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

Sweeping the Street

I haven't been following the financial reform debate as closely as health care and my opinion on that topic mostly consists of thinking that we need some. But even with the polarized political climate, Politico yesterday reported that there's a good chance for some kind of reform to pass the Senate with at least some bi-partisan support.

I do have one recommendation, not that anybody is sitting on the edge of his or her seat waiting to hear it. If and when a new agency to protect consumers is established, I hope the catbird seat goes to Elizabeth Warren, a former Harvard Law School professor who grew up in poverty and is now overseeing TARP. Here's an article about her from this week's NY Times.

Warren has long been an outstanding advocate for consumers, a leading expert on bankruptcy and a foe of predatory lending. I first became aware of her through her writings, starting with All Your Worth, a down to earth guide to personal finance and including The Two Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke, both of which were co-written by her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi.

I was elated to see her take the position of overseeing TARP and think she'd be a natural to run the new agency. It's a safe bet that she wouldn't be anybody's lapdog.

ALL DONE. The final version of health care reform passed the US House yesterday.

WHAT'S IN THE BILL? Here's a fact sheet from the Georgetown Center for Children and Families about what health care reform will mean for low income and working families.

WHAT DIFFERENCE WILL IT MAKE? Here's a snapshot from the Economic Policy Institute about the expansion of health coverage that should be on the way.

MORE ON WHACKADOODLEISM here.

SUPERSIZING THE LAST SUPPER? The portions have gotten bigger (in art, anyhow) over the last 100 years.

SPEAKING OF FOOD, here's a local look at obesity and diet and such.

THERE'S ALWAYS ROOM for another hominid.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Here we go again

It looks like we're going to be in for another coal-fired hissy fit as the EPA takes a more active role in regulating mountaintop removal mining. Here's WV Public Radio on the topic. As I've said more than once here before, it wouldn't surprise me if things get really ugly around here.

This past summer, El Cabrero made the following predictions about coal controversies:

First, the powers that be here will resist any climate change legislation or regulations of mining with the same intensity that those in the south resisted desegregation.

Second, state political leaders will try to outdo each other in positioning themselves as defenders of the status quo--even some of the ones who know better.

Third, it wouldn't surprise me if somebody gets killed. If that happens, it will probably be at the hands of people inflamed by over-heated rhetoric.

Fourth, when it's all over, people will wish they'd done things differently.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED? The stock market may be back from the brink, but unemployment is likely to remain high and do a lot of damage without more action to stimulate the economy, according to Paul Krugman's latest.

LOUDNESS AND LOBBYISTS dominate efforts to block real health care reform, according to this op-ed from the Gazette.

RACISM AND THE RIGHT are discussed here.

A BLAST FROM THE PAST. I guess we can start revising the family tree after the discovery of a hominid who walked upright more than 4 million years ago.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Ziggy and Xerxes

Themistocles, leader of the Greek naval forces at Salamis. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

"For pride will blossom; soon its ripening kernel is
Infatuation; and its bitter harvest, tears."

A common image of Greek tragedy is one that El Cabrero likes to think of as the Ziggy Stardust interpretation. I am referring to the David Bowie song in which the title character "took it all too far/but boy could he play guitar"--i.e., he was someone brought down by excess.

That doesn't work for all tragedies but it fits Aeschylus' The Persians pretty well. In it, the Persian ruler Xerxes plays Ziggy. Master of a huge land empire and incredible wealth, he wasn't content with what he had but planned a massive invasion of Greece.

For Aeschylus, Herodotus, and many others, Xerxes was the embodiment of hubris and excess, which was also impiety--the pagan equivalent of blasphemy--against the gods.

One example of this impiety as far as the Greeks were concerned was Xerxes' audacity in building a bridge of ships across the Hellespont, the narrow body of water between Asia Minor and Europe. This was seen as the attempt to shackle the sea itself. When a storm damaged this project, he was said to have ordered the sea to be flogged.

In biblical language, this is the pride that goeth before a fall. And the fall comes fast in the tragedy.

It begins with the anxiety of the Persian court and Xerxes' mother Atossa over the army's fate. It gets worse. A messenger arrives with news of the total defeat of the Persian navy at Salamis. It gets so bad that Atossa consults the shade of her dead husband and former emperor Darius, who is appalled by the excess and loss. (Note: not to be nitpicky, but the real Darius planned to do the same thing but died before he could do it.) By the end of the play, a chastened and humbled Xerxes slinks home.

The play can be interpreted as Athenian triumphalism but it seems to me that it was also a warned to a confident city-state and budding empire to avoid making the same kind of mistakes. Too bad it was a warning not taken.

ANOTHER ROUND. Economist Dean Baker is one of several calling for a second stimulus.

GOING UNDERGROUND. Here's an item about infiltrating hate groups.

ANIMAL REGRET. They may experience it too.

IN CASE YOU'RE RUNNING A LITTLE SHORT, here's a new hominid.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED