Juvenile (in)justice

In case you missed it, here's my op-ed on the need for juvenile justice reform in today's Gazette.

MR. MOJO RISIN'. I have often been asked by out of state friends about WV Senator Joe Manchin. I usually say that some days are better than others (that's something the Spousal Unit frequently says of me). I'd  say that this was one of his good days. In a speech to Marine veterans, Manchin called for a cutback in US military adventures overseas.

INEQUALITY. What a drag.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Double devil day?

I seem to recall that there was a bit of hype a few years back in certain tightly wrapped religious circles about the possible end of the world or some related apocalyptic event. The occasion was the arrival of June 6, 2006: 6/6/06, 666 being the "number of the beast" in the Book of Revelation.

It occurred to me that today--12/12/12--might qualify as Double Devil Day, 12 being 2 x 6 and all. Y'all be careful out there.

CLIMBING DOWN THE FISCAL CLIFF. Here is a look at how to do it.

WANT TO CUT THE DEFICIT? Here's one place to look.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING, cheese was first made in northern Europe 7,000 years ago.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

What it's all about

I can think of no better way it lead into Labor Day weekend than by sharing this great op-ed about the labor movement yesterday and today by my friend Larry Matheney, secretary-treasurer of the WV AFLCIO. Larry also gives a shout out to one of my heroes, WV native, UAW, labor, civil rights, and human rights leader Walter Reuther.

HONESTLY? Here's a reality-based look at Paul Ryan's speech. And here are a bunch more.

RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE. Just do it.

WASTEFUL MILITARY SPENDING. Some days are better than others with WV's junior senator Joe Manchin, but he's right on target this time.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

In the spirit of fair play

I don't always agree with WV Senator Joe Manchin on issues regarding Medicaid, the federal budget and such, but in the spirit of fair play, I think he is right on directing priorities away from war spending in Afghanistan.

Manchin was quoted in the New York Times as saying

We can no longer, in good conscience, cut services and programs at home, raise taxes or — and this is very important — lift the debt ceiling in order to fund nation-building in Afghanistan. The question the president faces — we all face — is quite simple: Will we choose to rebuild America or Afghanistan? In light of our nation’s fiscal peril, we cannot do both.

And this is from the Charleston Gazette:

"We cannot afford to pursue our current costly strategy in Afghanistan when we face devastating cuts and a death spiral of debt here at home," Manchin said.

KOCHED UP. Here's an item with a video on the right wing noise machine.

UNEMPLOYMENT. Here's Jared Bernstein on trends over time.

CUTTING MEDICAID means cutting jobs.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING HOW SPIDERS SPIN WEBS IN ZERO GRAVITY, click here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A la carte

El Cabrero is about to hit the road for a few days but here are some items that caught my eye:

ROCK ON, ROCKEFELLER. West Virginia's senior senator Jay Rockefeller takes on plans to arbitrarily cut the federal budget at the expense of working and low income people.

NO LOVE FEAST. Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) found his plan to torpedo Medicare was a tough sell on a tour of his home state.

THE BACK DOOR PLAN. Here's more on the splendidly bad idea of global caps on federal spending.

AFTER OSAMA. Will scaling back military engagements and spending be on the agenda?

FAIRNESS ON THE BRAIN. A sense of justice (however apparently dormant at times) seems to be innate. Scientists may even have found its location in the brain.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Taking one for the team

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that El Cabrero enjoys taking regular swipes at the ideology of Ayn Rand (methinks it doesn't rise to the level of philosophy).

Most of what I know about her views comes from her own statements, interviews, and non-fiction. However, I must admit that I haven't actually her two most influential works of fiction, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Until now.

I just started The Fountainhead. Holy turgid prose, Batman! Is this what all the shouting is about? I will keep the Gentle Reader updated about my progress, if that's the right word, through this dense forest. But I have a feeling it isn't going to be a lot of fun.

SHOCK DOCTRINE, REVISITED. Here's a rant from yours truly about the federal budget debate.

KILLING MEDICARE. Some Republicans are having second thoughts.

MILITARY SPENDING. Here are some ideas about that.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Of snuff and stuff

The Spousal Unit diligently scans those parts of the Charleston paper wherein readers call in to vent their views on various issues. These can range from the ridiculous to the sublime and everywhere in between. Some of the best ones wind up on the refrigerator door.

Here's one from yesterday's paper:

It's never really right to leave your filthy snuff spit for the janitor. I don't care who you are. Deal with it yourself or don't do it. It's filthy.

So there, snuff spitters.

LAID TO REST. West Virginia native and world renowned musician Hazel Dickens was laid to rest yesterday in Mercer County. Here's an item about her life from NPR.

IT'S ABOUT MONEY, NOT IDEOLOGY. Dean Baker suggests that the key to understanding the Ryan budget plan is to look at who gets what.

MILITARY SPENDING. Here's an interesting take from surprising sources.

WORKING WEST VIRGINIA. The state's labor force participation rates, generally amongst the lowest in the country, got even lower during the Great Recession. Also, public employees in the state make less than private sector workers when you control for age and education level.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES may reveal a lot about people who believe them.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Head's up

Random animal picture.

It's all fun and games until somebody loses a head. At least that's the case in Beowulf, the theme here lately. I've been working my way through the first English epic for a while now and am on Monster #2 at this point. If this is your cup of mead, click on earlier posts. You'll also find links and more or less snide comments about current events below.

After Beowulf kills Grendel, there is much rejoicing in Heorot, the mead hall of Danish king Hrothgar. He hasn't been able to use his prize hall for years, since Grendel had the not-so-endearing habit of eating people who hung out there. The Danes reclaim the hall, although Beowulf sleeps somewhere else.

That night, Grendel's mother comes back for revenge. She is eventually driven off, but only after taking Hrothgar's trusted advisor Aeschere with her. They find his head the next day near the haunted mere, which is a lake or swamp where the monsters live.

After the attack, Hrothgar summons Beowulf and asks him to step up one more time. Beowulf gives the following classic lines, which kind of sum up his warrior ethic:

Wise sir, do not grieve. It is always better
to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.

This is one part of the poem where the thin veneer of Christianity gets even thinner, but I must admit to feeling that way myself some days. It's kind of the proto-Viking version of the old labor saying, "Don't mourn, organize!"

PLEASE STEP AWAY FROM THE BUDGET CUTTING KOOL-AID, Senator Manchin.

INSTEAD, consider this. A new poll shows a majority of Americans favors cutting military spending rather than cutting vital social programs.

DIRTY DEEDS done dirt cheap. Maybe we should impose a no fly zone over Wisconsin.

THE WORD OF THE DAY is philanthro-feudalism.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, this is totally Koched up.

NOTE: This post was scheduled in advance due to much sleep deprivation. Well may the world go.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The art of the formal boast

Wu is a master of the formal boast.

When current events allow, I've been amusing myself here lately by taking a look at the old Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, which holds up better than one might think. You'll also find links and comments about current events below.

Here's one thing I've gotten out of several recent readings: if you want to be a hero like Beowulf, there are certain things you have to be able to do. Having the strength of 30 men is a big help, as is experience in slaying monsters of the land and sea variety.

But those traits, as worthy as they no doubt are, are not enough. To do things right from the beginning, one has to be the master of the art of the formal boast. This isn't exactly bragging, which is often just a matter of words. It has to be backed up by previous glorious deeds, a serious intent to carry out the matter boasted about, and (one would hope) a successful outcome.

To do it right, you must (not necessarily in the following order):

*State who you are, including your glorious family lineage (note: it helps to have one);

*Refer at some length to the mighty deeds you have already done (it helps to have some); and

*State, as specifically and in as much detail as possible, exactly what you intend to do and to whom you intend to do it.

It's a lot cooler than the modern practice of sending in a resume or writing a proposal.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM when it comes to federal spending is discussed here.

CUTTING KIDS. Paul Krugman argues that children will bear the brunt of cuts in public spending.

NOT GOING QUIETLY. Labor protests against union busting continued in Wisconsin and around the country over the weekend.

WV HISTORY. Here's a review of an interesting book by a friend of mine on post-WWII WV history.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Guess who's coming to dinner

I've been blogging off and on lately about Beowulf, along with current events. It really is a cool story with both ancient and universal themes.

One big theme in the ancient and medieval world was the problem of hospitality or how to deal with guests, hosts and strangers. It may well be that humans are hard wired to have an in-group/out-group orientation, which makes dealing with strangers, singularly or in groups, an ambiguous matter. New people might prove to be good friends or dangerous enemies and both host and guest posed potential threats to each other.

Issues of guests, hosts and hospitality were major themes in the Iliad and Odyssey and other Greek myths as well as in the Bible and other sources. It's no surprise that this is also an issue in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, which portrays societies that spend at least part of the time raiding each other.

What would you do if 15 heavily armed proto-Vikings showed up on your doorstep? Or, if you were one of the 15, how would you convince those who met you that you meant no harm? And, by the way, how much mead is there in the cellar, anyway?

Before any major monster-killing can be done, these kinds of details have to be sorted out. More on that to come.

WHAT'S NOT ON THE TABLE. Here's an op-ed by a co-worker of mine about what is missing from deficit reduction discussions.

THE LESS BAD PARTS of President Obama's proposed budget are discussed here.

STICKER SHOCK. A new Harvard study of the costs of coal finds a bigger bottom line.

AN ODD COINCIDENCE. It just so happened that just before the basically nonviolent Egyptian revolution burst upon the scene I started rereading a volume of Gene Sharp on non-violent action. I couldn't help thinking of him as events unfolded. Here's a profile of Sharp from today's New York Times.

OLD DOGS. Here's a look at the canine family tree from wolf to woof.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Gender issues

We interrupt Goat Rope's regularly scheduled program to report due to a strange eruption of gender issues on the farm. It seems that our male turkey Diego (above, left) was in a state of confusion after his partner started sitting on eggs.

He responded by doing something that I think is pretty unheard of amongst normal males of his kind: stealing chicken eggs and sitting on them. Like a broody hen, he pretty much sits on them all the time. He's even been caught in the act of egg theft.

(I would go out and take a picture of him in the act but for the fact that a recent attack of sciatica or something makes it too painful for me to take any unnecessary steps.)

This is not normal. But then most of the animals around here would fit right in at the Island of Misfit Toys on the Rudolph Christmas special.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM. As concerns about debt and deficits grow, a bipartisan group of lawmakers are calling for cuts in military spending.

HEALTH CARE REFORM will cost WV much less than the state Department of Health and Human Resources previously estimated.

UPPER BIG BRANCH MINE DISASTER. Here's the most recent NPR coverage.

FEELING YOUR PAIN. New research suggests that racial bias interferes with empathy.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A history of violence

The punishment of Tantalus.

"I know this house's ancestry--
it's pedigree of sin."

Violence seems to run through families, generations, countries and even entire regions of the world, with outrage breeding outrage. Sadly, sometimes those who were its victims become its perpetrators.

Ending that seemingly endless cycle and establishing a higher social order is the theme of the Oresteia by Aeschylus. Although its message is profoundly political, the dramatic trilogy focuses on how violence played out in one family...and what a family it was.

Here's a short summary of the backstory of the drama:

1. Tantalus served up his son Pelops (literally) at a banquet for the gods. They were not amused and he was one of the few ancients to qualify for personalized eternal damnation by being "tantalized" with food and drink but forever unable to get it. The gods reconstructed Pelops physically but not morally.

2. Pelops sabotaged the chariot of his father-in-law to be, which led to his death. Then he double crossed and murdered they guy who helped him do it. The guy not surprisingly cursed the house with his last breath.

3. Pelops sons Atreus and Thyestes set a new standard for nastiness. First, they contested for power. Then Thyestes seduced the wife of Atreus. Then, after a family meeting for "reconciliation," Atreus kills Thyestes children and serves them for dinner to their unknowing father. One, Aegisthus, got away.

Nice guys, huh?

In the play proper, the merry dance goes on:

4. Agamemnon, son of Atreus, sacrifices his own daughter Iphigenia in order to get fair winds to sail for Troy at the beginning of that war.

5. On his return, Clytemnestra with the help of her lover Aegisthus (remember him?) kills Agamemnon.

6. Orestes, son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, kills his own mother at the order of Apollo.

Then it really gets messy.

While all that sounds like an incredible downer, the plays are actually optimistic about the possibility of people, with the help of divine wisdom, to rise above all that and break the endless cycle.

More to come.

GO, SUPREMES! The big news around here is the US Supreme Court's decision regarding Massey Energy and whether a state justice elected with money from CEO Don Blankenship should recuse himself form cases involving the company. The court said he should. Here's the NY Times on it. Here's the Washington Post. And here's the Charleston Gazette.

A "WARRIOR GENE?" Some scientists think they've found one that is associated with violence. Hmmm...maybe that explains the whole Atreus thing.

ON THAT NOTE, global spending on weapons is through the roof.

BULLY FOR YOU. The research is in, and some strategies seem to work in confronting bullying.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Moment to moment

Random picture of a Vermont llama.

El Cabrero has often expressed a fondness for the Stoics, an ancient Greco-Roman school of philosophy the leading exponents of which included a slave, Epictetus, and an emperor, Marcus Aurelius.

This isn't the first time this classic line by Epictetus shows up here, but I think it's worth repeating and committing to memory:

Some things are in our control and others not.

The clear implication is that we would do better to focus on the former rather than the latter. Among other things, doing so might help keep people from feeling overwhelmed and needlessly wasting energy.

Laurence Gonzales, author of Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, shares a soft spot for the Stoics and notes that many people who have endured extreme situations took a leaf from their notebook:

They deal with what is within their power from moment to moment, hour to hour, day by day. They leave the rest behind.

HOW LOW WILL IT GO? Here's Krugman on the depth of the recession.

THAT'S WHERE THE MONEY IS. Here's another call for cutting over the top Pentagon spending.

BEATING A DEAD HORSE. A group representing what El Cabrero thinks of as the Taliban/wahabi/jihad version of Christianity is attempting to ignite a culture war in WV, but the so far the results have been underwhelming.

URGENT FLYING DINOSAUR UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

States of mind

Random picture.

El Cabrero has been giving a shout out this week to Laurence Gonzales' book, Deep Survival: Who Live, Who Dies, and Why, which looks at how people do (or don't) make it through extreme situations.

It seems to me that some of what he has to say applies to ordinary situations as well. Here's today's sample:

Al Siebert, a psychologist, writes in The Survivor Personality that the survivor (a category including people who avoid accidents) "does not impose pre-existing patterns on new information, but rather allows new information to reshape [his mental models]. The person who has the best chance of handling a situation well is usually the one with the best...mental pictures or images of what is occurring outside of the body."

The map really doesn't necessarily correspond to the territory.

IF IT'S ANY CONSOLATION, IT AIN'T JUST US. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that the economies of the world's major developed countries will shrink in 2009.

THE UNION PREMIUM. Unions provide better wages and conditions for workers in every state. Check out your own state data here.

FORECLOSURES. Here's a first look at President Obama's proposal to deal with the housing crisis.

PENTAGON CUTS? Maybe.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED