Of reproaches to chastity and such matters

Speaking of reading jags, a year or so ago, some friends inspired me to read the unabridged version of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Don't ask me why since my only recourse would be to say "Because it's there."

Rather than a direct assault, I only try to read enough to turn the pages twice most days and then take a break when I finish a volume. At this point in my progress, the Western Empire has fallen into barbarian hands whilst the Emperor Justinian is trying to win it back.

One reason for reading is that there is something cool about 18th century English prose, not to mention that fact that his vast amount of research holds up pretty well. The real payoff, however, is to be found in the little zingers in which he treats of scandalous matters.

Here's a passage describing the marriage of the great general Belisarius and his amorously adventurous wife Antonina:

The birth of Antonina was ignoble; she descended from a family of charioteers; and her chastity has been stained with the foulest reproach. Yet she reigned with long and absolute power over the mind of her illustrious husband; and if Antonina disdained the merit of conjugal fidelity, she expressed a manly friendship to Belisarius, whom she accompanied with undaunted resolution in all the hardships and dangers of a military life.

Nobody, chaste or otherwise, writes like that any more.

TALKING SENSE. Here's an interview with a progressive deficit hawk.

UNEMPLOYMENT. Here's a good article from the Charleston Gazette about what extending unemployment insurance means to West Virginia (and other places too). And here's more on the subject from the WV News Service. And here's a call for the same from the White House Council of Economic Advisers. It may be part of an eventual deal on Bush-era tax cuts before it's all over with. Or not.

THE SPINE THING. Paul Krugman is not amused.

CHINA AND COAL. Here's an interesting look from The World.

SOME GOOD WV NEWS. West Virginia revenues are $121 million in the black while many other states are facing major shortfalls.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Back and forth

It's always a good thing on returning from a road trip to wind up with approximately the same number of domestic animals as were there when one departed. I'm happy to day that happened again. All the goats, peafowl, cats and turkeys are present and accounted for.

I'm also glad to report that Arpad (above) was there when we got back and apparently didn't eat anybody important while we were gone.

Every time I go back and forth from Vermont to West Virginia, I think about that hard-hitting work of social realism, The Lord of the Rings. As I've said before, the mountain state to the north reminds me of the Shire, whereas the one to the south is more like a threatened and embattled land on the edge of Mordor where the Dark Lord strives for absolute mastery.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, here's an interesting item from last week about Massey Energy.

SOS. Here's an op-ed by yours truly on the need for Congress to act to extend unemployment insurance.

DITTO. This editorial from Sunday's NY Times also highlights the need to help the unemployed--and urges political leaders to show a little backbone.

DEFICIT COMMISSION. Progressive groups are going to unveil non-draconian approaches to dealing with the deficit this week.

CATS AND DOGS. The latter may have bigger brains because they are more social.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

TCB

Random animal picture, this one being of Little Edith Ann at Halloween, yet another reason why dogs hate that holiday.

The lame duck session of Congress that begins today has some serious business to take care of, provided it has the guts and will. Around two million Americans are going to exhaust unemployment benefits in December. In West Virginia, the number is around 11 thousand. The numbers will only get worse in 2011.

This needs to happen, given that there are around five jobless workers for every new job that opens up. And economists are expecting sluggish job growth for the next year or two, maybe longer. Ideally, the extension should last for a year.

Ever since the 1950s, Congress has acted to extend benefits when unemployment was 7.2percent or higher and we're way about that point now.

This extension has to happen in the lame duck session because the new majority in the House is not likely to do it. I'd really like to be wrong about this, but I think it's a good bet that the new majority will be hostile to anything that benefits working people, the unemployed and people in poverty. And for all their talk about fighting deficits, you can bet that they'd like nothing more than to extend Bush era tax cuts for the rich indefinitely.

There is something we can do about this. Tomorrow, Nov. 16 is a national call-in day to Congress to extend unemployment. The WV AFLCIO is urging people to participate in the call-in campaign tomorrow and has provided a toll free number: 1-877-662-2889.

Please take a minute to make the call. This is an all-hands-on-deck situation.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH, here's yours truly on the need for the WV legislature to take some action of its own on unemployment insurance modernization.

CAVING (METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING). The White House, that is. Maybe.

SPEAKING OF METAPHORS, they seem to live in certain regions of the brain.

ANOTHER FIGHT IN THE WORKS is preventing repeal of health care reform.

SOMETHING ELSE TO DENY. Melting glaciers. It might be a bit harder to deny rising sea levels in the future though.

UN-WELL BEING. West Virginia takes the lead again.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Once more for luck

Random animal picture.

For two months or so, the US Senate majority has been trying to pass a bill that would extend the fiscal aid to states from the Recovery Act to prevent further layoffs and a double dip recession. As Paul Krugman put it over a year ago, the effect of massive public sector layoffs will be like that of "50 Herbert Hoovers."

Today, the Senate may vote again. This time, the measure is fully offset from other cuts in spending so it would be deficit neutral (not that that matters very much when you have massive unemployment and sagging demand). Alas, some of that offset comes from cutting other vital programs, including SNAP or food stamps.

It's always something.

Still, it is my opinion that this bill is worth passing--we can fight again another day on the SNAP front. If you haven't--and especially if you live in states like Maine, Massachusetts, or Ohio--please call your senators (two in Maine, and one each in Ohio and Massachusetts).

UPPER BIG BRANCH. In the latest development in the ongoing investigations, the state of West Virginia is taking a rare step by issuing subpoenas in the disaster investigation. Here's more from Coal Tattoo.

SPEAKING OF COAL, here's the first in a series of blog posts from the WV Center on Budget and Policy about coal and the future of West Virginia.

OH YEAH, AND THIS. The coal industry is poised to spend millions in the next election. This is what they'll be paying for.

WHO NEEDS US? Corporations and the wealthy are doing fine. It's just ordinary people who aren't doing so great.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The old, the new

Whatever my political leanings may be, I have a really strong conservative streak--in the old sense of the word conservative, as in respecting the traditions of the past. I tend to value old things that have withstood the tests of time to new innovations.

I suspect more wisdom can be found in places like Greek tragedy, myths and old philosophies than in just about anything on the bestseller list. Science would be the major exception.

I think that's one reason why I like Confucius, whose approach to philosophy has been called (by whom I can't recall) "innovation through transmission."

A saying of his from the Analects that has influenced me is this one:

One who studies the old so as to find the new is worthy to teach others.

This doesn't imply a mindless repetition of old traditions but rather a critical evaluation of them in search of insights that apply to the current situation, a kind of dialogue between past and present. I've always suspected that the best innovators are not people who make up things out of new cloth but rather those who piece together old insights in new ways.

IF ALL GOES ACCORDING TO PLAN, WV Governor Joe Manchin will name the person who will fill the late Robert Byrd's US Senate seat (if not his shoes) today. As soon as that person is sworn in, we can probably expect yet another vote on extending unemployment benefits to the approximately 2 million people who have lost them. Lots of us hope that WV's vote will be the tipping point.

Here are three related items:

FOX NEWS TRASHES UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS. I know that's a shock, but read more about it, including debunking, here.

A DOUBLE IMPACT. To clear the palate, this issue brief from the Economic Policy Institute shows that UI benefits don't just keep jobless workers going but also help create and preserve jobs:

The reasoning is simple. Those who are unemployed are experiencing a major challenge to maintain anything close to their regular standard of living, so any assistance they receive will be spent on necessities, not saved. The spending that results as the unemployed pay their rent, buy groceries, and so on saves and creates jobs throughout the economy.

ASSESSING ARRA. Here's congressional testimony on the Recovery Act and what remains to be done to deal with the impact of the Great Recession.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE CORPORATE SUITES, the Washington Post notes that:

Corporate America is hoarding a massive pile of cash. It just doesn't want to spend it hiring anyone.

Read more here.

CHICKEN HAWKS. The loudest voices on the deficit are opposed to allowing Bush-era tax cuts to expire.

ONE FOR THE ROAD. Here's the Washington Post on the passage of landmark financial reform legislation.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Sculpting the body

The Dying Gaul, from a Roman copy of a Hellenistic original.

I have often thought that one of the saddest things about contemporary American life (and the competition is fierce in this arena) is that so many people don't really live in their bodies or seem at most to use them for various kinds of consumption. You can see this everywhere, not least in the epidemic of obesity.

One hillbilly hobby that gets on my last nerve--and I could be drummed out of the tribe for this--is the riding of four wheelers. After my stint on the local volunteer fire department, which responded to many calls involving death or injury from riding them, I sometimes find myself thinking of these as Darwin machines or natural selection devices.

Arpad, our (almost) Great Pyrenees canine, shares my distaste. He's generally laid back, but he's never met an all terrain vehicle he didn't hate.

In fairness, I'm sure they have their uses and I've been told that some of the trails in southern WV are good for economic development. But, as the saying goes, there's no accounting for taste. Just ask Arpad.

For quite a few people, this seems to be the only outdoor activity they engage in, and the closest thing to exercise, which is sad. Judging by the physical specimens that I've seen riding on them, it seems like most would be better off by any measure in walking, jogging or biking.

I have a feeling Thoreau might agree with me on this. Here's what he said about how we relate to the body in Walden:

Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones.

HONORING A LEGEND. Tonight there will be processions through the streets of Charleston to honor Senator Robert C. Byrd. His memorial service tomorrow will include the president and vice president among those who attend. I plan on going, assuming I can get there, and will share pictures and thoughts afterward. WV Governor Joe Manchin has even given state employees the day off so that those who choose to can attend.

AFTER BYRD. Here's a NY Times article about a visit to Byrd's home town and the political lay of the land.

UNEMPLOYMENT. Congress is likely to vote today on restoring unemployment benefits, a measure which has failed several times in the last week or so. As I've argued here many times, the most immediate deficit we need to deal with is the jobs deficit.

I PREFER COFFEE. Here's an item about the Tea Party and the dangers of underestimating it.

URGENT ANCIENT CARNIVOROUS WHALE UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Hojo undo

It was sometime in February when I decided to go to Okinawa for a karate seminar. At the time, April seemed like an eternity away and I didn't think it would ever stop snowing.

I did a little digging into traditional Okinawan training methods and quickly realized I needed to get busy so I would be a bit less of a total disgrace when I got there.

The Okinawan approach to karate is different from the typical American or even typical Japanese methods. Even the more tradition-minded schools outside Okinawa tend to focus on kihon or basic movements, kata or prearranged formal exercises, and kumite or practice fighting, in that order. As martial artist and author Michael Clarke noted in the book pictured above, in Okinawa the focus is often on warm up exercises or junbi undo, followed by supplementary strength-building exercises called hojo undo, then kata, then bunkai or applied kata.

The hojo undo really caught my eye (look it up on youtube if you're curious). Among other things, it involves lifting, swinging, throwing and catching various improvised heavy objects to build the power to make techniques work. I didn't have those traditional items but improvised and have spent a portion of each day swinging around heavy mallets and sledge hammers as well as throwing and catching dumbbells a couple hundred times a day.

I also doubled up on regular weight training and calisthenics and on alternate days either jog an hour or do intervals of jumping rope, shadow boxing, hitting and kicking the heaving bag and katas. I cover about 35 foot miles per week between jogging and dog walking, have taken in my belt a few notches and eat ravenously (blaming it on my karate tapeworm). My body feels like it is cooking itself most days.

All this with a heart that is pretty much dead.

I'm not sure whether I'm bragging or complaining but am looking forward to the trip now because I need some rest. I'm sure I'll still be a disgrace when I get there but I hope maybe a little less of one.

TALKING SENSE. Here's a good editorial about health care reform and unintended consequences from up New England way.

WHILE WE'RE AT IT, here are some interesting reflections on health and personal responsibility.

JAMIE OLIVER'S FOOD REVOLUTION is hitting close to Goat Rope Farm. The British chef was inspired to try to change eating habits in Huntington, WV after a report identified it as the must unhealthy area in American. The first episodes aired last Friday on ABC and are available here.

SPEAKING OF WV. This is weird but personal income here actually went up in 2009. This is largely due to public spending.

HAPPINESS AND SUCH are discussed in the latest edition of the Rev. Jim Lewis' Notes from under the Fig Tree.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A positive step

The old WV State Penitentiary in Moundsville. If those walls could talk...

For many years, a trend in West Virginia and around the country was to build more prisons and lock up more people, often for non-violent offenses. The predictable result was prison overcrowding, excessive costs, problems with re-entry, etc.

It's gotten to the point where we can't build our way out of this. Even if construction on massive new prisons began today, the overcrowding rate wouldn't change by the time they were built unless other things changed as well.

There are welcome signs that this is starting to change. Here's an excerpt from an AP item that ran in last Sunday's Gazette-Mail:

An average of three new inmates a day entering the state's correctional system has left West Virginia with a stark choice: build new prisons or change the way it thinks about crime and punishment.

The first option is unattractive in a time when state agencies are trimming their budgets and revenue is drying up. A new prison would cost up to $200 million, according to Corrections Commissioner Jim Rubenstein.

That leaves the second choice, which politicians have long feared will expose them to the charge of being "soft on crime,'' a tag no one wants during an election year in a conservative state.

Gov. Joe Manchin, though, is willing to risk political backlash by proposing policies he says will save the state hundreds of millions in the long run and do a better job of rehabilitating prisoners with the best chance at being productive members of society.

In the last few years, the state began a major day reporting effort as an alternative to incarceration in regional jails. Now on the agenda may be accelerated parole for non-violent, low risk offenders and increased attention to drug treatment and rehabilitation programs.

This makes sense since most people who go in are going to come out sooner or later and prisons are not generally known as places that improve behavior. A saying that has been heard more than once in statehouse circles is “We need to lock up the people we’re afraid of, not the ones we're mad at.”

(Hamlet will return tomorrow.)

MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED. President Obama is urging Congress to "finish the job" on health care reform.

REALITY CHECK. For all the whackadoodle paranoia about a government takeover of health care, a new study shows that the government will pay more than half of all health care costs by 2012 as things now stand.

ROOTS OF THE RECESSION. Here's part of an interview with economist Dean Baker on the bubble that burst all over us.

WHISPERING CANINES. De-barking dogs is something of a controversial subject these days.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

100 years in the making

Bully!

When it comes to public policy, it seems that windows of opportunity for action sometimes open--and sometimes they close. And if the boat is missed, it may not come back for a very long time.

Health care reform is a case in point. We now have one of those rare openings to significantly expand access to health care in this country. If we don't get it done soon, we may have to wait for years or decades to try to do this again...or maybe it will never happen.

The idea of providing some kind of system of universal care goes back in mainstream US politics to Republican president Theodore Roosevelt around 100 years ago. It was a plank on his 1912 bid for the presidency on the Progressive ticket.

It was part of his distant cousin Franklin's unfinished New Deal agenda from the 1930s. President Truman made a serious but unsuccessful push for it in the late 1940s, after which it lay dormant for decades.

The 1960s saw a significant expansion of health care with the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, which provided coverage for the elderly, the poor, and low income people with disabilities, although comprehensive reform remained elusive.

Another push for universal care began in the early 1970s and peaked briefly during the Carter administration before fading away again. It wasn’t until the election of Bill Clinton in 1992 that the issue again emerged, only to be torpedoed in 1994. Since then progress has been incremental at best, the most notable example being the creation and reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

The chance for reform has been nearly a century in the making--here's hoping we don't blow it this time.

THE BALANCING ACT between debt and recovery is discussed here.

MARKET FUNDAMENTALISM. Here's another whack at one of my favorite targets.

ANOTHER LOW RANKING. El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia doesn't usually do too well on state rankings for most topics. Here's the latest low grade.

GOOD-NATURED. Humans may have an innate urge to help, according to some researchers.

HERE ARE THE COOL PICTURES OF MICRO-ORGANISMS you ordered.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Cockadoodle don't

Stop the presses! Our economic problems are solved!

Just when you thought it was safe to open a newspaper, what should appear on the cover of yesterday's Charleston Gazette than a story about a group that wants to legalize cockfighting in West Virginia and ultimately in all the states.

According to a spokesman for the group, "It's only illegal now because of the puritan sense of a few people who don't find it an appropriate sport."

Earlier this week, a member of the group who identified himself only as "Chicken" dressed in a similar costume and handed out fliers in Charleston.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that bill to pass, although stranger things have certainly happened. However, in the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that we have several free range roosters on Goat Rope Farm and that they occasionally have a dust-up. Usually it ends with one running off, which is the rooster equivalent of the ju jitsu tap out.

A friend of mine and fellow goat herder sent me a hilarious email yesterday with a number of great potential bumper sticker slogans about the topic, most of which involve a synonym for rooster (hint: think NRA). Since this is a G rated blog, I'll quote a different one from his selection:

My president is Andrew Jackson.

WHAT THEY SAID. I'm down with this NY Times editorial on the need for more stimulus.

PEOPLE POWER kept the public option in health insurance reform alive, says economist Dean Baker.

MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL is the subject of this editorial from USA Today. Thanks to Ken Ward's Coal Tattoo for pointing this out.

"GRAND THEFT JESUS." I wish I would have come up with that phrase to describe the conservative attempt to rewrite the Bible. Here's more on that developing story.

TRAMPS LIKE US, maybe we really were born to run.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED