BLOWING IT

Aeolus, keeper of the winds. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

The series on the Odyssey of Homer continues, along with links and comments on current events.

After several (largely self-inflicted) misadventures, it looks like Odysseus and his men are finally going to get a break. Aeolus, keeper of the winds, has given Odysseus a huge sack containing all the winds but the West Wind, which will blow him straight back to his home of Ithaca.

It should have been a slam dunk. Unfortunately, our hero, like many people who have been traumatized, doesn't trust anybody. He doesn't explain the nature of the gift to his men and he doesn't trust them to be able to steer the ships. He insists on doing it all, without taking any breaks:

Nine whole days we sailed, nine nights, nonstop.
On the tenth our own land hove into sight at last--
we were so close we could see men tending fires.
But now an enticing sleep came on me, bone-weary
from working the vessel's sheet myself, no letup,
never trusting the ropes to any other mate,
the faster to journey back to native land.

His men start to grumble to themselves about the mysterious gift from Aeolus. They are jealous, thinking that he has been given special gifts and declined to share them with his troops. They decide to take a peek:

A fatal plan, but it won my shipmates over.
They loosed the sack and all the winds burst out
and a sudden squall struck and swept us back to sea,
wailing, in tears, far from our own native land.
And I woke up with a start, my spirit churning--
should I leap over the side and drown at once
or grin and bear it, stay among the living?

Helpless and embarrassed, he heads back to Aeolus, hoping for another break. Not this time. Aeolus sends him away in disgust:

'Away from my island--fast--most cursed man alive!
It's a crime to host a man or speed him on his way
when the blessed deathless gods despise him so.
Crawling back like this--
it proves the immortals hate you! Out--get out!'

Jonathan Shay, a psychiatrist who works with Vietnam veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress problems, finds this story similar to those told by some of his patients who were offered a break such as a great job by a "big man" on returning.

Unfortunately, some of them lost valuable opportunities offered by well meaning benefactors by treating an ordinary job as a "combat mission," working day and night without sleeping, not trusting co-workers to do the job right, and not giving them the information they need to help him do the job. When they failed, they had to go back like Odysseus to ask for one more chance--sometimes with the same results.

But there's a universal theme here as well. Think about how many times in life we almost got things right, almost made it to some desired state, only to have things fall apart when the end seemed to be in sight,leaving us feeling, like Odysseus, to be despised by the gods.

I hate it when that happens.

SPEAKING OF BLOWING IT, scientists are concerned that the permafrost covering parts of the northern hemisphere contains huge amounts of carbon. If this thaws as a result of climate change, they'd release even more into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change even more.

UNDOING THE DAMAGE. A recent issue of Mother Jones magazine has a series of articles on cleaning up the mess that will be left behind by the Bush administration.

MASSEYGATE MAKES THE NY TIMES (AGAIN). Here's an editorial from the Sunday New York Times about Massey Energy's relationship with the WV Supreme Court.

PLENTY OF SCHOOLS LEFT BEHIND. An example of the recent failure to invest in infrastructure and public goods is the declining investment in public school facilities.

NATURE OR NURTURE? This is an interesting article on scientific studies of gender differences.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

BLOWING IN THE WIND

Aeolus, keeper of the winds, courtesy of wikipedia.

The theme at Goat Rope lately has been the Odyssey of Homer, along with links and comments about current events. It is a story that has delighted people of all ages for thousands of years. It also deals with a vital theme in America today, i.e. how is it possible to re-integrate survivors of war into normal "peaceful" society.

It's flawed hero Odysseus, after all, has spent 10 years fighting at Troy--but he's so damaged by that experience that it takes him another 10 years to make it home. He can even be seen as a negative example of how not to do it.

Coming home in the broad sense of reaching a state or place of safety and security isn't easy for anyone, but it can be even harder for those who have undergone trauma. As we've seen so far in this series, Odysseus has come close to losing his homecoming several times.

One danger was staying in combat mode after the war was over, as happened in the raid on the Circoneans. Another danger is losing oneself in drugs that dull the pain but can make one forget the struggle to get home, represented in the story by the Lotus Eaters. The story of the cyclops (see last week) showed the dangers of reckless adventure seeking and of provoking dangerous conflicts that could easily have been avoided.

At this point, Odysseus and his remaining men are due for a break and they get one. Sort of. They visit the floating island of Aeolus, the keeper of the winds. There they were feasted and treated with great hospitality or xenia. Odysseus is given a gift that could take him easily and quickly home. As he describes it,

He [Aeolus] gave me a sack, the skin of a full-grown ox,
binding inside the winds that howl from every quarter,
for Zeus had made that king the master of all the winds,
with power to calm them down or rouse them as he pleased.
Aeolus stowed the sack inside my holds, lashed so fast
with a burnished silver cord
not even a slight puff could slip past that knot.
Yet he set the West Wind free to blow us on our way
and waft our squadron home.

It sounds like he's home free, doesn't' it? Too bad it didn't work out that way. More on that tomorrow.

FANNIE AND FREDDIE. Here's an item on the housing bailout and what it may mean for the economy.

OH GOOD. The ice around the Arctic has melted to a greater extent than at any time in at least half a century. Scientists view this as another sign of global climate change. Meanwhile, the glaciers in the Pyrenees may be gone within 50 years. Nothing wrong here--move along!

FACTS AND STATS about the state of the union for working people can be found here.

ADDING IT UP. Here's an op-ed from the Charleston Sunday Gazette-Mail by yours truly about what the latest Census report on income, poverty and health coverage showed about the US and WV. Short version: it wasn't all bad news, but things look rocky now.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED