CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT...

"I never drink...wine." Speak for yourself, dude. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

When El Cabrero was a little kid, as yet innocent in the ways of goats or the larger world, Channel 8 used to show 1930s horror movies on Fridays at 5:00. I thought this was The Coolest Thing Ever.

I may have been predisposed to this since my old man read me Edgar Allen Poe at a very early age.

They showed Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf Man, and the various combinations thereof in good old black and white. I liked them all but Dracula was a favorite. Before I could make out the big words, I conned the Maternal Unit into reading Bram Stoker's book aloud.

Ever since then, I've waited patiently for someone to make a Dracula movie that was actually like the Book. The 1990s flick Bram Stoker's Dracula was probably the closest I've found, but it was really Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula...But I digress.

The book is one I've gone back to for entertainment through the years over and over to clear the palate. It certainly doesn't rise to the peaks of literary greatness, but it is kind of diverting.

It was much later that I learned about the real Dracula, who was a lot scarier than Stoker's vampire.

More of that to come this week. Stay tuned...

NEW DEAL REMEMBERED. Here's a review of American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA, When FDR Put the Nation to Work. The book surveys the history and accomplishments of the Depression-era jobs program which among other things built a lot of the infrastructure of El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia.

AT LEAST THESE GUYS ARE DOING OK. The economy is lousy for most Americans, but businesses in the foreclosure "industry" are thriving.

WHERE'S THE BEEF? Here's Krugman on the Bush administration's approach to the credit crisis.

LOSING IT. Here's a review of current research on the subject of self control.

YOU DON'T NEED A WEATHERMAN. Here's an op-ed by yours truly on the opportunities of a well designed climate change policy.

COAL AND COMMUNITY HEALTH. Here's the latest news on public reactions (or the lack thereof) to a recent report by a WVU researcher on the health of coal communities.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

STONES THAT SPEAK

El Cabrero lives in what can safely be called the middle of nowhere, as in so far out there ain't no cable, fast internet, or newspaper delivery. But if I walk a mile from the head of the holler to the "main" road (main being strictly relative out here), there's a reminder of the kinds of things this country once did and could do again.

There, just below a country church is a stone wall that keeps the hillside from sliding into the road. On that wall is chiseled the following message: "WPA 1938."

The WPA of course stands for the Works Progress Administration, a landmark of FDR's New Deal. It provided work at decent wages for over 3 million unemployed Americans during the Great Depression and built a great deal of the infrastructure not only for El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia but for the country at large.

Several years ago, I interviewed some relatives who worked on the WPA in rural West Virginia. One woman recalled that "We lived and lived happy on it." Her husband, who build roads and bridges for the program said "It wasn't like it is now. They didn't just take people who were down and out and try to stomp them down deeper--they tried to help the people."

And they got a lot of work done. Here's a partial list of WPA accomplishments as reported in the Nov. 2006 issue of The Hightower Lowdown:

78,000 bridges

700 miles of airport runways

116,000 public buildings

24 million trees planted

650,000 miles of road

8,000 parks

4,383 new schools

9,000 miles of sewer lines

Not too shabby. And these accomplishments are important to remember today after we've been bombarded for over 25 years with right wing propaganda about the inability of government to act constructively. The disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina shows what happens when we allow the government to be run by people who don't believe government can do anything and act accordingly.

We can do better. We have done better.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED