Chew on this

SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps, play a huge role in helping families keep food on the table. Nationally, 1 in 7 people rely on them. In WV, it's 1 in 5. Here's a fact sheet that lays it out.

SPEAKING OF FOOD, HOW DID EARLY HUMANS GET SMART? Maybe by eating bugs.

SHOCKING. Here's a look at how natural selection helped the electric eel power up.

URGENT BUSHY TAILED VAMPIRE SQUIRREL UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The generosity of the universe

Arpad (pronounced Ar-pod), our Great Pyrenees and security chief for Goat Rope Farm, loves this time of the year. As deer hunters hit the woods, they often leave behind such tasty offerings as legs and spines, sometimes both all joined together. These are sources of delight for a good month or two starting when the leaves start to turn.

The above picture shows his treasure haul for the day. And the season is still young.

For Arpad, it's proof that the universe is bountiful and generous. It's all good. The Pod abides.

HOW BOUT THOSE POLLS? It looks like the government shutdown/hostage crisis thing hasn't worked out too well for House Republicans.

A GRIEF OBSERVED. My friend the Rev. Jim Lewis recently lost his wife Judy after a long battle with cancer. Here are some of his reflections on dealing with loss.

ELEPHANTS get the point. Too bad some people don't.

ENDING THE (REAL) HUNGER GAMES. Here's a look at some recent reforms that provide free meals for all schoolchildren. We're working on that in WV.

WE KNOW FROM "OKLAHOMA" that the farmer and the cowman should be friends. Apparently, it wasn't that easy even thousands of years ago.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

It is time to be old?

This blog has been running a series about the life and writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson for a good while now. As the series draws to a close I'm looking at some of his poems. Today's feature is "Terminus," named after the Roman god of boundaries.

It's interesting because it is about aging and yielding gracefully to it. You can compare and contrast that sentiment with Tennyson's poem Ulysses, in which the hero closes by saying

Though 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.

Emerson, by contrast, aims to trim himself to the storm of time. As it turned out, the poem was prophetic. In his last years, he developed dementia and the man of words developed aphasia, forgetting his own name at times.

As someone who isn't getting a whole lot younger at the moment, I kind of like both poems but at the moment I'm leaning to Tennyson. This weekend I plan on dragging my creaking bones to a half marathon trail run on very hilly ground and I hope not to yield before crossing the finish line. Anyhow, here's one to think about:

Terminus

 It is time to be old,

To take in sail:--

The gods of bounds,

Who sets to seas a shore,

Came to me in his fatal rounds,

And said: 'No more!

No farther shoot

Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root.

Fancy departs: no more invent;

Contract thy firmament

To compass of a tent.

There's not enough for this and that,

Make thy option which of two;

Economize the failing river,

Not the less revere the Giver,

Leave the many and hold the few.

Timely wise accept the terms,

Soften the fall with wary foot;

A little while

Still plan and smile,

And,--fault of novel germs,--

Mature the unfallen fruit.

Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires,

Bad husbands of their fires,

Who, when they gave thee breath,

Failed to bequeath

The needful sinew stark as once,

The Baresark marrow to thy bones,

But left a legacy of ebbing veins,

Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,--

Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,

Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.'

As the bird trims her to the gale,

I trim myself to the storm of time,

I man the rudder, reef the sail,

Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:

'Lowly faithful, banish fear,

Right onward drive unharmed;

The port, well worth the cruise, is near,

And every wave is charmed.'

DO IT. Here's a link to a publication by AFSC on why WV should expand Medicaid coverage.

WHAT WAS FOR SUPPER? According to the earliest known cookware, it was fish soup.

BACK TO THE AGING THING. It looks like today's adults live longer but are less healthy than recent but older generations.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The universal thump

"For my part, I abominate all honorable respectable toils, trials and tribulations of every kind whatsoever."--Ishmael in Moby-Dick.

Here's yet another reason why everyone should read this greatest American novel: most of us are grunts one way or another and the book basically sings the greatness of gruntdom. And even if you have a good gig, you gotta serve somebody, as Dylan sang. Ishmael takes great pride in taking to sea as a simple sailor, even though it means getting ordered about and yelled at.

In his view, the human condition is such that we are all in one way or another a grunt at the disposal of some arbitrary power, even if it is simply that of an indifferent universe:

What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain't a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about-however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way-either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder blades, and be content.

I don't think I have Ishmael's confidence that things equal out over time, but I appreciate the generosity of his sentiment.

WHAT HE SAID. WV's senior senator goes off on the Ryan budget here.

GRANDMOTHERS made us what we are today. Maybe even literally.

THE DONALD HATCHES A DUD. Not much of a Trump card. (Full disclosure: the Spousal Unit and I used to dream of a 2012 Trump/Palin ticket purely for the entertainment value. You betcha.)

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

I felt so symbolic

We interrupt Goat Rope's regularly scheduled Moby-Dick series to celebrate a nice little victory. As noted earlier in this blog, members of Charleston WV's African American community and many white allies mobilized over the last year to add the name of Mary C. Snow, a prominent black educator, to the new West Side Elementary School.

This post from February shows what it's like when hundreds of people turn out for a school board meeting to make a stand. And this post from July celebrates the fact that community members overcame resistance and converted former opponents to support the name change.

On Tuesday night, I was back in the neighborhood and was thrilled to see that it had actually happened. A friend had previously circulated a picture, but I thought it might have been photo-shopped. Like doubting Thomas of old, I had to experience the reality for myself. And it was sweet.

Yes, it was primarily a symbolic victory. Yes, we have much bigger problems to deal with. As a general rule I prefer hard targets (as in policy wins) to symbolic victories, but it occurs to me that humans are, after all, creatures of sign and symbol. And that symbolic victories are sweet as well.

(I am reminded of the lyrics of my favorite song from the 1990s, Mr. Jones by Counting Crows: "I felt so symbolic yesterday.")

POLLS, JESUS, POLITICS AND ALL THAT are discussed in the latest edition of the Rev. Jim Lewis' Notes from Under the Fig Tree.

THE RAW AND THE COOKED. Was cooking the trick that helped early humans develop such big brains? Maybe.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING what was up with former Massey CEO Don Blankenship after Frodo melted the Ring he retired from the company, click here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Unleashing the beast

I try to be a fairly not too terrible person most days, at least when people are looking. But certain things unleash the beast within, effecting a Jeckyll and Hyde transformation in a matter of seconds.

One such thing is the game of Scrabble. Now it so happened that this weekend we had a house full of kids who  asked to play the game. One had played it before but two second graders, including my grandson, were new to the game. I explained to my grandson that in this family Scrabble is not a game but a martial art in which no mercy or quarter is shown to one's opponents. Although I didn't use these exact words, I indirectly implied something to the effect that the goal is to crush one's opponents and drink from their skulls, metaphorically speaking.

We played a game and I attempted to instruct the beginners and help them with their words along the way. But when the scores were tallied...what can I say? In Dylan's words, "I can't help it if I'm lucky."

The other adults present pointed out that I was exulting in the defeat of two 8 year olds and a 12 year old. I pointed out, however, that this is the same mathematically as defeating a 28 year old. Besides, it was Scrabble.

Which means it was on.

POVERTY, WELFARE REFORM AND EVERYTHING AFTER discussed here.

A HUNTING WE DID GO. Early humans, that is.

PLATO AND EXERCISE discussed here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Head-banging sharks

Rock on, dude.

Every so often a news story surfaces that restores my faith, not in the world exactly, but in some small part of it. I was consoled to learn from the Spousal Unit about this story on NPR about the apparent musical preferences of sharks.

Now, if I got to write Nature's script, I would have given sharks a taste for hard rock and roll. It would just seem wrong for them to be fans of Donovan or Brianna or Yoko Ono.

This time, things seem to have worked out my way. According to the radio story,

...when Matt Waller, a charter boat operator in South Australia's Port Lincoln, played "Back in Black" and "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC underwater, he says the sharks become less aggressive. Some even rub their snouts against the caged speakers, which is adorable in a terrifying way.

"I guess the visual people expect is that of a shark with long hair kind of headbanging past the cage doing the air guitar," Waller says in an interview on All Things Considered. "But, of course, sharks don't actually have ears, and it's the frequency and vibration they're after."

If they turn out to like Alice Cooper as well, things will be just perfect on that front.

RULE BY CREDITORS. Here's Krugman's latest.

WANT MORE ECONOMIC GLOOM? Millions of Americans are likely to run out of unemployment benefits this year. And then there's talk of a double dip recession.

ON THE OTHER HAND, West Virginia's economy grew at four percent last year, the fifth highest rate in the nation.

HOT ENOUGH FOR YOU? Get used to it.

OUT OF WHERE? Here's an interesting update on research into human ancestors.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Done deal

It looks like the sale of Massey Energy to Alpha Natural Resources is a done deal. Legal challenges to the sale have been turned back, while shareholders voted yesterday to approve it.

It really is the end of an era. For decades, Massey was a massive presence in West Virginia, not only in the coal industry, but in state politics, the media, and the courts. Its former CEO Don Blankenship was the face of Big Coal.

My initial reaction was to view the sale as a good thing. However, Ken Ward at Coal Tattoo had a great post yesterday about remaining questions regarding Alpha and promises that may have been made to retain key Massey personnel, including those connected to the management of the Upper Big Branch and Aracoma mines.

I can't help but think Alpha would have to get up pretty early in the morning to be worse than Massey in the Bad Old Days. We'll see.

Ward, who for my money is America's best coal reporter, posted this quote from Delaware Judge Leo Strine Jr. about Massey:

Convinced that it knew better than the public authorities charged with enforcing laws designed to make mining a safer and cleaner business, Massey management, with board knowledge, fostered an adversarial relationship with the company’s regulators and accepted as ordinary the idea that the company would regularly be accused of violating important safety regulations.

Of course, when a company has strong opinions about knowing better than the regulators, it is optimal to match that with a record of worker safety and environmental protection that is substantively spotless. But in the case of Massey, no such match existed, at least insofar as one credits actual judgments and other regulation-related losses suffered by the company under Blankenship’s tenure as CEO.

HOW WE GOT IN THIS MESS. Here's a brief from the Economic Policy Institute on the 10th anniversary of the Bush tax cuts.

THIS DIDN'T HELP EITHER. Here's a look at major companies that made big bucks but managed to have a negative tax rate.

SPEAKING OF MESSES, here's Robert Reich on the state of the US economy.

ALL THIS FROM TEETH? Scientists have found clues about the social structure of human ancestors from studying their teeth.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A creepy place

We don't have too many monsters in this pond, aside from a snapping turtle or two.

The theme at Goat Rope lately has been Beowulf, along with links and more or less snarky comments about current events. I chose Beowulf for two reasons. One, it really is a great poem. Two, the WV legislature has been in session and I've been kind of busy watching the chaos, though with precious little so show for it.

Having an ongoing theme at such times is a chance to get down ideas about a classic--and it saves a lot of what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-blog-about time. Now that the session is over (thank God) I plan on winding it down, but not before following the tale to its conclusion.

Some of the most memorable lines occur when Danish king Hrothgar describes the haunted mere or lake where Grendel and his mother dwell. It is there that the hero must go if he is to kill Grendel's mother, who is if anything more fierce than her man-eating son. It is a great description of a REALLY CREEPY PLACE. I'm going to break up the lines to make it easier to read. Enjoy:

"They in a dark land,
Cliffs of wolves, dwell, windy nesses,
Dangerous marshes, where mountain-stream
Under clouds of the nesses flows down below,
Lake under the earth. It is not far hence
In measure by miles that the mere stands,
Over which hang the rustling groves,
Wood firm in its roots; they cover the water.


There one every night a strange wonder may see,
Fire on the flood: so wise a one lives not
Of the children of men that knows its bottom:
Although the heath-stepper pressed by the dogs,
The stag, strong in horns, may seek the grove,
Pursued from afar, his life will he give,
His life on the shore, ere in it he will
Hide there his head.

That 's no unhaunted place;
Thence the boiling of waters rises up high
Wan to the clouds, when the wind rouses,
The hateful storms, while dark grows the air,
The heavens weep. Now is ready counsel
Again in thee alone. The abode yet thou knowest not,
The terrible place, where thou mayest find
The much-sinning being: seek if thou dare.

I for the contest thee will repay
With old-time treasures, as I before did,
With twisted gold, if thou comest away."

As someone who lives around deer and dogs, you know it's a bad place when a deer would rather be torn apart by canines than jump in the water to escape.

JAPAN. This looks really bad. I hope another disaster can be averted.

A TRAGIC ANNIVERSARY. The Triangle Factory Fire, which killed 146 garment workers, mostly young immigrant women, occurred on March 25, 1911. Since we seem to be headed back in the direction of pre-New Deal plutocracy, it might be good to reflect on the bad old days.

THE RIGHT'S LATEST BOOGEY-WOMAN is longtime consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren.

A CASE IN POINT for what Naomi Klein called The Shock Doctrine is Wisconsin.

SOCIALIZING. Here's a look at what made early hominids human.

DO SPERM WHALES HAVE NAMES? Maybe.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Deep in their hearts they remembered hell

An illustration from the 1830s of early efforts to convert Swedes to Christianity a thousand years before.

I've been blogging about Beowulf lately, although you will also find links and comments about current events below. Another thing I find interesting about the poem is the issue of religion. It seems to me that there is a thin veneer of Christianity spread sparsely over a big pagan poem.

The narrator and some of the characters talk about God and an afterlife. There are references to the Bible, but mostly to the book of Genesis, with the monster Grendel and his ilk seen as children of Cain and with references to the Flood and to the "giants in the earth" who flourished before the deluge. But there is no explicit mention of Jesus or any New Testament theme that I could find.

The poem begins and ends with two stories of kingly burial which show more kinship to pagan funeral customs than Christian burial. Beowulf himself was right there with the boys from the Iliad in longing for fame in battle as a kind of immortality. There is little that is Christian in the overall ambiance of the epic.

It may reflect a time when the conversion process, whether of the Anglo-Saxons or the North Sea warrior societies like the Danes and Geats was early and tentative. In the poem, the Danes plagued by Grendel's predations seek help from pagan gods after all else fails:

Sometimes at pagan shrines they vowed
offering to idols, swore oaths
the the killer of souls might come to their aid
and save the people. That was their way,
their heathenish hope; deep in their hearts
they remembered hell.

In nature, estuaries are those interesting places where salt and fresh water meet and all kinds of interesting biological things can be found. Beowulf is a sort of spiritual estuary where the pagan mingles with the Christian in an interesting way.

SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, 1798 style.

I THINK WE KNEW THAT. A panel charged with investigating the financial crisis that led to the Great Recession thinks it was preventable. I think they left out the part about stagnant incomes and growing inequality however.

MORE BUZZ ON MODERNIZING WV'S UNEMPLOYMENT SYSTEM here.

IMAGINING EUROPE, but getting it wrong. Not in a good way.

REFUDIATED. Four hundred rabbis have signed a letter protesting FOX "News" icon Glenn Beck for inappropriate use of Holocaust imagery.

OUT OF AFRICA. Ancient tools found in the United Arab Emirates suggests that some early humans made the trip earlier than previously believed.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

No crony capitalism here, boss!

Talk about a steaming load.

Lots of people are aware of Arizona's tough and controversial anti-immigration bill. NPR yesterday morning had an interesting feature about what REALLY went on behind the scenes.

It turns out a private, for profit corporation, Corrections Corporation of America, sees locking up immigrants as a potential growing new "market" for their business. CCA types and sympathetic politicians hooked up at a meeting of the conservative legislative group ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and drew up a model bill. CCA and allied groups also provided campaign contributions to most of the sponsors.

The idea was that the immigrants to be locked up by the new law would be detained at a private prison run by CCA.

It's just business. And perfectly legal.

It does kind of make one wonder, however, what the next stunt to increase market share might be...

SPEAKING OF STEAMING LOADS, here's a piece on Wall Street's effort to shift the blame for the economic meltdown to poor people.

BALLOT INITIATIVES. Here's a look at a few that are on the menu around the country. I'm so glad WV doesn't do this stuff.

LOOKING AHEAD. Here's one gloomy prognostication.

HEALTH CARE REFORM. WV Senator Jay Rockefeller was a champion of health care reform and he's not running away from it now.

EARLY HUMANS may have hit the road earlier than had previously been thought.

NATURE RED IN TOOTH AND CLAW DEPARTMENT. Assassin bugs have a neat trick for making a meal of spiders.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

That was then, this is now

The first social justice fight that I got really immersed in was the Pittston coal strike of 1989-90 in support of the United Mine Workers. The union worked without a contract for something like 14 months before walking out in April 1989. The main issues in the strike were health care and retirement benefits.

It was pretty hairy and lasted for almost a year. People worked really hard on that one and eventually the miners got a contract they could live with. It was a victory.

A few years later, however, and Pittston got rid of most of its holdings. People were either laid off or went to work for different, often non-union companies.

I'd do it all again. In a heartbeat. But it illustrates another of the Buddha's ideas that I think is relevant to working on social justice issues, to wit that everything is impermanent. We work very hard for things that just aren't going to last forever. We won't either, for that matter. That's just the way it is, although that's no reason not to do all we can.

I've worked hard on policy issues only to gain ground and then lose it again. On the positive side, impermanence is also a characteristic of the things we don't like too, which is always worth keeping in mind. I kept telling myself that several years ago when the misguided policies of the Bush administration seemed to be riding high.

The teaching of impermanence also reminds me that everything changes from moment to moment. In a world of flux, getting stuck in ruts or repetitive actions is a recipe for failure. What worked in the past may not work now. I've seen some activists who seem to be stuck in a time warp trying to recreate some past struggle and I've felt the urge as well, but life unrolls moment to moment.

The only way that I know to stay fresh in a world of impermanence is to pay attention and act in accordance with the demands of the moment. That doesn't mean forgetting the past or its useful lessons or not planning for the future. But you can only do either in the moment.

HELLO, PLUTOCRACY. The growing wealth gap and democracy for sale threatens America, according to Robert Reich.

MORE THAN ONE WAY. A Kansas group has made progress on energy conservation even amid climate change skepticism.

INTERESTING RUMORS are floating around about the possible sale of Massey Energy.

THE STONE AGE DIET PLAN included more than just meat.

IT'S NOT JUST US. Honey bees' memory fades as they age too.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Nature and nurture

Random animal picture.

For the past week or so, I've been thinking and blogging first about human evolution and lately about political and social ideas. I'm about to wade into the murky swamp where these may or may not overlap.

As I mentioned here yesterday, one difference between the political left and right has to do with their respective views of human nature. Those on the right tend to view it as something fixed, whereas those on the left tend to see it as something malleable and shaped by social conditioning.

It seems to me that there's a little truth in both--although both views when taken to extreme have done a lot of harm. Radical utopians after a number of revolutions have killed or harmed lots of people in misguided efforts aimed at moulding new and better people. Those on the other end of the spectrum have likewise done lots of harm, using their fixed view of human nature to justify class, caste, gender, racial, ethnic and colonial domination.

AFTER UNEMPLOYMENT, new jobs often pay less.

WHAT NEW JOBS? Here's a look at what kind of jobs are opening up in the post-recession private sector.

UNEMPLOYMENT. Here's Robert Reich on why it's civilized to extend unemployment benefits.

PARTY ON. The first known example of collective feasting amongst early humans (s0 far) happened around 12,000 years ago. I'll bet they really started long before then.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A reluctant revolutionary

Like some of history's best revolutionaries, Charles Darwin was a reluctant one. He disliked controversy and delayed publishing his main ideas for years until he was nudged into action when the younger scientist Alfred Russel Wallace came up independently with the idea of natural selection.

Although he was ignorant of contemporary developments in the science of heredity-- such as the experiments of Gregor Mendel--and grasped for an explanation of its mechanism, his key ideas of natural selection have stood the test of time. His later work on the similarity of emotions in humans and animals was also ahead of its time and has received significant backup from studies of human and animal brains as well as behavior.

It's another discouraging sign of the times that many Americans deny evolution, which is regarded by scientists as the unifying theory of biology. These are often the same people who deny the science of climate change. I could probably think of any number of snarky Darwinian comments about that but will spare the Gentle Reader.

JUST FINES. Massey Energy led the coal industry in fines and citations in the last quarter, the Charleston Gazette reports.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Progressive billionaire George Soros' hedge fund just increased its ownership of Massey stock to 2.2 million shares.

MEDICINE CABINET BLUES. It looks like El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia is the most medicated in the country.

OUR FAMILY TREE. Mitochondrial DNA research suggests a common mother for humanity around 200,000 years ago.

URGENT ANCIENT TURTLE UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Like the bending of a bow

The current debate about letting Bush-era high end tax cuts expire reminded me of this little gem from the ancient Chinese classic the Tao Te Ching:

The Tao of heaven is like the bending of a bow.
The high is lowered and the low is raised.
If the string is too long, it is shortened;
If there is not enough, it is made longer.

The Tao of heaven is to take from those who have too much
and give to those who do not have enough.
Man's way is different.
He takes from those who do not have enough
to give to those who already have too much.

TWO TAKES ON THE GREAT RECESSION. Here are differing but interesting looks at trend in the economic downturn. First up is this item from David Leonhardt in the NY Times, followed by another view from economist Dean Baker.

GOING GREEN. Here's Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers union, on efforts to grow green manufacturing jobs in the US.

NO CLIMATE CHANGE AROUND HERE, BOSS. Greenland, however, may be a different story.

IF SOUTH CAROLINA CAN DO IT, why can't West Virginia?

GOINGS ON. Over the last few days, the WV state capitol has seen rallies in support of comprehensive immigration reform and same sex marriage.

ONE THE MENU. Some early human ancestors had a taste for meat.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Hillbilly health club, revisited

Our latest exercise equipment.

From time to time, this blog highlights offerings from the Goat Rope Hillbilly Health Club, which features such high tech exercise equipment as chain saws, sledge hammers, splitting mauls, dirty barns, pitchforks and wheel barrows.

On display now is little Edith Ann, one of our aerobic training devices. Longtime viewers of this blog will recognize her but may not realize that a dog might be better than a treadmill when it comes to exercise. A study in Great Britain found that dog-owners who regularly walk their beasts get more exercise in than the average gym-goer.

(Besides, I have a theory that it is an offense against whatever gods may be to use a treadmill on a pretty day.)

In little Edith Ann's case, it's two miles early in the morning and two more at night. At a year old, Edith is pretty high energy but we also have Arpad, a slower model for beginners:



It is not recommended for the same person to walk both at the same time as this can overstretch the arms.

"THE IDIOCY ABOUT UNEMPLOYMENT" is shown no mercy here.

TAKE OUR JOBS, PLEASE! The United Farm Workers union, responding to immigrant bashing, is urging Americans to take some of these low wage, back-breaking jobs. Not too many takers have taken advantage of the opportunity.

ONE NATION. A new umbrella group hopes to counter the Tea Party.

SPEAKING OF WALKING, did bi-pedalism give early humans the edge they needed?

GOOD PARENTS/NOT SO GOOD KIDS. The author of this article suggests some unpleasant personality traits may be more a matter of genes than parenting.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Meet it and live it

El Cabrero has been winding his way through Thoreau's Walden again and I'm just about at the end of it. Sometimes funny, sometimes inspiring and insightful and sometimes exasperating, I've never failed to get something out of it.

Here's another little gem, extracted from a passage where he talks nonsense about poverty:

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise.

Odd as he was, Thoreau pretty much did that. It's harder than it sounds.

DEMOCRACY. Here are some tips on making it work.

A PROGRAM THAT WORKS. A little-known program of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is putting people to work.

TWO DEFICITS. Here's yet another call for addressing the jobs deficit first.

ALBION. Evidence from an archaeological dig suggests that early humans or their relatives inhabited England much earlier than previously believed.

THE POLITICS OF VIDEO GAMES is discussed here. Much seems to involve blowing up people and things and accumulating stuff.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Castles in the air

Some passages from literature seem to suffer from being quoted too often. But this one from Thoreau towards the end of Walden keeps its power for me because it rings true with at least a few of my own experiments.

Here goes:

I learned this, at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty, poverty, nor weakness, weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.

SO MUCH FOR THE WISDOM OF CROWDS. A study suggests home team performance can influence voting behavior.

A DIRECT APPROACH. From the Northwest, here's a call for direct job creation along New Deal lines.

SO MUCH FOR "CLIMATEGATE." A British investigation has exonerated scientists from falsifying climate change data.

EARLY HUMANS may have traveled to Europe earlier than previously believed.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Would you were so honest a man

Was Hamlet crazy for love?

Goat Rope's meander through Hamlet continues, although if you've had enough of that you can scroll on down to the links and comments section.

As I mentioned yesterday, Polonius, father of Laertes and Ophelia and advisor to Claudius, is a twit. That is to say he is the Platonic form of twitness incarnate. He is at his twitty best (or worst) when he is caught up in his own verbiage.

One of the most amusing/irritating examples of this is when he tries to tell Claudius and Gertrude that he thinks Hamlet has gone mad through love of Ophelia. The scene occurs after diplomats have returned from Norway with news of an averted war:

This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.

You can't blame Gertude for asking for more matter with less art. But Polonius is just getting warmed up:

Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis 'tis true: a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause...

It doesn't get much better when he tries to engage the apparently mad Hamlet in conversation. Here's just a bit:

LORD POLONIUS: Do you know me, my lord?

HAMLET: Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

LORD POLONIUS: Not I, my lord.

HAMLET: Then I would you were so honest a man.

In homage to this exchange, we take it as an article of faith at Goat Rope Farm that people who sell fish are paragons of veracity.

SNOW WHAT? Here's a little reminder that snow and global warming can go hand in hand.

GIRL POWER. New studies indicate that team sports bring lasting benefits to girls.

I PREFER COFFEE. Here's an interesting description of the recent TEA Party conference.

ANCIENT MARINERS (MINUS ALBATROSS). Archaeological evidence in Crete suggests that early humans or related species took to sea as early as 130,000 years ago.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Better late than never

This blog has been up and running for nearly four years (come March). In all that time, I've gone off on various jags about Dante, Homer, mythology, philosophy, etc., aside from all the links and comments about current events.

But, while Shakespeare has shown up here quite a few times, he hasn't gotten any extended attention. I'm not sure how that happened given my love for the Bard and his sheer greatness, but I intend to remedy it right away.

For the next stretch, I intend to give him a bit of his due, with a special focus on Hamlet, my personal favorite and a character Harold Bloom referred to as "the intellectual's Christ." I don't know about that and I'm no literary critic, thank the gods, but like the guy said I know what I like.

For starters, I like the tragedies better than the comedies (the way to tell them apart, by the way, is whether there is a wedding or a bunch of dead bodies at the end). I'm not sure why this is, but I even find the funny parts of them to be more amusing than those of the comedies. I think one reason Hamlet works for me is its dark humor.

More on that to come.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, a screenwriter is attempting to combine Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona with The Big Lebowski. This could be a sign of the apocalypse. But...I'm calmer than you are.

EUROPE, the new USSR according to conservative fantasies, isn't exactly an economic backwater.

RECESSION PROOF? One business that seems to be doing OK in hard times is dog walking, according to this NPR story. It occurs to me that if I paid someone to do it, I'd be contributing to GDP.

ANOTHER SIGN OF THE TIMES from the same source: in the wake of the recession, the number of unclaimed bodies has increased because survivors can't pay for funeral expenses.

GOING TO SEA. Early humans may have done it way sooner than previously thought.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED