Intelligent coal

I apologize for neglecting this blog lately, but I must plead health problems in the family and a crazy work schedule. The last post had to to with how the WV state school board embarrassed itself a while back by revising national science standards to question climate change.

As I've tried to explain to people from out of state, coal is kind of like God in WV, only more so.

Fortunately, the board, or at least a majority thereof, voted this week to keep the original standards. Here are some musings about that from the NY Times and Mother Jones magazine. And here's a little bit of snarky commentary from Wonkette before the board reversed itself.

The saddest thing is that right wing foamers here will probably beat up the board for doing the right thing, however belatedly.

As I've said here more than once, it's high time to change the state motto from the obviously outdated "Mountaineers are always free" to "You can't make this **** up."

Can't hardly wait

There has been lots of media attention to the WV school board's attempt to make science teaching standards more coal-friendly, the interest of the coal industry being the standard of truth around here. The truly great thing about all this is that the industry didn't even have to (or want to) show up at a board meeting to ask for or demand this change. It was just done.

Here's some coverage about this from the NY Times. And here's a certain friend of mine who happens to be a retired science teacher attempting to school the board. The lesson includes the subject of English as well...

Apparently, the board is going to revisit the issue tomorrow. One practically quivers with antici........pation.

Whatever happens, this is yet another reason why I have decided to devote the few remaining days of my life to changing the state motto from "Mountaineers are always free" (which seems to me to cease to apply when groveling becomes generalized) to "You can't make this **** up."

Apropos of nothing...

...the following quote from G.K. Chesterton came to mind today:

 “It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.”

SPEAKING OF JOKES, it looks like the WV Board of Education is going to dig itself in deeper after its rather embarrassing antics on climate change. Of course, you actually gain points for digging yourself in deeper on this issue here. It proves your loyalty to the ruling class and the great god coal, which is way more important than anything else.

OH GOOD.  On day one, congressional Republicans starting going after Social Security.

You be the judge

If you're anything like me, you are really pretty sick of hearing two words that were everywhere on the news in the weeks leading up to New Year's. Yes, I'm talking f****l c***f, as in that artificially created federal budget crisis that rhymes is ixkal zliff.

I was, however, amused when a friend told me that the vent feature in a small weekly paper in southern WV complained about the "physical clip." Was it a malapropism or a witticism? I can't call it...maybe you can.

I think the last best word on the whole thing came from The Borowitz Report. Here's an excerpt:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)--Official Washington was in celebration mode on New Year's Day after kind of averting a completely unnecessary crisis that was entirely of its own creation.

"The deal proves that if we all procrastinate long and hard enough, we can semi-solve any self-inflicted problem at the very last minute in a way that satisfies no one," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky)....."This is a new year, and much work remains to be done," he said. "It's up to us to concoct entirely new optional disasters that we will have to undo at some later date in a more or less half-assed way.

In a related story, an arsonist received an award for putting out his own fire.

(Thanks to a Goat Rope reader for passing that on!)

MEANWHILE, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out that the deal makes permanent 82 percent of the Bush era tax cuts. There's more on the next steps here.

WISHING. I hope this lawsuit by former WV state school superintendent Jorea Marple rocks the world of the WV Board of Education.

Oh yeah, and then there's this:

WANNA SAVE THE WORLD? Eat bugs.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Funeral for a friend

I can't say that I intellectually subscribe to the creed of animism, the idea that various things in our world have spirits. But I kind of act and feel like I do. For that reason, I am feeling a little sad at the passing from my hands of a car I've driven for around 15 years, a worthy grey Saturn sedan that I christened the Pequod, in honor of the whaling ship in Moby-Dick. My Pequod, however, had a much better run than Melville's.

I could probably have kept in on the road a bit longer, aside from the fact that it overheated when idling, had an exhaust leak that probably wasn't all that good to breathe, and had a window that would roll up or down. Oh yeah, and the brakes were shot too. Still, I feel attached to the fine old thing. I would like to think that the spirits of good cars go to a nice place like that to which good dogs ought to go when they pass and that we can all be reunited sometime in the Elysian Fields.

And, lest anyone bash the workmanship of American union members, let me point out that the Pequod had almost 322,000 miles on it, which is far enough to get to the moon and almost halfway back. Taking its place will be a 2011 American union-made car, a red Chevy Cruze, made in the neighboring state of Ohio, otherwise known as The Land of White Castle Hamburgers.

I need to think of a good name for the car. Candidates include Bucephalus, the name of Alexander the Great's favorite horse; Rocinate, the worthy steed of Don Quixote, or The Red Special, in honor of the train used by Socialist Eugene Debs in his 1908 run for president. (If Trotsky had taken the trouble to name his armored train that might have been another possibility). The car that preceded the Pequod was named Traveler, in honor of Robert E. Lee's horse, which in fact was a native of what is now West Virginia. I'm open to other suggestions if anyone has any.

COMMON SENSE about prisons can be found across the political spectrum these days. Here's an op-ed by yours truly about the growing conservative movement to address prison overcrowding.

MORE ON THAT here.

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED? Here's an interesting Gazette story on what might have been the real motive for the firing of WV school superintendent Jorea Marple.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Like a dog

I've been meaning to blog about Moby-Dick here but today another literary classic is on my mind. That would be The Trial by Franz Kafka, one of his more Kafkaesque novels. In it, the protagonist, Josef K., finds himself accused of a crime but is never told what it is. He must devote a great deal of effort to his defense, although he has no idea how to do that. In the end, he is casually executed. His last words describe the killing:  "Like a dog."

That's pretty much the way the majority on the WV Board of Education treated former superintendent Jorea Marple, an amazingly capable and dedicated educator. The school board is supposed to "reconsider" her firing tomorrow, although I imagine they will only do it over again. If anyone should be fired, I'd start with them.

ON THE OTHER HAND, sometimes the American justice system works better than Mr. Kafka's. I was encouraged by this announcement of the latest development in the federal criminal investigation of Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine disaster. I hope it keeps on getting better and better.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

This n that

I am so not ready for the end of the Thanksgiving weekend, but I have a lot of work things in the hopper. One such item is an idea that  the WV legislature is considering, to wit work sharing, a way of dealing with cyclical downturns in the economy by reducing hours rather than jobs and allowing affected workers to collect partial unemployment insurance for lost wages. Here's an op-ed by yours truly on the subject.

GO TEAMSTERS. Lincoln County WV native Ken Hall has climbed to the height of influence in the 1.4 million member Teamsters union. Here's his take on the shameful firing of WV school superintendent Jorea Marple.

LIKE THE SAYING SAYS, you only get one chance to make a first impression.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Annals of paranoia

This item caught my eye last week when I was traveling and attests to the fact that Whackadoodleism is alive and well. As Mother Jones reports, a prominent Georgia legislator gave a presentation in October to a local group along these lines:

President Obama is using a Cold War-era mind-control technique known as "Delphi" to coerce Americans into accepting his plan for a United Nations-run communist dictatorship in which suburbanites will be forcibly relocated to cities.

 The presentation also included a comparative list showing the similarities between the agrarian policies of Stalin, Mao and the current occupant of the White House.

(Question: would a white president with similar policies provoke the same degree of Whack? I think not.)

I guess any day now the goats, turkeys, peacocks and chickens of Goat Rope Farm will be forcibly collectivized. On the bright, side that would make vacations a little simpler.

WHAT HE SAID. Here's Paul Krugman on the Twinkie era.

DIRTY DEEDS. Here's more on the negative consequences of the decision of the state school board to fire superintendent Jorea Marple.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED