A demon-haunted world

Back in the 1990s, Carl Sagan wrote a book titled The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. The theme here lately is Beowulf and Sagan's title--minus the science--is a pretty good description of the world of the poem.

The seas literally teem with monsters, as is related in the story of a swimming match between Beowulf and his friend Brecca where the former, swimming for days with sword and armor, has to overcome nine sea beasts.

The land isn't much better. All kinds of nasty creatures, such as Grendel and his mother, prowl the lonely areas and attack humans and animals at will. Such monsters, which are said to be the offspring of the children of Cain, the primal murderer. Grendel, the poet says, he

haunted the moors, the wild Marshes, and made his home in a hell.
Not hell but hell on earth. He was spawned in that slime
Of Cain, murderous creatures banished
By God, punished forever for the crime of Abel's death.

The haunted mere or swamp (lake?) where Grendel and his mother live is likewise full of monsters and nasty giant water snakes.

Then there are dragons, irritable fire-breathing monsters with venomous bites who dwell on hoarded gold and don't take kindly to being disturbed.

As noted in yesterday's post, the human world wasn't a whole lot nicer. All of which makes for a pretty good story, if not a very nice place to live.

STATE OF THE UNION. It would probably be trite beyond words to say that the state of the union address seemed political to me but there you have it. There were things to like and not to like. I am concerned that the proposed freeze in federal spending could have a recessionary effect. More on that to come.

WHAT HE SAID. Here's NY Times columnist Bob Herbert talking sense on Social Security and the real cause of budget deficits.

HEALTH CARE REFORM seems to be moving ahead in West Virginia.

GENGHIS KHAN left a greener world behind him. His methods, however, are not recommended for emulation.

TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE to remember.

URGENT DINOSAUR UPDATE here. This newly discovered one had just one finger. I could think of things to say but will spare the reader.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Snow bunny

The winter of 2010-2011 hasn't even officially arrived yet and there are already ample signs that it is taking itself entirely too seriously. I think I've already had enough, although the Spousal Unit has not.

Somewhere in one of Gore Vidal's historical novels, someone observes that southerners always experience winter as an unpleasant surprise. I think that applies to many Appalachians as well.

There is, however, at least one creature at Goat Rope Farm who loves winter best of all.

DONE DEAL. After a late night vote in the House, the tax cut/unemployment bill passed and is headed towards President Obama's desk. Half empty or half full?

THE NEXT BIG FIGHT? President Obama's deal with congressional Republicans and pressure from ideologues and deficit hawks could put Social Security back in the crosshairs.

REWRITING THE NARRATIVE. So much for the financial crisis' "teachable moment."

THIS EXPLAINS MY PROBLEM. People look more attractive when they've had enough sleep.

HOWEVER, if you get up early enough to exercise before breakfast, you might avoid putting on holiday pounds.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

To sleep

I don't know about you, Gentle Reader, but on weekdays El Cabrero gets up at 5:00 AM. One nice thing about weekends usually is the absence of an alarm clock, a satanic invention if ever there was one. To celebrate blessed Morpheus, here's a poem by Keats:

O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes.
Or wait the Amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still hoards
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed casket of my soul.--John Keats

Who'd a thunk it?

I don't know about you, but the struggle over health care reform seems to have gone on forever. Watching it and participating in it whenever I could has often reminded me of the Iliad as the tide of battle went first this way and that. At crucial points in Homer's epic, Zeus would bring out his golden scales and weigh the fate of mortals in its balance.

During August and September, it looked like the scales went against the public option and maybe the whole shebang. Those were strange days, with bizarre rumors of death panels and rampant paranoia and conspiracy theories. I attended a few of those contentious town hall meetings and they were as weird in person as they were on TV. It was all Whackadoodle all the time for a while.

I've mentioned this before, but my strangest memory of the fight is something that happened at a public meeting in southern West Virginia hosted by Congressman Nick Rahall. When a priest was giving the opening prayer and saying something obviously Bolshevik about caring for our brothers and sisters, a teabagger heckled, saying something like "How much are you getting paid?"

But the tide finally turned again. Across the country, people worked hard to push for real reform. Getting the public option back on the table has been a real victory, although anything could happen.

The House plan was revealed yesterday and votes are still being counted on the Senate's version. I guess the goal at this point is to getting something passed by Christmas.

There is going to be plenty more work to do to make this happen, but there is some motion in the right direction.

AND KRUGMAN SAYS SO too.

RECESSION AND RECOVERY. Here's Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com on the impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and what remains to be done.

I RESEMBLE THAT REMARK. El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia ranks last for getting enough sleep.

THIS WOULD EXPLAIN A LOT. Is there a gene for bad driving?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: UP THERE WITH CEILING CAT

A stroke of the wet sponge

Cassandra by Evelyn De Morgan, courtesy of wikipedia.

El Cabrero has any number of superstitions, none of which are rationally justifiable but all of which persist nonetheless. One of these has to do with lucky and unlucky names. There is a part of me that believes that it is bad luck to name someone after a person or character who had extraordinarily bad luck.

One name that I really like but would never name a child is Cassandra, who is a major character in Aeschylus' tragedy Agamemnon, which has been the theme this week. To recap, she was a daughter of King Priam of Troy. Apollo fell in love with her and promised the gift of prophecy in return for intimacy. When she refused consent at the last moment, she was cursed by the god to have a accurate vision of the future but one that no one would believe.

I hate it when that happens.

Anyhow, she returned with King Agamemnon after the fall of Troy as a trophy and a slave. She knew that death awaited both of them at the hands of Clytemnestra but was powerless to avert it.

She gets the last word this week. Her last works speak volumes about a key theme of tragedy and express what Martha Nussbaum called "the fragility of goodness." Here goes (from the translation of Robert Fagles):

Oh men, your destiny.
When all is well a shadow can overturn it.
When trouble comes a stroke of the wet sponge,
and the picture's blotted out. And that,
I think that breaks the heart.

THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM, American style, is the subject of this article by Joseph Stiglitz.

HATE is alive and well. Here is Paul Krugman on the right wing media's role in stoking it

TOUGH TIMES FOR RECENT GRADUATES. The latest snapshot from the Economic Policy Institute shows how tough it is for many to find jobs. I guess "Plastics" isn't quite getting it these days.

GREEN JOBS are here. According to Wired Science, 770,000 Americans already have one.

NOT SO GREEN JOBS. The Obama administration reveal more of its approach to mountaintop removal mining yesterday.

SLEEP ON IT. Research suggests that deep sleep with REM (not the band, although they are pretty cool) enhances creative problem solving.

THIS IS WEIRD, but the economy of El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia actually grew by 2.5 percent in 2008, way outpacing the national economy.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Don't read it, be it

El Cabrero has long believed and often stated that humans are creatures of narrative or story. We read them, watch them, listen to them, and make them up all the time--even when we don't think we're doing it.

That's my story anyway. And, yes, I'm sticking to it.

That's one reason why I think literature is so enriching to life. While it is probably beyond the reach of a Mud River pirate such as myself to attempt to define what great literature is, I do have a working definition of a great story.

Y'all ready?

A great story is one that you cannot only lose yourself in; it's one that you can find yourself in.

You can use that if you want (with proper attribution of course).

STATES SLASH SERVICES. Programs benefiting vulnerable citizens have already been cut in 34 states so far as the recession spreads. That will probably be the next big thing to hit WV.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS when you overuse a word.

I PREFER COFFEE. Here's Krugman on tea parties.

TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE TO CLEAN out the brain.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The Junto

The American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia was an offshoot of Benjamin Franklin's Junto. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

Lately Goat Rope is hanging out with founding father and all-round interesting guy, Benjamin Franklin, but you'll also find links and comments about current events. The series started last week with Poor Richard's Almanac if you feel inclined to take a look.

For the next few days, I'll be combing though his autobiography for interesting nuggets.

One of the characteristics of Franklin's era of the Enlightenment in Europe and what would become the United States was the growth of civil society, which can be understood as voluntary associations outside the realm of government and commerce. It's an important example of social capital (search the Goat Rope archives for an earlier series on that).

People, usually men of at least middling means, would gather in clubs, coffee houses, and other locations for fellowship, conversation, self-improvement and social betterment. Such gatherings helped create the public sphere, as the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas has noted. They also paved the way for greater democratization.

Franklin was a social capitalist extraordinaire, founding and participating in all kinds of groups. One of these he called the Junto. As he put it,

...I had form'd most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the JUNTO; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute, or desire of victory; and, to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties.

The club endured for several decades and span off several similar groups, including the American Philosophical Society. Franklin and others found that such gatherings polished their thinking and communication skills and were directly or indirectly useful in their business and public affairs.

It was an early illustration of Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam's idea that social capital is the building block of other kinds of success. It's a sad fact that many indicators show that social capital has declined in the US beginning in the second half of the 20th century. And we're paying the price for that.

DEPRESSING NEWS. Here's Dean Baker's latest on the economy.

RETHINKING NATIONAL SECURITY. It's way more than terrorism.

MORE SUPREME FUN. Here's an AP article and something from the Gazette summarizing debate at the US Supreme Court in the Massey/Blankenship/Benjamin saga. I missed this NY Times editorial on the subject that ran Monday. It could be months before the court reaches a decision.

DREAM ON. Messing with sleep patterns messes with your metabolism.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Fudoshin

This pyramid at Teotihuacan has some fudoshin going on. It would be kind of hard to turn it over.

Today is the final day of Cool Japanese Words Week at Goat Rope. Each day has looked at a word or concept from the martial arts and/or Zen tradition that may be of interest to people who want to make the world less nasty. You'll also find news and links about current events.

Today's word is...fudoshin (rhymes with judo shin), which means "immovable mind."

As you might expect by now, the idea needs some unpacking. It does not mean dogmatism, rigid thinking or fixed ideas. Instead it implies a rooted mental state or level of determination as well as equanimity. Fudoshin in that sense is a necessity for anyone committed to working to improve things over the long haul.

In karate there is a posture called fudo dachi or immovable stance. It looks like a cross between a horse stance and a forward stance and has a low center of gravity. Things and/or people with high centers of gravity are easy to trip, throw or turn over.

Think of the song "We Shall Not be Moved."

I had a fudoshin moment a few years ago when I got summoned to the office of a high state official who was upset about things I'd written in newspaper columns about the shabby way poor people had been treated at the time. I'm not sure what the intent was, other than to "get my mind right" a la Cool Hand Luke. When I got the call, I agreed to go and was very polite, but all the while I was thinking, "Fudoshin, dudes. Deal with it."

In looking around to see what others have written about fudoshin, I found a pretty good summary in wikipedia. I'm not sure whether it's a quotation from another source or one written for the entry, but it works for me:

A spirit of unshakable calm and determination,
courage without recklessness,
rooted stability in both mental and physical realms.
Like a willow tree,
powerful roots deep in the ground
and a soft, yielding resistance against
the winds that blow through it.

WHAT PASSED. Here are some key ingredients of the economic recovery package agreed to by the conference committee. A vote in the House is likely today, with the Senate to follow possibly this weekend. While the bill isn't perfect, as Paul Krugman points out here, there are lots of good things in there and some bad things are taken out.

Some wheeling and dealing continued after the agreement had been reached. Final votes in both houses may occur today.

THE SHOCKING TRUTH. Here's an account of a revisitation of Milgram's famous experiment on obedience to authority.

TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE TO REMEMBER. Science finds a strong link between sleep and memory.

URGENT NEANDERTHAL UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

MOCKINGBIRDS

Don't kill the mockingbird. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

A pivotal scene in Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird involves a mob about to lynch an African American accused of raping a white woman. Just as they are about to storm the jail, disaster is averted when the young girl Scout strikes up a personal conversation with someone in the mob. That little intervention brought the man back to himself.

While that's obviously a work of fiction, it does highlight some important truths about human behavior. People are more likely to engage in acts of violence and aggression when they part of a group, are caught up in a role they are playing, and/or are in a state of anonymity..

The psychological term for this is deindividuation. Together with the dehumanization of the victim or enemy group, it is one of the most powerful vectors of evil.

Often, a state of deindividuation is accompanied by a change in how one looks. This is particularly true in the case of warfare. As Philip Zimbardo wrote in The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil,

Cultural wisdom dictates that a key ingredient in transforming ordinarily nonaggressive young men into warriors who can kill on command is first to change their external appearance. Most wars are about old men persuading young men to harm and kill other young men like themselves. For the young men, it becomes easier to do so if they first change their appearance, altering their usual external facade by putting on military uniforms or masks or painting their faces. With the anonymity thus provided in place, out go their usual internal compassion and concern for others.

Deindividuation isn't always about personal appearance. It can happen in environments where people feel that no one knows who they are. Factors such as conformity, obedience to authority, groupthink, etc. all can contribute to deindividuation.

According to Zimbardo, there are two effective ways for bringing about this moral transformation. One is to "reduce the cues of social accountability of the actor (no one knows who I am or cares to)..." The other is to "reduce concern for self-evaluation by the actor," for example by the use of alcohol or drugs, emotional arousal, or by projecting responsibility outward onto others. A classical example of the latter is the belief that "I was just following orders."

THE YOUNG AND THE INSURANCE-LESS. Young adults are among those most at risk of lacking health coverage. Here's a link with more information and some policy suggestions.

THE SPORTING LIFE. And now for something completely different, the new sport of chess-boxing has gained national attention. El Cabrero is holding out for mah-jong ju jitsu.

THIS MIGHT EXPLAIN THAT UFO ABDUCTION. Loss of sleep can produce false memories, according to a recent study. But caffeine can help restore it.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS...

Caption: Cats have little need for faith. They're already there.

El Cabrero is musing on the (nonsectarian) nature of faith this week. If this is your first visit, please click on yesterday's post.

Faith is something I have trouble with, although I'm a fairly religious person by temperament. I'm kind of like a car with an old AM radio driving on a curvy mountain road. Sometimes I pick up a signal and sometimes I don't.

Faith is a pretty complicated ball of twine to unwind. Philosophers such as William James (an official Goat Rope patron saint) pointed out that faith can create facts, at least in the sense that believing something is possible can make it so. Psychologists like Erik Erikson have argued that attitudes toward faith are shaped in early infancy, when a baby does or does not learn to develop as sense of "basic trust" in the world around him or her. Faith is even a part of non theistic teachings such as Buddhism, although here it means something like trusting in those who have gone down the path before.

One of the most interesting and compelling non-sectarian treatments of faith I've come across were developed by the great theologian Paul Tillich in his little 1957 book, The Dynamics of Faith.

For Tillich, faith is a state of being "ultimately concerned." We all have relative concerns, like food, human relationships, work, etc. But the deepest concern that abides when all others have been met or foregone is the ultimate concern.

Another way of putting it might be to say that regardless of the things one professes to believe or not believe, one's real faith is the core value around which one's life is built. As Jesus is quoted as saying in Matthew and Luke, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Faith for Tillich is the centered act of the whole person. It's not a purely intellectual thing such as subscribing to the truth of the tenets of some creed, Nicene or otherwise. Nor is just an act of will or an emotional state, although it gets confused with those quite a bit these days too. It can't be coerced by external or unconscious forces. If either of those is the case, the result is despotism or obsession/compulsion, not faith:

For faith is a matter of freedom. Freedom is nothing more than the possibility of personally centered acts.

Faith also implies risk and even doubt. It is always possible that the foundation on which one builds a life is a false one. When something of relative importance is elevated to an absolute status--such as one's own sect, race, a political creed, nation, money, or anything else--faith is idolatrous or, in Tillich's own term, demonic. By "demonic," he didn't mean little supernatural bad critters with horns but rather what happens anytime something relative is treated as an absolute.

Even the highest religious traditions and the most exalted human ideas can become demonic and idolatrous when they are regarded as absolute rather than limited and conditioned. To use an expression from the Buddhist tradition, all teachings are a finger pointed at the moon, not the moon itself.

Alas, there's an awful lot of finger worship in human history...

SPEAKING OF IDOLATRY, as Paul Krugman noted yesterday, the Reagan-as-God hypothesis is weighed in the balance and found wanting. (GR trivia question: to what book of the Bible does that allusion refer?)

IN KEEPING WITH YESTERDAY'S observation of Martin Luther King Jr. Day observations, here's his famous Riverside address. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS. It tolls for thee and for tens of thousands of Iraqis.

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. Here's an item on what could have been done with the wealth squandered on the unnecessary war in Iraq.

TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE TO DREAM. Here's something from Science on the functions of sleep.

ZOON POLITIKON. Check out this item on animal politics. Hint: some of them may be better at it than we are.

TWO COOL WEBSITES that will show up here in the future are bookforum.com and History News Network.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

WHO'S CALLING WHO A PIRATE, ANYWAY?

Photo credit: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Welcome to Pirate Week at Goat Rope. If this is your first visit, please click on yesterday's post.

Many people have been entertained in recent years by the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, although for El Cabrero's money Errol Flynn's Captain Blood is still the pick of the litter.

For a good look at what real pirates were like in "the Golden Age of piracy," check out Colin Woodard's book, The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man who Brought Them Down.

The Golden Age lasted for around 10 years between 1715 and 1725 and was based in the Bahamas. Many pirates got their start in "legitimate" ways, as sailors or privateers in the European dynastic wars in the early 1700s.

Although the ruling classes did their best to stoke up anti-pirate hysteria in those years, they were actually folk heroes to many ordinary sailors and subjects. And for at least some good reason--compared with the rapacity of the ruling classes of the period, the pirates were pretty mild and pretty appealing. Here's Woodward:

They ran their ships democratically, electing and deposing their captains by popular vote, sharing plunder equally, and making important decisions in open council--all in sharp contrast to the dictatorial regimes in place aboard other ships. At a time when ordinary sailors received no social protections of any kind, the Bahamian pirates provided disability benefits for their crews.

Back in the day, they were a multinational and multiracial band and there were even some prominent women pirates.

Aaarrgghh indeed!

SPEAKING OF PIRATES... this op-ed by Holly Sklar is worth a look. Here's the lead:

When it comes to producing billionaires, America is doing great.

And here's the punchline:

Inequality has roared back to 1920s levels. It was bad for our nation then. It's bad for our nation now.

The middle is worth checking out too.

BAD MOON RISING. Former Marine and UN arms inspector Scott Ritter will be visiting El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia this week. Here's his latest piece preventing war with Iran.

YOUNGER EVANGELICALS have some different priorities, according to this item from the Dallas Morning News:

For many conservative evangelical Christians younger than 30, family values mean more than the issues of gay marriage, abortion and prayer in school. Poverty, health care and the environment are also matters of faith.

CENSORING CONROY. It's deja vu all over again in the case of the efforts to ban the use of Pat Conroy's novels in AP English classes.

FIREFIGHTERS are cool. Alas, El Cabrero never got to revive a cat during his short and inglorious career as a volunteer firefighter.

SLEEP ON IT. As this science item from the NY Times suggests, it'll probably help.

PERCHANCE TO DREAM. This accompanying piece suggests that a possible function for bad dreams is to help the brain process fear.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

LABOR CALLS FOR IRAQ SOLUTIONS

Caption: Time to get out of the web.

The national AFL-CIO executive board called on the United States to seek an end to its military involvement in Iraq.

Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the statement:

No U.S. foreign policy can be sustained without the informed consent of the American people. Last November, the people spoke clearly, calling on the president and Congress to change course in Iraq. Rather than heed the will of the citizenry or listen to the military leaders speaking out against the current policy in Iraq, the president has chosen to escalate military action. This blind pursuit of the war now undermines the very war on terror that was its justification.

And here's one from the middle:

It is time to bring our military involvement in Iraq to an end. Admittedly, there are no good options now in that country. It has descended into a sectarian civil struggle, with American troops caught in the crossfire. The latest National Intelligence Estimate reports that the greatest violence comes not from al Qaeda and foreign terrorists, but from sectarian militias caught up in their own internal conflict.

And here's one from the end:

The AFL-CIO continues to strongly support initiatives and programs to promote democracy, workers’ rights and economic development in the Middle East. We believe the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (the Baker-Hamilton Commission) provides the president and Congress with a broad range of recommendations to address the wider regional conflict as well as economic and reconstruction assistance while charting a path for reducing the U.S. presence in Iraq.

We, therefore, call on President Bush to reconsider the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. Specifically, the administration should open up a diplomatic offensive with allies and Iraq’s neighbors. This should include a new initiative to revive a peace process in the Middle East and it should include a timetable for redeploying U.S. troops out of Iraq’s civil strife. We also call on Congress to support these actions and insist on a timetable for disengagement. If the president refuses to act, Congress must use its powers under the Constitution and act.

Works for me.

WV UPDATE. The WV House Finance Committee modified a Senate-passed corporate tax cut bill. The house version includes combined reporting, which closes corporate tax loopholes and cuts in the business franchise tax. Combined reporting is a good step. The overall business tax package is less that what passed the senate. So that's a victory of sorts.

Here's the deal: about half of WV's general revenue fund goes to K-12 education, about 10 percent to higher ed, about 20 percent to health and human services, the the rest covers everything else from parks to public safety. Going nuts on tax cuts means cutting the things we most need for a better future. Cutting education money to give goodies to out of state corporations when we can't adequately give teachers or public employees a decent raise is a little weird.

RANDOM BUT INTERESTING NEWS ITEM. Here's the lead of a cool but random news story:

Scientists studying how sleep affects memory have found that the whiff of a familiar scent can help a slumbering brain better remember things that it learned the evening before. The smell of roses — delivered to people’s nostrils as they studied and, later, as they slept — improved their performance on a memory test by about 13 percent.

Who'd a thunk it?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED