So much for the unities

The Greek philosopher Aristotle had enormous influence on Western thought since his works were rediscovered (thanks in part to Muslim scholars) around the 12th century. His thought provided the framework for St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica as well as for Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Parts of his Ethics and Politics hold up well to this day.

His theories on art as expounded in the Poetics continued to be influential long after his metaphysical influence had waned and were going strong during Shakespeare’s time (search this blog in the upper left hand corner for more on that).

Many dramatists of that time and beyond adhered to Aristotle’s theory of “the unities” in tragic art, meaning that a work should take place at one time and in one place with one overriding theme. The best example of this is probably Sophocles’ Oedipus.

That would be yet another convention Shakespeare threw out the window. I could be wrong, but I can’t think of a single tragedy of his that fits that model. As Samuel Johnson put it:

Whether Shakespeare knew the unities, and rejected them by design, or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I think, impossible to decide, and useless to inquire. We may reasonably suppose, that, when he rose to notice, he did not want the counsels and admonitions of scholars and critics, and that he at last deliberately persisted in a practice, which he might have begun by chance. As nothing is essential to the fable, but unity of action, and as the unities of time and place arise evidently from false assumptions, and, by circumscribing the extent of the drama, lessen its variety, I cannot think it much to be lamented, that they were not known by him, or not observed: Nor, if such another poet could arise, should I very vehemently reproach him, that his first act passed at Venice, and his next in Cyprus. Such violations of rules merely positive, become the comprehensive genius of Shakespeare…

It is true that most of the action in Hamlet happens around the castle in Elsinore, although there is also the famous graveyard scene. But that’s as close to the unities as it gets. The action is stretched out over a period of weeks or months, at least long enough for Hamlet to see the ghost, put on an antic disposition, set up a play within a play, whack Polonius, get sent to England, get captured and ransomed by pirates, and return to Elsinore.

The plot is hardly unified either. Shakespeare took the template for a simple revenge play and broke that mold as well. There are several subplots (involving Ophelia, Polonius, Rosencrantz/Guildenstern, etc).

The main plot of the play isn’t in fact revenge; instead it is the title character himself who hijacked the whole thing. More on that tomorrow.

THE COSTS OF INEQUALITY are the subject of this item from the Financial Times.

LABOR LAW REFORM goes back to the drawing board in the wake of recent political developments.

THE FUTURE OF COAL under the Obama administration is discussed here.

WHEN IT COMES TO BANKS, boring may be good.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

This is what it's going to take

There was an old fashioned labor rally yesterday at the capitol of El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia, complete with speeches, music and the obligatory hot dogs. Several hundred people attended. Speakers included state labor officials, WV governor Joe Manchin and AFLCIO Secretary Treasurer Rich Trumka. Trumka, former president of the United Mine Workers, is currently running for president of the national AFLCIO.

The aim of the rally was to highlight a progressive agenda which includes health care reform, the Employee Free Choice Act and trade reform, all of which are among the American Friends Service Committees economic policy priorities. Health care got top billing for obvious reasons.

As the NY Times reports, that fight is now taking place outside of Washington as Congress adjourns for the summer recess. Opponents of reform are loud and shrill, even though 47 million or so Americans lack health care and more are losing it every day.

If you want to do something about that, the time to make noise is now.

HERE'S WHAT TO EXPECT from opponents of reform.

SILVER LINING. This item looks at the positive aspects of being unemployed.

URGENT ANIMAL UPDATE. It is our pleasure to introduce Edith, a rescue puppy and new addition to the Goat Rope staff.




GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Where the dangers are double

"I remember the ways in the bygone days
when we was in our prime
How us and John L. give the old man hell
down in the Blue Diamond Mine"

El Cabrero is basically a labor person. The issues that interest me and the ones that I've spent the most time working on are those that affect working and low income people. Unions have always important in that department and always should be.

In West Virginia, the union that has had the biggest impact historically has been the United Mine Workers of America. It has had good times and bad times but its high points were high indeed.

Founded in 1890, it was an early example of an industrial union, one which aimed to include everyone who worked in and around the mines, regardless of skill level. It was always racially integrated and reached out to immigrant labor, often having several different language committees working in the same big mines. And it fought titanic battles (sometimes literally) with companies to improve conditions for miners.

The UMWA helped give birth to the mass industrial unions of the CIO during the 1930s, which eventually enabled millions of workers to earn a living wage with benefits and enter the middle class. It has also often led the charge for workplace safety and for things like black lung benefits.

Unfortunately, the UMWA has been hit by all kinds of changes over the last several decades, starting with automation and the switch to less labor intensive (and, many would add, more destructive) kinds of mining.

It has also been the target of a major union busting campaign beginning in the 1980s, with Massey playing the key role.

Sometimes the UMWA is singled out for criticism by environmentalists, but their position is that their job is to represent their members, who don't get to decide under what conditions coal is to be mined. And they are caught in a bind over climate change and the future of coal, regardless of what happens with mountaintop removal.

It's a tough situation. But I think the position and interests of people who work in mining would be much stronger in all these controversies if the union itself was larger and stronger. It would be better positioned to take a stand independent of the coal companies who now claim to represent their interests.

It is really galling for me to see the same companies that have worked so hard to destroy the union to claim to be the protector and beneficiary of miners.

FORKED TONGUES. Opponents of health care reform are following a carefully crafted script.

GO TEAM! From the same source, the Episcopal Church passed a resolution supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.

USING THE T WORD. This item talks taxes.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The pale cast of thought

Seamus McGoogle thinks too much. Such cats are dangerous.

Lately I've been thinking about not thinking.

The related sciences of psychology and behavioral economics have pointed out that most of the time, we run on automatic pilot, without really thinking about what we're doing. We seem to have two related cognitive systems, one that doesn't require a lot of thought and another that is reflective and self-conscious.

The former is pretty fast and effortless, while the latter is slower and more deliberative.

It's probably a good thing that we have the autopilot function. It would be pretty hard to get things done if we had to consciously reflect how to tie shoes, wash dishes or mow the lawn.

The automatic system seems to have evolved to help animals (including us) deal with routine events. The reflective system may have developed to help us deal with novel situations.

It strikes me as a paradox that in education we sometimes seem to value the reflective questioning part, although the automatic one delivers most of the goods most of the time.

People nowadays, especially "progressives," tend to disparage rote learning and drill. But if you think about it, we learn some of our most important skills that way. Think of multiplication tables, spelling, reading, keyboarding, riding a bicycle, or tons of other things.

When I first tried to learn how to play the guitar, it took what seemed like ages to make a chord and even longer to change one. After a while, I could play and change basic chords without thinking about it. Martial artists and other athletes basically train so they won't have to think. So do most emergency responders--and that's a good thing most of the time.

Thinking and self-consciousness have their place but sometimes they're overrated. Think about it. Or not.

HEALTH CARE RESOURCE. Here's some useful information on the current health care reform debate from West Virginians for Affordable Health Care and the WV Center on Budget and Policy.

LOOKING BACK A VIETNAM is the theme of the latest edition of the Rev. Jim Lewis' Notes from Under the Fig Tree.

NO CARDS. It looks like "moderates" in the US Senate have scrapped a key provision of the Employee Free Choice Act.

WV ITEMS. It was a surprise for me yesterday to see that there will be a change in leadership at the Department of Health and Human Resources, but no surprise to see that problems persist in the state's in-home Medicaid program for the elderly and disabled. On a different topic, Kanawha County schools dropped the words "sexual orientation" from policy intended to discourage bullying and harassment. Holy abject caving, Batman!

WHY DO DOGS BARK? Here's one possibility.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

"...even more than in the past"

WV workers rally at state capitol for the Employee Free Choice Act. I think this picture is about three years old.

It is one of my rituals after returning from a trip to comb through newspapers and other sources to catch up and see what I might have missed.

One story that I found to be particularly interesting was the release of Pope Benedict's encyclical, CARITAS IN VERITATE.

The encyclical is a very strong statement in support of economic justice and a strong critique of "unleashed" capitalism. Among other things, it contains a strong endorsement of labor unions and strongly supports the rights of workers to organize:

Through the combination of social and economic change, trade union organizations experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the interests of workers, partly because Governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labor unions. Hence traditional networks of solidarity have more and more obstacles to overcome. The repeated calls issued within the Church’s social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum, for the promotion of workers’ associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honored today even more than in the past, as a prompt and far-sighted response to the urgent need for new forms of cooperation at the international level, as well as the local level.

And that's not all. In the words of Thomas Reese, S.J., writing for the Washington Post,

Although Benedict's emphasis in the encyclical is on the theological foundations of Catholic social teaching, amid the dense prose there are indications, as shown above, that he is to the left of almost every politician in America. What politician would casually refer to "redistribution of wealth" or talk of international governing bodies to regulate the economy? Who would call for increasing the percentage of GDP devoted to foreign aid? Who would call for the adoption of "new life-styles 'in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments'"?

What would Joe the Plumber say?

Some other items that struck my eye included:

*this overview of health care systems in different countries;

*this piece that reminds us that even people with health insurance can go broke in a medical crisis; and

*this news story that reports lower rates of bankruptcies in states that don't seize wages.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: CELESTIAL

"...man is mortal and must learn to curb his pride"

Persian Xerxes, by way of wikipedia.

"...Let no man
Scorning the fortune that he has, in greed for more
Pour out his wealth in utter waste. Zeus, throned on high,
Sternly chastises arrogant and boastful men."

Nearly all Greek tragedies are about mythological events. The one exception is The Persians by Aeschylus, which is the earliest surviving tragedy of the earliest tragic writer.

The play is set in the Persian royal city of Susa and it portrays the royal family and court when the news of their disastrous defeat by the Greek navy at Salamis arrives by messenger. Produced only eight years after the event by a veteran of that war, it is the earliest account we have of that decisive conflict.

Perhaps surprisingly, Aeschylus did not demonize his former foes. The Persian nobles are portrayed with respect and a degree of sympathy. As the French writer Albert Camus wrote in The Rebel, "The Greeks never made the human mind into an armed camp, and in this respect we are inferior to them."

The roots of the conflict were the efforts of Athenians to aid Greek colonies that had fallen under Persian rule. The Persian ruler Darius vowed to punish Athens and attempted a punitive expedition in 490 BC which resulted in the Greek victory at Marathon. Darius vowed a major invasion using all the resources of his empire but died before he could carry it out.

That task was left to Xerxes, who is portrayed by Greek sources such as Herodotus and Aeschylus as arrogant and full of hubris. The war began in earnest in August 480 when the Spartans inflicted heavy losses and died to the last man at the pass of Thermopylae. The naval battle at Salamis occurred a month later. Under the leadership of Themistocles, the Persian navy was basically destroyed as an effect force. A land army remained, only to be repelled the following year.

Tomorrow: the play itself.

SPEAKING OF MARATHON, here's an article about a different way of training for one.

THE RIGHT TO ORGANIZE. From the AFLCIO blog, here are links to two op-eds on the Employee Free Choice Act.

OH GOOD. Thanks to the "charity" of BB&T, more Ayn Rand propaganda came our way.

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS. Here's the messed up link to the article about Charleston's sustainability fair.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

"...freedom only after countless pains"

Heracles would eventually liberate Prometheus. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

Goat Rope these days is taking a tour of ancient Greek tragedy (but you'll find links and comments about current events below). This week the theme is Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus.

Why Greek tragedy? I'm convinced the tragic lens often is the one that applies best to current problems. In an earlier post about coal and Appalachia, I argued that we too often tend to view the world through a simplified action movie lens, with clear good guys who are all good and bad guys who are all bad (see former President Bush) and a happy ending. Would that it were so.

But back to the story at hand.

It is easy to see Prometheus as the archetypal rebel against tyranny and to view Zeus as an evil usurper. But Aeschylus was concerned with a deeper matter: how excess can be tempered and holy moderation can be achieved. He was all about avoiding excess and calling for moderation.

We only have the first play of his trilogy, but we know it ended with the release of Prometheus, who would aid Zeus with information that would allow him to remain in power.

Zeus, after violently overthrowing the old order, was excessive in his punishment and use of power. Prometheus, though he benefited humanity, was excessive in his pride and defiance, as some of his sympathetic visitors suggested.

Totalitarianism and the rule of force must give way to restraint and the rule of law. Prometheus and Zeus are symbols of forethought and reason on the one hand and power on the other--and these must be reconciled.

Too bad we can't see how Aeschylus got there. Too bad we haven't figured out how to get there ourselves.

Y'all have a good weekend and try not to get chained to any rocks.

SPEAKING OF BEING CHAINED TO ROCKS, this essay hopes we'll be liberated soon from the rock of market fundamentalism.

HEALTH CARE COSTS exceed wage gains in El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia (and elsewhere in the US too). Meanwhile, it looks like the health care industry, after making a show of supporting reforms, is trying to sabotage President Obama's health care plan. Their main target is a public option which many see as the key to moving towards universal coverage.

REASON # 42949 why we need the Employee Free Choice Act here.

NOT COOL. WV's proposed state budget includes cuts in legal services for domestic violence victims.

MONKEY BRAINS aren't all that different from ours.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Pity and fear

Aristotle, medieval European style. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

Aside from links and comments about current events, Goat Rope lately has been looking at Aristotle's view of art, literature, tragedy and poetry as expressed in his Poetics.

The ancient Athenians took tragedy seriously. Such performances were usually given during the spring festival of the god Dionysus and, like so much else in Greek life, they were a contest. All citizens were supposed to attend the performances (and got paid to do so) and vote on the winner. The contest consisted of a series of three more or less related tragedies and a lighter and cruder satyr play (named for the goatlike companions of the god). Three tragedians competed for top honors.

Attending was both a patriotic and religious duty. They took tragedy so seriously that when they voted special taxes on rich citizens, these were sometimes given a choice of paying for a new trireme (fighting ship) or a new tragic performance. Can you imagine a society today that viewed art as being as important as warfare?

Aristotle believed that a good tragedy should have a powerful cleansing effect or katharsis on those who watched it. He said

Tragedy is a representation of action that is worthy of serious attention, complete in itself and of some magnitude - bringing about by means of pity and fear the purging of such emotions.

Debate rages today about what he meant by katharsis. Some see it as something like a religious initiation, while others believe he derived the term from Greek medical practices and viewed it as having a cleansing effect on the psyche just as other treatments might have on the body. Ditto pity and fear. One possible interpretation is that we feel pity for the suffering of the protagonist and fear in recognizing that the same kind of thing might happen to us in a similar situation.

I don't necessarily think that's the only function of tragedy or way to view it. Nietzsche believed that the beauty of such art made it possible for those who viewed it to say yes to life in spite of all its horrors. The best tragedies also warn against hubris and excess--if only we paid attention.

Pity, fear and katharsis may not be the last word on tragedy. Still, I'll never forget the way it felt when I first really read the works of tragedians such as Aeschylus and Sophocles. It might not have been exactly that, but it was close.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY? The US lags behind other highly developed nations in providing paid leave for new moms.

UNEMPLOYMENT. The Obama administration has proposed more help for unemployed workers, including a proposal that would allow them to receive job training while also receiving benefits.

CHICKEN LITTLE AGAIN. While some business groups continue to view the Employee Free Choice Act as a sign of the apocalypse, several US states already have similar laws on the books and the sun apparently continues to rise over them.

URGENT BIG SHARK UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A beginning, a middle and an end

An early Islamic picture of Aristotle, courtesy of wikipedia.

El Cabrero has been drinking at the fountain of Hellas again lately. Specifically, I've been pondering Aristotle's theory of poetics, which is the Western world's oldest and most influential work of literary theory and criticism. The best known parts of it have to do with the nature of tragedy.

Its influence can still be felt today not only in the realm of theater but in movies, television shows, novels and short stories.

He believed that basically all forms of art are imitative and that a main difference between comedy and tragedy is that one favored and portrayed the lower aspects of human nature while the other portrayed the higher. (He was all about distinctions between lower and higher.)

(This might explain the difference between Beavis and Butthead and Amadeus.)

According to his definition,

Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is complete, and whole, and of a certain magnitude; for there may be a whole that is wanting in magnitude.

This may have been what Herman Melville was driving at in Moby-Dick when he wrote that

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be that have tried it.

Aristotle also laid out the elements that most people expect from any kind of story:

A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it. A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows it. A well-constructed plot, therefore, must neither begin nor end at haphazard, but conform to these principles.

Clearly, the dude understood nothing about sequels...

YOU DON'T NEED A WEATHERMAN. Paul Krugman argues that addressing climate change is affordable and, done right, could even been good for the economy.

THE SKY IS FALLING. Business lobbying groups are going Chicken Little over the Employee Free Choice Act and the prospect of universal health care.

GOOD NATURED. Here's an interesting item from Newsweek on the evolutionary roots of morality.

MEDICAID. This AP story highlights a study that found serious flaws in WV's redesigned Medicaid program.

STATE REVENUES in El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia look a little better than expected for April. The legislature has postponed dealing with budget issues until May due to uncertainty.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The first ring

Plato got there first. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

El Cabrero has been musing this week about Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy and its practical applications for people interested in social justice (short version: there are some). It occurred to me, though, that part of the inspiration for Tolkien's epic came from an ancient work of Greek philosophy.

I'm referring to Plato's Republic, a long dialogue about the nature of justice that moves from the individual to the state. It's full of memorable images and stories or myths and one of these is the myth of Gyges.

In the discussion, Glaucon, Plato's brother, imagines a situation in which it would be hard for anyone to be just--a situation in which he or she has absolute power thanks to finding a magical ring. He tells the story of Gyges, a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia in what is now Turkey:

According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended.

Gyges found that the ring gave him the power of invisibility whenever he turned it on his finger. (There are times when I wouldn't mind having one of those.) Anyhow, Gyges arranges to visit the palace and with the help of the ring he seduces the queen, kills the king and becomes the ruler and ancestor of the fabulously wealthy King Croesus (search this blog for his story).

In Glaucon's view, such a ring of power would corrupt anyone:

Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point.

Sound familiar? He further argues that anyone who thinks otherwise is hopelessly naive:

If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. Enough of this.

In the Republic, Socrates argues, unconvincingly in my book, that a truly virtuous person would not be tempted. I'm with Glaucon--and Tolkien--on this one.

But there are definitely times when a little gizmo like that could come in handy.

CLUTTER AND MORE. Here's the latest edition of my friend the Rev. Jim Lewis' Notes from Under the Fig Tree. For some reason, this one reminds me of William Blake's poem London.

HEALTH CARE REFORM, if it's going to get things done, needs a public insurance component, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Goat Rope concurs.

IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT. Here's more on the ruling class hissy fit over the Employee Free Choice Act.

FOOD FIGHT. Here's Michael Pollan again on the movement for local and sustainable food.

A TORTURED CONVERSATION is well summarized here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The wheel turns

If there is any upside to the current economic crisis, it is that it gives us a chance to realize something together that we're sooner or later going to realize on our own one of these days.

That lesson is that Fortune is a wheel that turns. When we're on the upswing, we often tend to think that we enjoy life's good things--health, wealth, power, prestige, looks--as a matter of merit and that the universe has to recognize our property rights to them.

It doesn't.

The temptations of arrogance and hubris are probably strongest for the powerful. As Simone Weil said,

Thus it happens that those who have force on loan from fate count on it too much and are destroyed.

The book of Ecclesiastes nailed it:

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Time and chance.

Anyone can experience a reversal and we're all bound to at one time or another. A time like this can make those of us who may have been spared some of fate's harder blows realize that misfortune isn't just for those other people or for those who somehow deserve it.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls and all that.

One of the most powerful parts of Shakespeare's dark tragedy of King Lear comes when the arrogant king is himself dispossessed and exposed in a brutal storm that forces him to recognize things he'd ignored before:

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them
And show the heavens more just.

KEEPING UP APPEARANCES after a reversal is the subject of this article.

THE RISING. This op-ed from the Baltimore Sun calls the Employee Free Choice Act a stimulus from the bottom up.

A STATE MESS. The solvency of WV's unemployment fund has been the cause of a major dust up in the legislature. It's also taken up a bit of El Cabrero's time lately.

WHAT THE...? In a battle between coal companies and the preservation of one of WV's most significant historical places, the smart money is probably on the coal companies. Come to think of it, if state government had to choose between the Second Person of the Holy Trinity and the coal companies, the same would probably be the case.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The light (or train) at the end of the tunnel

El Cabrero has been musing here this week about current coal controversies in and around WV, particularly mountaintop removal mining. The issue has heated up again in the wake of signals that the coal policies of the Obama administration would reverse many Bush era policies.

I've argued this week that whatever happens, the situation will be tragic for many coalfield communities. In fact, it's been that way for 100 years or so. I don't have any easy answers but here are a few thoughts:

*We need to start thinking in terms of the opportunities presented by the emerging "green collar economy." Allow me to put in another plug for Van Jones' book of the same title. Many companies and public agencies are making more or less sincere noises about moving in a more sustainable direction. And there are public resources to support this emerging economy in both the stimulus package and President Obama's proposed budget. There is also the possibility of using federal funds for reclaiming abandoned mines to create jobs aimed at mitigating some of the damage.

*One of the more interesting efforts to rethink economic development around here is Create West Virginia. In some of their publications, they emphasize that in order to move to a high road creative economy, we need to focus on talent, technology, tolerance and quality of life issues.

Here's a question to think about: as we move into an economy in which creative and talented people will be able to work from anywhere, will the mined-out areas of southern West Virginia be anywhere anybody like that will want to live and work?

*I'm convinced that it is possible not only to have meaningful climate change policies, but to use these to help low income people and as well as areas like southern West Virginia deal with the changes.

A few years back, Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities suggested that the auctioning of carbon credits in a cap and trade system could be used to raise revenue to ease the impact of such changes on low income people, state and federal budgets, and workers and communities in affected industries. The Obama administration has embraced some of these ideas, but these are facing an uphill struggle in the Senate.

Sooner or later, something like a cap and trade system or carbon tax is likely to happen. It would be smart politically (in addition to being the right thing to do) for such policies to specifically provide assistance for those areas that sacrificed so much in the coal age.

ON THE SAME TRACK, there's some support in the WV House of Delegates for a resolution supporting a wind farm in southern WV on a site scheduled for mountaintop removal. And a court has given the Obama administration a deadline to figure out its plan, according to Ken Ward's Coal Tattoo.

WANNA DO SOMETHING TODAY? Call your senators today in support of President Obama's budget. The American Friends Service Committee is urging people to urge their senators to

Vote for President Obama’s budget.

Vote against any amendments that cut spending on human needs at home and abroad.

Support any efforts to reduce the military budget.

The toll-free number is 1-800-473-6711.

CHICKEN LITTLE. The AFLCIO blog has been having fun with a contest to find the most hysterical response to the Employee Free Choice Act. In WV, talk of collective bargaining for public employees usually starts a similar hissy fit, but a poll shows the public supports it.

BARRIERS. Here's a little video from AFSC on barriers to peace in the Mideast.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

It was only a stamp

Image courtesy of wikipedia.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, this month marks my 20th anniversary of working for the American Friends Service Committee. There's a lot of water under that bridge.

I still remember reading the want ad looking for a person to work on economic justice issues in West Virginia and having trouble believing my eyes. I was vaguely aware of the AFSC but didn't know much about it. West Virginia, after all, is not widely known as a hotbed of Quakerism, although I later learned they had some interesting history here.

My own religious background was Episcopal, with healthy dashes of Taoism and Buddhism thrown in. I don't think I'd ever knowingly met a Quaker, but then as now people connected with AFSC come from a wide variety of religious backgrounds, provided they share some basic values.

That could have been an issue. The one thing I knew about Quakerism was their "peace testimony" or commitment of nonviolence. Although I'm fairly placid, I happen to have come from a long line of those Scotch-Irish people who enjoy a good fight, a trait that I seemed to inherit.

My ancestors fought in most of this country's wars, generally, although not always, on the side of the United States (I seem to recall a minor exception in the 1860s). I came close to enlisting myself as a young man. The two things that held me back were my political mistrust of the Reagan administration and the timing of the birth of my first child. Aside from that, I'd been a devotee of the martial arts since junior high.

On the plus side, I was totally down with working for justice for poor and working people, having been there and coming from a place that has been hard hit by many economic trends and bad actors.

I decided it was a long shot but worth a try. It was only a stamp, right?

CROCODILE TEARS have been shed in copious amounts about the supposed threat to "the secret ballot" posed by the Employee Free Choice Act. (Since when did big corporations care about workers' rights, anyway?) Now even the Wall Street Journal admits that is isn't so.

BUDGET BATTLE. As the struggle over President Obama's budget and the federal deficit heats up, Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities makes some good points here.

ON THAT NOTE, here's what economist Michael Ettlinger of the Center for American Progress has to say on the subject.

A "SOLIDARITY ECONOMY." Some people are responding to hard times by forming common security clubs that combine study and reflection on what is happening and why with common action to make things better.

ANIMAL ARMS RACE. Nature has equipped many animals with elaborate weapons, but they seem to be mostly for display.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The magnificent thirteen

Wu practices moral perfection every day.

As mentioned in earlier posts this week, the intrepid Benjamin Franklin set for himself the task of attaining moral perfection. (El Cabrero is far to modest to say in passing that I accomplished this long ago.)

In his methodical way, he came up with a list of virtues, along with a brief maxim for each. He then set about working on one virtue per week until he ran through the list and then started over, even making a chart to note his progress. Here's the list:

1. TEMPERANCE
Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.


2. SILENCE
Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.


3. ORDER
Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.


4. RESOLUTION
Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.


5. FRUGALITY
Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself, i.e., waste nothing.


6. INDUSTRY
Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.


7. SINCERITY
Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.


8. JUSTICE
Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.


9. MODERATION
Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.


10. CLEANLINESS
Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.


11. TRANQUILITY
Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.


12. CHASTITY
Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.

13. HUMILITY
Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

I don't know where to start with a list like that. I think things like industry, moderation, resolution and sincerity are OK, in moderation. But half the fun of speech is trifling conversation. As a cradle Episcopalian, I have some serious problems with including temperance on the list. And don't even mention order. Finally, since this is a family blog, I will leave venery to the Gentle Reader's imagination.

While I find the quest for moral perfection amusing in the highest, I do agree with Ben on this: one virtue at a time is plenty. Maybe even too much.

A LITTLE FRUGALITY when it comes to military contracting might not be a bad idea.

BATTLE OF THE BUDGET. The federal budget proposed by President Obama will be the first stage of the struggle for universal health care.

UNIONS AND UNEMPLOYMENT. Economist Dean Baker takes on misinformation about the Employee Free Choice Act.

WV ITEMS. A collective bargaining bill for public employees has been introduced in the state senate. Mountaintop removal opponents are pushing the Obama administration to take steps to ban it.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM. Stop the presses! Cows tend to line up along a north/south axis.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Moral perfection

The era of the Enlightenment, sometimes called the Age of Reason, reached its peak in the 18th century. It was characterized by a cooling of homicidal religious zealotry and the growth of science and technology and a growing optimism about human possibilities.

Benjamin Franklin, the theme at Goat Rope lately, was nothing if not a child of the Enlightenment. A constant theme in his Autobiography is the quest for self improvement, which became a kind of American mania.

Franklin took to to a degree that probably seems comical to modern readers, jaded as we are by the terrors of history in the centuries that followed. Can you imagine writing something like this (with sincerity)?

It was about this time I conceiv'd the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wish'd to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I know, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other.

(Where are Augustine and Calvin on those extremely rare occasions when you actually need them?)

He found it to be no easy rowing:

...I soon found I had undertaken a take of more difficulty than I had imagined. When my care was employ'd in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason.

Not being a person to easily admit defeat, he determined to resort to a systematic method, about which more tomorrow.

THE WANING OF THE AGE OF CULTURE WARS? Maybe. Would that it were so.

ALSO WANING, in the wake of the economic crisis, is the well-being of many non-profit organizations. This one hits a little close to home for El Cabrero.

WAXING, the opposite of waning, could happen to labor unions with the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE. Lawmakers in WV are contemplating changes in funding for this program. El Cabrero and others are also pushing for the state to expand benefits in order to be eligible for more federal stimulus money.

MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL mining is the subject of this NY Times editorial.

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS. A book mentioned last week about Darwin and Lincoln, Angels and Ages was written by Adam Golpik, not David. My bad.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Asking for a favor

Franklin at his printing press. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

The last few weeks at Goat Rope have been spent with Benjamin Franklin. The focus lately has been on his considerable diplomatic skills. You'll also find links and more or less snarky comments about current events below.

Whatever else you can say about Franklin, he had, in most areas of his live anyhow, social intelligence out the wazoo. One example of this in action came early in his career when he obtained the position of clerk of the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

The post was agreeable to Franklin in terms of income, social contacts, and opportunities to drum up printing business. But it was a yearly appointment. One year, a wealthy and influential new member of the assembly made a speech against Franklin's reappointment in favor of another candidate.

Here's how he dealt with the problem:

I therefore did not like the opposition of this new member, who was a gentleman of fortune and education, with talents that were likely to give him, in time, great influence in the House, which, indeed afterwards happen. I did not, however, aim at gaining his favor by paying any servile respect to him, but, after some time took this other method.

The method was very simply to ask the gentleman for a favor:

Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favour of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I return'd it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favour. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before, and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death.

Here's the punch line:

This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, "He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged." And it shows how much more profitable it is prudently to remove, than to resent, return, and continue inimical proceedings.

Pretty slick.

HARD TIMES. Here's a good overview of a bad scene from USA Today.

GOVERNMENT-PROVIDED HEALTH CARE? Economist Dean Baker argues here that in a fair fight it would win out over private insurers.

CHICKEN LITTLE, REVISITED. Corporate America is having another hissy fit over the Employee Free Choice Act.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The more we get together

St. Florian, patron saint of fire fighters.

In this blog, El Cabrero has often referred to the research of Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam about the importance of social capital for solving all kinds of problems. Social capital can be defined as all the different ways people associate with each other in formal or informal settings.

The era of the Enlightenment was one that saw the blooming of social capital in many settings. Just one example of this is the Junto formed by the young Benjamin Franklin and friends (see yesterday's post). Short version: Franklin and pals would meet regularly to discuss and debate various issues of general interest "on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy."

Sometimes these discussions led to tangible results. Here's a major example taken from Franklin's Autobiography:

About this time I wrote a paper (first to be read in the Junto, but it was afterward publish'd) on the different accidents and carelessnesses by which houses were st on fire, with cautions against them, and means proposed of avoiding them. This was much spoken of as a useful piece, and gave rise to a project, which soon followed it, of forming a company for the more ready extinguishing of fires, and mutual assistance and removing and securing of goods when in danger. Associates in this scheme were presently found, amounting to thirty. Our articles of agreement oblig'd every member to keep always in good order, and fit for use, a certain number of leather buckets, with strong bags and baskets (for packing and transporting of good), which were to be brought to every fire; and we agreed to meet once a month to spend a social evening together, in discoursing and communicating such ideas as occurred to us upon the subject of fires, as might be useful to our conduct on such occasions.

The idea proved its usefulness and let to the formation of many similar companies throughout Philadelphia. Over time, the Union Fire Company procured fire engines, ladders, fire-hooks and other equipment. Writing more than 50 years after the original founding of the fire company, Franklin wrote

...I question whether there is a city in the world better provided with the means of putting a stop to beginning conflagrations; and, in fact, since these institutions, the city has never lost by fire more than one or two houses at a time, and the flames have often been extinguished before the house in which they began was half consumed.

THE STATES AND THE RECESSION. Here's a good source for state foreclosure and unemployment information.

RIGHT TO ORGANIZE? Employees fire pro-union workers in one out of four organizing drives, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

THE CHEERFUL GIVER. This item discusses the psychology of giving.

MORE SUPREME FUN. Here's yesterday's NY Times on the Massey Energy/Don Blankenship/WV Supreme Court case that was argued Tuesday before the US Supreme Court and here's the latest from the Charleston Gazette.

EXERCISE IS GOOD FOR YOUR BRAIN, especially as you get older.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Poor Richard on piety

Ben Franklin's amigo François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire (1694-1778). Image courtesy of wikipedia.

El Cabrero has been combing through Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac lately in search of bloggable nuggets. I found a few items on the subject of religion that seemed worth a look.

Franklin, like many people in his generation, tended towards Deism, a rationalist outlook that believed that God figuratively speaking wound up the world's clock and then got out of the way (although he tried not to antagonize those with more traditional beliefs).

Most Deists rejected miracles and any revelation other than reason, although they tended to support rational moral virtues and many believed in some kind of afterlife. They tended to believe that God did not intervene in the world's affairs, other than by giving people the use of reason. As Voltaire put it,

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

Deism can be seen in part as a rejection of the dogmatism and fanaticism that led to so many of the wars and religious persecutions in European history. This quote from the Almanac pretty well expresses that:

Many have quarreled about Religion
That never practiced it.

Ain't that the truth?

Here are some more:

A good example is the best sermon.

None preaches better than the ant,
and she says nothing.

(Ben had the Protestant work ethic out the wazoo...)

Here's one for the road:

Don't judge of men's wealth or piety
by their Sunday appearances.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF BUDGET BATTLE from those waged during the Bush administration looms. The NY Times reports that President Obama's proposed budget will call for closing tax breaks for the wealthy to expand health coverage and a serious approach to climate change.

ECONOMISTS TALKING SENSE. Thirty-nine prominent economists have signed on to a statement in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. They also took out a full page ad to that effect in the Washington Post.

BANK ON IT. El Cabrero is a fan of the work of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Here's his take on the banking mess. And here are his words of wisdom:

Indeed, the incentive system put in place by financial companies has produced the worst possible economic system mankind can imagine: capitalism for the profits and socialism for the losses...

No incentive without disincentive. And never trust with your money anyone making a potential bonus.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE. The economy may be tanking, but shark attacks are down.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Fish and visitors

This week El Cabrero is combing through Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac in search of wisdom, wit and entertainment. As is the case with the work of many of the founders, quite a bit of his work holds up pretty well. Enjoy. And for less witty links and comments about current events, scroll on down.

Here's one for anybody who has had company overstay their welcome:

Fish and visitors stink in three days.

(I'm not sure that's always the case, but sometimes it doesn't take three days for either.)

But Poor Richard often pointed out that our biggest problems weren't caused by others but by ourselves:

He that composes himself
is wiser than he that composes books.

Who has deceiv'd thee as oft as thy self?

He that won't be counsell'd, can't be help'd.

TRUTH SQUAD. Media Matters is exposing misinformation about unions, workers, and the Employee Free Choice Act.

INDULGENCES (of the religious variety) are making a comeback.

HEALTH CARE COSTS now exceed $8,100 per person in the US.

DON'T FORGET RECESS. Play and nature time is important for children's learning.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Stayin' alive

Photo by La Cabra. I'm not sure it has anything to do with the topics discussed today.

Every so often, it's kind of fun to read a book about survival in extreme situations. One recent book along those lines that I'd recommend is Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzales.

Gonzales came about his interest in the subject honestly. During World War II, his father, a B-17 bomber pilot, miraculously managed to survive a 27,000 foot crash without a parachute, not to mention captivity in a German prisoner of war camp. He's pushed the envelope a time or two on his own as well.

One thing that makes his book a little different from plain narratives is that he attempts to look at the scientific data involved and draw some general conclusions that can be useful in all kinds of situations.

I was pleased, but not surprised, to find his book peppered with mentions of Zen Buddhism, Lao Tzu and the Taoist tradition.

He hit on some of my favorite themes (and pet peeves) in his discussion of the role of planning and how it can sometimes get in the way of dealing with things as they are.

Planning is fine, as long as you don't get stuck in it:

In an environment that has high objective hazards, the longer it takes to dislodge the imagined world in favor of the real one, the greater the risk. In nature, adaptation is important; the plan is not. It's a Zen thing. We must plan. But we must be able to let go of the plan, too.

THE MAIN EVENT. Here's a look at the coming battle over the Employee Free Choice Act.

MORE FUN WITH THE WV SUPREMES. I missed this one Sunday. Here's the NY Times on Massey Energy, Don Blankenship, and the WV Supreme Court, all of which are entwined in a case before the US Supreme Court.

MICROLENDING. In the wake of the recession, interest in this kind of financing is growing.

NEED TO SEE SOME COOL MARINE BIOLOGY VIDEOS? No problem.

ONE OF THE DEADLY SINS is envy.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED