OK, I'm tired and cranky, but...

...I think the definition of disgrace is to kill a bill like Move to Improve, which would promote healthy physical activity for WV's schoolchildren, while at the same time passing "the cupcake bill," which promotes obesity. Nice job, WV House Education committee. Not.

Either binary or not

Portrait of the anthropologist as a young man. Claude Levi-Strauss in the 1930s. Image by way of wikipedia.

A few years back, and for reasons that now escape me, I went on a reading jag of books about anthropology, semiotics (the study of signs), structuralism, and literary theory.

I think I must have been really bored.

It was kind of amusing as long as I didn't take it too seriously. The Spousal Unit was probably right when she said to pretend like it was science fiction.

One person whose work I grappled with was French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, who recently died at the age of 100. Not that I read all the way through his major tomes--even El Cabrero has his limits--but I read some snippets and several secondary works.

I probably missed a lot, but it seems to me like he was right about one of his major ideas (assuming I'm getting this right). The human mind seems to kind of like a fishing tackle box and we seem to be hardwired to classify things and put them in different compartments. Each culture seems to have its own classification system but the urge to classify remains the same.

The systems themselves are kind of arbitrary from the outside, with each part only having a meaning in relation to others within it. To use an example from linguistics, there is nothing about the symbols c-a-t that necessarily refer to a feline; it only does so within the context of the system of modern English.

We seem to be especially disposed towards binary categories: us/them, good/bad, raw/cooked, etc. Even when we try to break away from our cultural conditioning, we seem to substitute a different binary system for the old one.

As someone once said, there are two kinds of people in the world: those who break things into two major categories and those who don't. Like it or lump it...

DYING FOR HEALTH CARE. A new study from Johns Hopkins Children's Center found that uninsured children were 60 percent more likely to die after entering a hospital than those with insurance. This is probably because the uninsured typically don't receive preventive care and wait to seek treatment until there is a crisis.

TV NATION. Young children who watch a lot of television may be more disposed to aggressive behavior.

STATE BUDGET. West Virginia may be looking at budget shortfalls in excess of $100 million, although it is doing better than many other states. This highlights the need to make maximum use of funds available from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

EYE WIDE OPEN

The Goat Rope series on the Odyssey of Homer resumes today. You will also find links and comments about current events. If you like this kind of thing, check back on earlier weekday posts.

If people remember any episode in the Odyssey, it's generally the one where Odysseus visits the island of the cyclopes and has a run-in with the one-eyed giant Polphemus. It is pretty memorable.

To briefly recap, after the end of the Trojan War, Odysseus and his men (around 600 to start with in several ships) make a gratuitous raid on the Circoneans, which ends badly. Then they land at home of the Lotus Eaters, who are blissed-out stoners who offer his men the addictive drug that makes them forget all about going home. He forces them, "with streaming tears," back to their ships.

From there we sailed on, our spirits now at a low ebb,
and reached the land of the high and might Cyclops,
lawless brutes, who trust so to the everlasting gods
they never plant with their own hands or plow the soil.
Unsown, unplowed, the earth teems with all they need,
wheat, barley and vines, swelled by the rains of Zeus
to yield a big full-bodied wine from clustered grapes.
They have no meeting place for council, no laws either,
no, up on the mountain peaks they live in arching caverns--
each a law to himself, ruling his wives and children,
not a care for any neighbor.

They land first at a nearby island, teeming incidentally with wild goats. They could easily stock up on game and head on home to Ithaca. Odysseus, however, can't leave things well enough alone. Gazing across to the island, he says,

'The rest of you stay here, my friends-in-arms.
I'll go across with my own ship and crew
and probe the natives living over there.
What are they--violent, savage, lawless?
or friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?'

It might be rational to do a rapid recon and get the hell out, but our boy is addicted to adventure--or terrified of boredom. Oddly, he decides to take along a large skin of super strong wine. As John Prine might say, he's "wishin' for bad luck and knockin' on wood."

In the end, his curiosity will mean a gruesome death for six of his men. About which more tomorrow.

THE NEXT BIG THING. Here's an op-ed by Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research about the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier and safer for workers to join unions. In El Cabrero's humble opinion, this would be the most significant legislation in decades and could help reduce poverty and rebuild the nation's battered middle class.

ON A SIMILAR NOTE, here are Labor Day reflections from Larry Matheney of the WV AFLCIO.

SICK KIDS. West Virginia ranks second in the nation in the percentage of children with chronic illnesses. From the Charleston Gazette,

About 18 percent of West Virginia children - 69,500 kids - have special health needs or chronic illnesses, such as asthma and diabetes. Only Kentucky has a higher percentage - 18.5 percent.

WEALTH, WORK AND INEQUALITY is the subject of this interesting op-ed.

BEACHFRONT PROPERTY? Climate change-induced increases in sea level over the next century could be higher than predicted, according to some scientists.

ANIMALS AND DEATH. How do they deal with it?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED