help workers in low-wage jobs afford necessities. This is no radical idea - recently, the WestVirginia Bankers Association came out in support of a state EITC.

*Protecting and enhancing child care assistance. Child-care assistance is crucial to helping low-income families maintain employment, stay off public assistance and have higher earnings. Without assistance, it is simply unaffordable, forcing workers to choose between child care and a job. Increasing the eligibility level for families from 150 percent to 200 percent of the poverty line could reduce the "cliff effect," which discourages parents from advancing in their jobs and careers.

*Raising and indexing the minimum wage. In 2014 West Virginia passed legislation to increase its minimum wage to $8.75 per hour, $1.50 more than the $7.25 federal rate. That was a step forward but is still not a living wage. It's high time for another hike, which could be phased in over several years and indexed to the rate of inflation.

*Preserving and expanding early childhood education and voluntary home visiting programs. Evidence suggests there is a critical period in early childhood, roughly equivalent to the first 1,000 days of life, which can make a huge difference in cognitive, emotional, social and physical development. These in turn can impact health and economic well-being across the lifespan.

Bottom line: Workers in low-wage jobs constitute a large and important segment of West Virginia's population. These are the people who do some of the most important work in our communities, such as caring for children and the elderly. The steps we take to help them improve their economic status is critical to ensuring a better future for all West Virginians.

(This appeared as an op-ed in Sunday's Huntington Herald-Dispatch.)

Another good step

I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes. Here's just one example. Lots of people I know and respect have been stressing the importance of early childhood education in combating poverty and a host of ills. I was generally for it, but it took me a while to really get it.

This is also an area in which West Virginia is something of a natural leader. It has made significant progress over the last few years and recently passed legislation to take it further. Governor Tomblin has appointed a task force to look for further improvements. For once, state leaders are even saying nice things about federal policies the Obama administration is promoting.

As important as pre-kindergarten education is, there's a lot of research that suggests that the first two years of life are critical for brain development and for all kinds of later outcomes. This New Republic article does a good job of summing it up. I hope WV picks up on some policies that can help parents through this period, such as voluntary home visiting programs by social workers or nurses and other steps to improve the quality of child care.

 Ideally, the visiting program could begin with pregnancy and continue for the first few years, building a relationship with the infant and the parent or parents and offering support, advice and coaching. It could head off a lot of trouble down the road.

Good news for WV working families

From the office of Governor Earl Ray Tomblin:

  CHARLESTON, W.Va. –Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin today announced the changes proposed earlier this year for the eligibility levels of child subsidy will be tabled for further review. The funding formula changes were made in an effort to compensate for shortfalls in federal funding. The Governor plans to submit a supplemental appropriation next year to help close the gap through the spring and has plans to work with all parties to find a solution for making this program successful long term. 

    “After much discussion with parents and folks in the childcare industry, I decided it’s not in the best interest of West Virginia families to move forward with the scheduled changes to our state’s childcare subsidy,” said Gov. Tomblin. “We still have work to do; these programs are not sustainable with our current level of funding, but at this point, I believe it’s best to keep hard-working families in the program and to look for other ways to address the budget shortfalls.” 

    West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources officials announced in June 2012 that the ceiling for eligibility would be reduced from 185% of federal poverty level to 150%. This change was scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2013. Today’s announcement means that no change will be made at this time and the entry and exit levels will remain the same, thus retaining families who are at or below 185% of the federal poverty level. The changes to the copayment structures announced earlier this year will go into effect on January 1, 2013. 

Here's a heartfelt "thank you" to Governor Tomblin and his staff and a hearty "Congratulations!" to everyone who worked on this issue over the last year or so!

That's a nice Christmas present.

This one's for Confucius

When the great ancient Chinese sage Confucius (aka K'ung-fu-tzu) was asked what he would first do if he came into an important government office, he said he would commence by "the rectification of names."

Confucius thought, and I'd have to say that I agree, that a great deal of the evil in the world comes from calling things by the wrong names--and that fixing that would be a big step in setting things right.

These days, one hears a lot of politicians talking about the need of making "tough decisions." This usually translates into taking steps that harm low income and working people while protecting the wealthy and powerful. A case in point is the decision by the Tomblin administration in West Virginia to cut child care and other programs that help ordinary West Virginians.

Here's the deal: kicking people who can't kick back isn't a tough decision. It is a chicken **** decision.

And say what you want about me, I know a thing or two about chicken ****. We've got plenty of it right here on the farm. I could post plenty of fresh pictures of it right here. And it's much more excusable when it comes from real chickens in the ordinary process of digestion than from human beings who should know and do better but don't.

Read up on this here and here.

Meanwhile, word on the street is that the real reason why programs for working people are being cut is because of the mess-ups of highly placed folks at the state Department of Health and Human Resources, whose mistakes are costing millions of dollars and who are passing their own screw-ups on to defenseless children and families.

To quote Shakespeare: "Shame, and eternal shame, nothing but shame!"

Happy birthday, West Virginia, warts and all

Today is the 149th birthday of El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia.  We've probably seen worse days here, but we sure has hell have seen better ones. By chance, two state related items caught my eye today that deal with some ugly aspects of the current scene here.

These days, it seems that some of the state's leading politicians are given to cowardly pandering to the coal industry and, however indirectly, to racist elements. The song they are dancing to goes something like this: the Obama administration, which happens to be led by a black man with a strange name, is waging an unprovoked and all out war on coal through its diabolical Environmental Protection Agency.

West Virginia native Michael Tomasky has a great piece in The Daily Beast that confronts the racism factor head on.


And it was really refreshing to see that our senior senator Jay Rockefeller was channeling a bit of the late great Robert C. Byrd and calling on the coal industry to tone down its war rhetoric. Here's a link to his speech on the Senate floor.

I can't imagine either Senator Manchin or Governor Tomblin ever having the guts to say anything remotely resembling that. Besides, Tomblin is too busy cutting child care benefits for working families anyway.

So happy 149, West Virginia. And may 150 be a bit less cowardly and ugly.

Kicking a hornet's nest

For several months now, rumors have been floating around West Virginia about major cuts to child care programs for working families. If true, and I'm pretty sure something on that order is at least being discussed, I think it might be in the best interests of Governor Tomblin to reconsider.

For starters, unlike most states, West Virginia is not in fiscal trouble. It has enjoyed budget surpluses for the last several years, even while making major cuts in corporate taxes. There's no excuse.

Second, according to the Self Sufficiency Standard for West Virginia, child care costs for those who pay out of pocket can be astronomical. Depending on family composition and age of children, it can easily be more expensive than housing or food and much higher than tuition at a state college or university. Further, these costs hit families at a time when earnings are low.

Third, it's kind of hard to hold down a job if you don't have child care. Some people would have to quit.

Fourth, #3 might be an embarrassment to someone running on a "more jobs" platform. I imagine that his opponents could have a field day with that.

Fifth, eliminating child care subsidies would harm child care centers and probably cost more jobs in that arena.

Sixth, there is a growing body of scientific evidence that early childhood care and education is vitally important for future well being and offers a major return on investment.

Seventh, I'm pretty sure...OK, I'm certain...that all kinds of groups around the state are ready to make loud bad noise about this and I'm pretty sure the media is interested as well.

It's one thing to accidentally disturb a hornet's next. It's another to deliberately kick one, which is something I generally think of as not a very good idea.

I hope the folks in power stop to think a little before they kick this one.

Just saying.

Red Prometheus

El Cabrero just finished reading David Priestland's grande book, The Red Flag: A History of Communism. It was very readable and non-polemical and included cultural as well as political matters in a global history of that very diverse movement.

Early on, Priestland invokes the myth of the primordial rebel Prometheus, who was terribly punished by Zeus. The young Marx referred to Prometheus as "the most eminent saint and martyr in the philosophical calendar."

Viewing the history of the movement through that lens, Priestland's final lines are worth pondering:

The history of Communism should have taught us two things. The first lesson, now drawn by many writers, is how destructive dogmatic utopian thinking can be. The second, rather more neglected today, is the danger of sharp inequalities and perceived injustice--for they can make that utopian politics very appealing. Since 1989 the dominant powers have learnt neither lesson. Reacting sharply against communist utopias, messianic dogmatic liberals have sought to export their system--sometimes by force--across the globe. Perhaps, only now, chastened by the crises of 2008, will we finally learn from the history of Communism. Only if we do so will we be spared another bloody act in the tragedy of Prometheus.

MASSEY MINE DISASTER. Here's NPR's coverage of the congressional hearing held in Beckley earlier this week and here's an interview with WV Senator Jay Rockefeller about the disaster from the Charleston Daily Mail. And, while we're at it, here's a take on Massey CEO Don Blankenship's leadership style from a business social responsibility blog.

WELFARE TO WHAT? Recession-induced cuts to child care may force low income workers out of their jobs.

OF TESTOSTERONE AND TRUST, one may learn something by clicking here.


GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Happy Dylan Day

El Cabrero has been in Baltimore for a few days and while there I attended a concert/fundraiser for several groups, including the American Friends Service Committee. The event was called "The Night of 1000 Dylans" and featured several local musicians covering Dylan songs. It was the first time I ever heard a gospel/sax version of "Blowin' in the Wind"--and it worked.

One of the organizers reminded the audience that Bob would be turning 69 today.

In the extremely unlikely event that my life got turned into a movie (get ready, Johnnie Depp), most of the soundtrack would definitely be Dylan, which is not altogether a good thing. I was too young to be in the first cohort of Dylan fans, but even as a kid his music and lyrics would stop me cold, even before I knew who he was or when his songs were performed by someone else.

When I was around 9 or 10, my older brother returned from college with an acoustic guitar and played "Blowin' in the Wind" and I was struck hard by the power of the words. (Nowadays, however, I prefer the later random and cynical Dylan to the younger idealistic one.)

I was also KO'ed by the revolutionary lyrics "When the Ship Comes In" when I was in junior high, although Arlo does it better than Bob. At various other points growing up, other songs had the same effect, including "Tangled Up in Blue," "Knocking on Heaven's Door," and "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts." And that was way before I actually started listening his stuff in a big way.

The man has the power of the word. The other day I listened to the album "Highway 61 Revisited" and it struck me again that one could write any number of doctoral dissertations on intertextuality in "Desolation Row."

I think one of the things I like best about Dylan is that he never became stuck. He always kept changing, often in ways that infuriated his fans. He always stayed fresh. May we do the same.

So happy birthday, Bob, and keep 'em coming.

WITH ENEMIES LIKE THESE. Here's Krugman's latest on corporate animosity towards President Obama.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE. Also in the Times was this item about how state cutbacks on child care subsidies may cause some low income parents to leave the workforce.

MASSEY MINE DISASTER. Another coal miner who worked for Massey Energy dies last week in an unrelated accident. A lot is going to happen in the Upper Big Branch disaster investigation today and beyond. The best way to keep up is to keep checking Ken Ward's Coal Tattoo blog.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED