Calling all politicians who pretend to care about miners: prove it

Politicians around the country have shed a lot of crocodile tears for coal miners and their families in recent years. I suspect that many of these have been theatrical in nature.

Now there are a couple of chances to find out who’s for real and who isn’t. Two bills have been introduced in Congress that could make a real difference for coalfield communities.

One is Senate Bill 27, the American Miners Act of 2019, introduced by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and supported by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.

It’s basically about keeping promises.

The bill would modify the federal Surface Mining Reclamation and Control Act of 1977 to allow funds to be transferred to the 1974 United Mine Workers Pension Plan, which was originally created by President Harry Truman in 1946 to ensure health and pension benefits to the miners who put themselves at risk for decades to build the country’s industrial might and raise the standard of living. It would impose no new costs to taxpayers.

The UMWA pension fund has taken hits over the years. One of these was the most recent recession, which hit hard around 10 years ago. Even worse has been the steady stream of corporate bankruptcies.

(Sad to say but, these days, it seems like it’s easier for coal companies to dodge paying promised benefits than it is for an ordinary worker to get relief from student loan debt.)

According to Manchin, “In the past two years, contributions into the plan have dropped by more than $100 million, leaving less than $25 million per year still coming into it. The average pension is $600 per month, modest by most standards, but still critical to the 87,000 beneficiaries who depend on it.”

Capito told WV MetroNews: “These retirees are not getting rich on their pension plans and they are not taking lavish expenditures. Without this monthly benefit, many of them would be living on the edge of poverty, if they are not already.”

The bill would also prop up funding for black lung benefits for miners and their families by extending the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax for 10 years. This step is urgently needed because the problem is getting worse.

According to a 2018 NPR news report, “One in five working coal miners in central Appalachia who have worked at least 25 years now suffer from the coal miners’ disease black lung ... . It’s the highest rate in a quarter-century and indicates that the disease continues to afflict more miners in Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia.”

In 2017, the U.S. Department of Labor estimated that black lung has killed more than 76,000 people since 1968. Unfortunately, we can only expect those numbers to increase in the future. In 2018, more than 25,000 miners and dependents received benefits from the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund.

Another bipartisan measure that could benefit coalfield communities is the RECLAIM Act (House Resolution 2156), which stands for “Revitalizing the Economy of Coal Communities by Leveraging Local Activities and Investing More.”

RECLAIM would release money from the Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Fund to help communities clean up some of the damage caused by mining—and its decline. It could also help put former miners and other dislocated workers back to work.

Both of West Virginia’s senators have supported the principles of the RECLAIM Act. A version of the bill cleared the House Natural Resources Committee on May 1.

These bills obviously aren’t a total fix to undo the harm done to workers, communities and environments over the last 100 or so years, but they would be steps in the right direction. And a promise is a promise.

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

What would Dante say?

The Gentle Reader may recall an expose by the Center for Public Integrity and ABC News a while back about how coal companies, their lawyers, and a lab at Johns Hopkins routinely collaborated to deny miners black lung benefits.

According to news reports, Hopkins has terminated that program, which will forever be a scar on the institution. It should never have existed to start with. I wonder how many miners died before getting the benefits they deserved

One doctor there, and I use the term loosely, is said not to have found a single case of black lung in the more than 1,500 cases he investigated. Since then, the federal government has informed around 1,100 miners that they were wrongly denied benefits.Of course, they only informed the ones who still lived.

All of which makes me wonder what circle in Hell Dante would assign to those responsible. I'm guessing it would be somewhere in Malebolge, the eight circle, which is reserved for fraud, or maybe even the icy ninth, which is reserved for those who betray. I think it's a safe bet that he'd put them way down.

With the old breed

The title of this post comes from a great World War II memoir by Eugene Sledge, who told his story of horrific battles in the Pacific Theater of that war, which was where my father and two uncles served. It came to mind today when I met a veteran of a different kind of struggle, although he was probably a military veteran as well.

The occasion was a small community forum on ending child poverty in a coal mining community in southern West Virginia. I was privileged to meet and talk briefly with one of the Old Breed of West Virginia coal miners, union men (they were mostly men) who know what it means not only to work hard in a dangerous calling but to stand together in solidarity and fight back against corporate greed.

In these sad days, when union membership has declined and CEOs pose as protectors of the workers (like weasels claiming to  protect chickens), such voices are hard to find and are all too seldom heard. I was glad to hear it again. I can't say how much I've missed hearing it. If only such voices were as common today as in the past...

Fittingly, the meeting took place near Cabin Creek, the site of a major episode in the WV mine wars of 100 years ago.

THERE'S STILL HOPE for more prosecutions in the wake of the 2010 Upper Big Branch mine disaster. May the goddess Nemesis be swift to render that which is due. And if she isn't swift, may she at least be sure.

A POSITIVE TREND. I mentioned in yesterday's post the WV is getting smarter about how it approaches criminal justice and prison issues. Here's an item that shows similar progress in dealing with school discipline problems.

ONE MORE THING. The Future Fund cleared another hurdle in the state senate. Now it heads to the floor. I want this one bad.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Hamlet, revenge!

Several years ago, my judo teacher died. He was a great guy who volunteered his talents for years after hectic days as a public school administrator.

Although his mobility was impaired toward the end by old injuries, his chokes were sublime. When he sunk one on you, it didn't hurt at all. It felt like you were taking a nice long nap.

I attended his funeral with several of his other students. The thought occurred to us at the time that if this was a Chinese movie, we'd be plotting revenge right now. For the uninitiated, a standard plot in many martial arts movies is avenging the death of a teacher.

Revenge has been the theme of a great deal of literature, not to mention history, but the Elizabethans were really bonkers about it. Revenge plays became a major genre of the the theater during the Golden Age of English theater in the late 1500s and early 1600s (i.e. before the Puritans ruined everything).

The genre of revenge plays was influenced by the Roman writer and philosopher Seneca. In a typical revenge play, someone--often a legitimate ruler or powerful person--is murdered and replaced by another powerful figure. Sometimes the ghost of the slain person will appear to a protagonist and urge them to take vengeance. Then follows a period of intrigue and subterfuge leading up to the final crisis. The protagonists and his accomplices may die before its over.

Sound familiar? Shakespeare hit all these notes in Hamlet but whacked the whole genre in the process. Harold Bloom calls it "Shakespeare's revenge upon revenge tragedy..."

PEACOCKS. Krugman's latest column focuses on the difference between posturing and real solutions to the nation's economic problems.

HEALTH CARE moves from center stage, for now.

TRAMPS LIKE US, baby, we were born to run barefoot. (The story doesn't say where, however.)

COAL. Ken Ward's Coal Tattoo has an interesting post on the EPA's new approach to mining permits.

LANGUAGES. A new view of how languages evolve challenges earlier models. Simplicity seems to help determine which ones spread the farthest.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Short rations

Random goat picture.

When this blog first got off the ground back in early 2006, a major fight was on to raise the minimum wage, which had been stagnant for around a decade. At the time, several of us usual suspects were trying for the first time to get El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia to raise it about the federal level as a way of nudging Congress to do the same.

Some early posts here were more or less panicked accounts of the bill's ups and downs. It did eventually pass, although it had so many loopholes that some people questioned the value of the legislation.

I tend to believe in taking the ground you can and then worrying about the rest. At any rate, coalitions at the state and national level pushed to raise it at the state and federal level. Each state win contributed to the momentum to raise the federal. The fact that the minimum wage was on the ballot in some states in 2006 may even have encouraged more people who don't usually vote to come out and may have swayed results of congressional elections in some states.

Anyhow, in 2007 Congress finally acted, passing legislation that raised it from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 in three steps, the last of which took place on July 24. Workers in 31 states, including West Virginia, will receive a boost; in 19 states, minimum wages were already at or about the $7.25 figure.

According to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, this increase will directly affect 2,814,000 workers and will have an indirect spillover impact on 1,640,000. Altogether, 4,454,000 workers will receive some kind of increase. In West Virginia, the increase will directly affect 63,000 workers and indirectly affect another 32,000 for a total impact on 95,000.

More details to come.

I'd wager that those who do get a boost will spend it pretty quickly.

HOUSE. As I mentioned in the weekend post, the American Friends Service Committee worked with people in Logan County to do something positive in the wake of a widely publicized case involving the torture of an African American woman there in 2007. Here's more press coverage of the dedication of a house built by community members for two elderly sisters who had been living in an unsafe and inaccessible place.

MINING CONTROVERSIES are the subject of this op-ed by yours truly.

HEALTH CARE. The issue of subsidies to help people buy insurance is a key sticking point now.

OK, so ants may be smarter than us.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

And the pleasures are few

One thing that's sad about current coalfield controversies is that they sometimes seem to pit people against each other who should be on the same side. An example might be people who work in and around mines that engage in destructive practices and people who live nearby whose wells are ruined.

As I mentioned yesterday, this is a time when miners more than ever need an independent voice distinct from--and when necessary in opposition to--the companies which employ them. Without naming any names (not that I need to) some who have been most active in trying to destroy the United Mine Workers union also engage in the most environmentally damaging practices. And then they have the gall to present themselves as the voice and defender of miners.

I'm trying to think of an appropriate analogy, but the closest I can get right now is Claudius posing as the protector of Hamlet and grieving heir of the brother he murdered in Shakespeare's play.

I don't think working people have ever gained much by groveling.

A CALL FOR PEACE IN THE COALFIELDS came from the WV Council of Churches in the wake of increasing heated controversies over mountaintop removal and climate change. As I wrote earlier this week, I wouldn't be surprised if someone got killed before this is over.

FEELING THE STRAIN. Many states are borrowing to pay for rising unemployment insurance claims. Fortunately, WV address the solvency of its fund during the last regular legislative session (although that was quite a fight).

COOL COSMIC PICTURE of a galaxy with a black hole at the center here.

HERE'S HOPING YOU WON'T NEED THIS. From The Nation, 10 things you might need to know about being homeless.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Where the dangers are double

"I remember the ways in the bygone days
when we was in our prime
How us and John L. give the old man hell
down in the Blue Diamond Mine"

El Cabrero is basically a labor person. The issues that interest me and the ones that I've spent the most time working on are those that affect working and low income people. Unions have always important in that department and always should be.

In West Virginia, the union that has had the biggest impact historically has been the United Mine Workers of America. It has had good times and bad times but its high points were high indeed.

Founded in 1890, it was an early example of an industrial union, one which aimed to include everyone who worked in and around the mines, regardless of skill level. It was always racially integrated and reached out to immigrant labor, often having several different language committees working in the same big mines. And it fought titanic battles (sometimes literally) with companies to improve conditions for miners.

The UMWA helped give birth to the mass industrial unions of the CIO during the 1930s, which eventually enabled millions of workers to earn a living wage with benefits and enter the middle class. It has also often led the charge for workplace safety and for things like black lung benefits.

Unfortunately, the UMWA has been hit by all kinds of changes over the last several decades, starting with automation and the switch to less labor intensive (and, many would add, more destructive) kinds of mining.

It has also been the target of a major union busting campaign beginning in the 1980s, with Massey playing the key role.

Sometimes the UMWA is singled out for criticism by environmentalists, but their position is that their job is to represent their members, who don't get to decide under what conditions coal is to be mined. And they are caught in a bind over climate change and the future of coal, regardless of what happens with mountaintop removal.

It's a tough situation. But I think the position and interests of people who work in mining would be much stronger in all these controversies if the union itself was larger and stronger. It would be better positioned to take a stand independent of the coal companies who now claim to represent their interests.

It is really galling for me to see the same companies that have worked so hard to destroy the union to claim to be the protector and beneficiary of miners.

FORKED TONGUES. Opponents of health care reform are following a carefully crafted script.

GO TEAM! From the same source, the Episcopal Church passed a resolution supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.

USING THE T WORD. This item talks taxes.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

"One sorrow for today, another for tomorrow"

The reunion of Orestes and Electra. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

"What human soul can pass through life
untouched by suffering to the end?
Oh, no, there's none.
One sorrow for today, another for tomorrow, comes."

Goat Rope's series on Greek tragedy continues. You'll also find links and comments about current events below. At this point, we're on The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus, the second part of the only surviving tragic trilogy. the theme of the trilogy is the emergence of democracy and the rule of law after a long series of violent events.

The first part of the trilogy, the Agamemnon, was discussed last week. In it, the title character who led Greek forces in the Trojan war is murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus on his return. This is an act of vengeance for Agamemnon's sacrificing of his daughter Iphigenia ten years earlier at the command of Artemis to gain winds for the Trojan expedition. The couple then establish a tyranny in Argos.

The Libation Bearers is the next chapter in a long series of acts of violence. In it, Orestes, son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, returns in secret after years of exile. He has come with his friend Plyades at the command of the god Apollo, who has ordered him to kill Agamemnon's murderers or face terrible punishments himself.

He places a lock of his hair on the grave of Agamemnon then hides as a group of women approaches. They are led by his sister Electra, who was ordered by her mother to offer libations at the grave placate the spirit of Agamemnon. Clytemnestra has been suffering from bad dreams and an uneasy conscience since the murder.

Electra, who has suffered mistreatment at the hands of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, is reunited with Orestes at the graveside. Together they plot revenge, with the eager support of the chorus. He pretends to be a pilgrim coming with news of his own death and knocks at the door of the palace.

Orestes asks to see Aegisthus to bring the news and quickly kills him. The climax of the play is the confrontation of Orestes and Clytemnestra, who has dreamed of giving birth to a serpent who kills her. The serpent was Orestes.

As soon as the deed is done, Orestes is haunted and driven to madness by the Furies, dark underworld goddesses who punish blood guilt. As the play closes, there seems to be no end in sight for the curse upon this family. The last words of the chorus are:

Oh, when shall it finish, when shall it sate--
lie down to sleep--this fury bound hate?

KEEP IT UP. Voices are already calling for the Obama administration to cease recovery efforts. Paul Krugman thinks that would be a very bad idea.

THEN AND NOW. Here's an op-ed/book review by yours truly from yesterday's Sunday Gazette-Mail.

HEALTH CARE. Here's why we need a public option.

GREEN JOBS. Here's Ken Ward in Coal Tattoo discussing green jobs for the coalfields.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Noble savages

People seem to be genetically wired to make, tell and see stories and we often tend to endlessly recycle a few basic kinds of story types.

One that's particularly popular in America today is the action movie, with clear good guys and bad guys and a happy ending. That can be entertaining, but it's not always the best lens to look at social problems. As I've argued earlier this week, a lot of life is more like a tragedy of conflicting rights and wrongs.

The coal industry version of the action movie is that coal mining, including mountaintop removal, is the best thing that ever happened to West Virginia and that environmentalists or people serious about regulation are the serpent in this Garden of Eden. (Coal is also clean and carbon neutral, which is kind of like booze without alcohol.) Which is, of course, a product of bovine digestion.

I dislike mountaintop removal, support stronger regulation of the industry, and would like to see it phased out. But I've noticed that some articles on the subject by out of state environmental writers have an action movie of their own going on. According to this one, the good guys are a bunch of Appalachian Noble Savages standing as one against the evil coal companies. The assumption is that if the practice just ended today, everything would be great.

I'm not that worried about the evil coal company part of this action movie frame (which kind of works in some cases) but the rest is over-simplified. While probably a majority of West Virginians oppose the practice according to the public opinion research I've seen, this is a contested issue all the way down. There are noble and ignoble savages and non-savages on different sides of the issue.

There are no doubt people who work on mountaintop removal jobs who don't like it deep down inside. And there are people who personally oppose it but accept it for economic or political reasons. Lots of people are conflicted to one degree or another for various reasons.

The happy ending part is also over-simplified. I think the results for southern West Virginia are going to be tragic no matter what happens. If it goes on as it has in the past, there will be huge environmental devastation, water contamination, floods, coal-related health problems, etc., not to mention more climate change impacts. And if it stops, there will be some job losses and a loss of revenue for public services from coal severance taxes.

According to the US Energy Information Agency, in 2007 there were 6,608 surface mining jobs in West Virginia.

While I don't think coal companies have historically paid enough in taxes in light of the damage they've done and the wealth they've extracted, revenues generated from severance taxes make up an important part of West Virginia's budget, lately bringing over $300 million per year to the state's general revenue fund. According to a state tax official, around 85 percent of that is from coal.

Severance taxes are part of the reason why the state was slower to experience the fiscal impact of the current recession. And around 80 percent of state general revenue funds go to public and higher education and human services. And even if nothing changes as far as coal regulation goes, when it's gone it's gone.

El Cabrero is not seeing a whole lot of happy endings. Whatever happens, I'm seeing more of a tragedy than an action movie.

I'm reminded of a quote attributed to Woody Allen:

“Today we are at a crossroads. One road leads to hopelessness and despair; the other, to total extinction. Let us pray we choose wisely.”

I'll try to find a silver lining tomorrow....

WHILE WE'RE AT IT, here's Ken Wards latest blog post on the Obama administration's approach to the issue.

AND THEN THERE'S THIS. This article looks at research on carbon capture.

THE PATH TO WAR (BUT WHERE'S THE EXIT?). The latest edition of the Rev. Jim Lewis' Notes From Under the Fig Tree looks at the war in Iraq and especially Afghanistan.

SIGN OF THE TIMES. The recession is filling and stressing libraries.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Tragedy or action movie?

Antigoneby Frederic Leighton, 1882. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

It seems to El Cabrero that the kinds of stories a culture tells itself shapes the way the people within it view the world. US residents, alas, have been fed a bit overmuch on a diet of action movies and french (freedom?) fries.

In action movies, there are definite good guys and bad guys with little or no ambiguity. The good guys usually win (in the US version anyway) and the bad guys lose and there's a happy ending.

Real life, however, is often more like a Greek tragedy than an action movie. There may be some better or worse characters, but it often involves clashes of rights and wrongs--and there will be some casualties by the time it's over.

Sophocles Antigone is a case in point. Antigone is a daughter of Oedipus. Her brother was slain outside the gates of Thebes for trying to overthrow the ruler Creon. Creon decrees that his body is to be left unburied. For ancient Greeks and other Mediterranean cultures, not being buried was considered to be worse than dying.

Antigone is torn between duties to the state--Creon, after all, was a legitimate ruler and her brother had no claim to power--and those to her conscience, her family and the gods. She can't keep all of them happy. In an act that some have described as world literature's first instance of civil disobedience, she buries her brother but must face the consequences by being buried alive under orders from Creon.

The ruler Creon suffers in turn. His beloved son Haemon was betrothed to Antigone and kills himself when he finds that she is dead. Creon's wife Eurydice likewise kills herself on learning of the death of her son, cursing Creon with her last breath. In the end, Creon is disgraced and despised by all Greece for his arrogance.

(I never said Greek tragedies weren't a downer. The same, however, could be said about much of real life.)

Former President George Bush was all about action movies--smoking the bad guys out of their holes. That worked out pretty well, huh? But people use the action movie frame across the political spectrum.

Occasionally the gods may give us an action movie type fight--a struggle with little or no ambiguity. Such fights are rare and precious. Much more often, however, we live in the realm of the tragic.

OH GOOD, HE SAID, WITH IRONY. Here's an item on coal to liquids and some of the problems that go with it.

A LITTLE GOOD NEWS. Blair Mountain in Logan County WV, the site of a 1921 historic battle between coal companies and miners fighting for the right to organize, has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.

SPEAKING OF GOAT ROPES, here's something to think about regarding Iraq.

SHELTER FROM THE STORM? Maybe not. Six million American families may face losing their homes through foreclosure in the next three years.

WHILE WE'RE AT IT, the NY Times reported yesterday that things are getting so bad that some banks are walking away from houses they foreclosed.

RUNNING AND EVOLUTION. There is a connection.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: TRAGIC

Travelin' on down that coal town road

Osage, WV, circa 1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia is in the midst of another coal controversy. Specifically, our ruling class is winding itself into hissy fit mode over the possibility that the Obama administration may actually regulate the coal industry.

It was the more or less official policy of the Bush administration to let it do whatever it wanted to whomever or whatever it wanted whenever it wanted.

I have no great love for my state's ruling class and even less of an inclination to fight its battles. They're pretty good at looking out for themselves. But I've always felt empathy for the people who mine the coal, and especially for the members and supporters of the United Mine Workers of America, who have written some of the most inspiring pages in labor history, often in their own blood.

One sad feature of today's coal controversies is that they sometimes understandably but tragically pit union members against others working to protect the environment or the health of coalfield communities. Although people here are pretty good at working on issues where there's agreement and parting company on others, I will leave it to the Gentle Reader to guess who the big winner is on such occasions.

It wasn't always that way. In fact, the first big struggle I got involved in as something other than a spectator was the Pittston coal strike of 1989-1990, in which labor and community groups rallied in support of workers and retirees. As such fights go, that was a good one, although there was no lasting happy ending. About which, more to come.

SPEAKING OF COAL, if you want to keep up on the latest developments in all such things, I highly recommend Coal Tattoo, which is written by award-winning Charleston Gazette environmental reporter Ken Ward. And here's an op-ed arguing that greater regulation won't be the end of the world.

SPEAKING OF GOOD FIGHTS, here's an op-ed by yours truly about one going on now. Short version: if WV modernizes its unemployment insurance policies so that more people can be protected during this recession, we can draw down $33 million more in stimulus money.

To get the first 1/3, we need to change the base period for calculating benefits and eligibility. To get the rest, we need to make at least two of the following four changes: include part-time workers, include people who can't work for family-related reasons such as domestic violence; include people in job training programs; and/or provide an allowance for dependents.

There's enough money from the stimulus package to fund these changes for seven years. If, after that period, the state can't afford to continue benefits, it can make changes then.

So what's the problem?

LEGALIZED GAMBLING. Here's Paul Krugman on the international financial crisis.

RELIGION. Here's a controversial article on the future of evangelicalism.

BUDGET PRIORITIES. A number of groups in WV, including AFSC, are supporting the main goals outlined in President Obama's proposed federal budget.

CRABS SAY "OUCH!" Well, maybe not literally, but the latest evidence shows that crustaceans can feel and remember pain. (El Cabrero has long abhorred the unsportsmanlike practice of boiling lobsters alive.)

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

GOOD CROWD, BAD CROWD

Caption: This is a bad crowd.

Large groups of people have a pretty bad reputation in many circles.

The Christian existential philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said "The crowd is untruth."

In 1841, Charles Mackay wrote the popular Extradordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, wherein he said,

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

Our old pal Nietzsche said that "Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule."

Freud, in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, saw in any crowd a potential mob, noting that

when individuals come together in a group all their individual inhibitions fall away and all the cruel, brutal and destructive instincts which lie dormant in individuals as relics of a primitive epoch, are stirred up to find free gratification.

Gustave Le Bon, an earlier writer who influenced Freud, said "In crowds it is stupidity and not mother wit that is accumulated."

Erich Fromm, in Escape from Freedom described the ways people sometimes seek to evade anxiety by seeking submersion in a larger group.

The dangers of the egotism and imperialism of groups was the theme of the great theologian Reinhold Niebuhr's classic Moral Man and Immoral Society (although Niebuhr had some doubts about the morality of individuals as well).

Earlier series and posts in this blog looked at the problems caused by obedience to authority and conformity.

Some interesting things have been written recently, however, that talk about the good side of groups. But that will keep until tomorrow. As Scarlett said, "Tomorrow is another day."

THIS COULD GET INTERESTING. West Virginia native and country music star Kathy Mattea is starting to speak out about mountaintop removal mining and climate change, as Ken Ward reports in today's Charleston Gazette. She is currently working on a project of coal-related music.

ATTACK OF THE GIANT PENGUINS. This is not a burning issue of our time, but scientists have discovered a 5 foot tall penguin that lived 36 million years ago in Peru. This baby had bigger jaw muscles than the current crop and a foot long beak.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

CAUGHT IN A TALE

Caption: This man is liable to tell you anything.

The guiding thread through this week's Goat Rope will be a series of musings on how people explain the world, along with many other topics.

Let me explain.

One of the main ways that people make sense of the world is through stories. We are creatures of story and it seems to be our nature to construct narratives that explain our world.

Some scholars, such as Walter Burkert, who has written a lot about mythology, ancient Greece, and religion, believe we're hardwired for stories at the biological level.

Stories aren't the only way we try to make sense of the world, but they are probably the oldest and most deeply rooted way of doing it. Other ways include but aren't limited to rational speculation and scientific investigation. But even then, when it comes to the telling, it usually takes the form of a story.

We often see or construct stories when there's no basis for it.

And no matter how old we get, there's always a little of the child's "Tell me a story!" in there somewhere.

More on that next time.

SPEAKING OF STORIES, HERE'S ONE: a study of health care systems in the U.S. and Canada found the latter performing as well as the former at a fraction of the cost and with universal coverage:

TORONTO (CP) - Health outcomes for patients in Canada are as good as or better than in the United States, even though per capita spending is higher south of the border, suggest Canadian and U.S. researchers who crunched data from 38 studies...

"In looking at patients in Canada with a specific diagnosis compared to Americans with the same diagnosis, in Canada patients had at least as good an outcome as their American counterparts - and in many situations, a better health outcome," said one of the 17 authors, Dr. P.J. Devereaux, a cardiologist and clinical epidemiologist at McMaster University in Hamilton.


"And that is important because in the United States, they're currently spending a little over $7,100 per individual on health care annually, whereas in Canada we're spending a little over $2,900 per individual annually," he said in a telephone interview from Brantford, Ont.

REINING IN CEO PAY. According to Business Week,

The House voted Friday to give shareholders at public corporations a voice in executive pay packages that typically equal 500 times the salaries of workers at those companies.

The shareholder vote under the bill would be advisory only. But Democratic backers of this provision said that investors need a say when companies losing money or laying off workers are paying executives eight- and nine-figure salaries and retirement packages.

"This is not an aberration, and there is a hue and a cry from the American people across the American landscape that is saying something must be done," said Rep. David Scott, D-Ga.

The bill will fact a tough fight in the Senate and is opposed by the White House.

MINERS DIE, CEO PAY HIGH. Rescued from last week's news, International Coal Group's CEO was paid $1.6 million in 2006, the year 12 miners died at Sago and the company's stock fell by 42 percent. But that's nothing compared with the compensation of Massey CEO Don Blankenship, who received nearly $27 million. That's enough to buy almost anything...except maybe an election.


GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED