My true calling

According to the Steve Martin movie The Jerk, everyone has a special purpose. Who am I to dispute with such a treasured social artifact?

Every time I visit Vermont, I think I receive a glimpse of my special purpose, the talent for which I was permitted to exist on this earth.

It consists of shoveling manure out of a barn that has housed sheep for the winter. The job is a perfect one for me, one which I frequently find myself daydreaming about. It consists of vigorous exercise and unskilled, socially useful labor which requires absolutely no thought on my part. You just shovel, wheel out, dump and repeat. Over and over.

My day job, alas, requires a lot of thought and not nearly as much physical activity as I would like (although some might say there are similarities between my real and ideal profession).

FEEDING THE TROLLS. Here's an op-ed by a friend of mine on the balanced budget amendment which fortunately failed to pass in the US House.

TALKING PEPPER SPRAY here. And here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Garlic and me

El Cabrero is not God's gift to gardening. If anything, I'm more a walking talking bottle of human Roundup. However, for some reason this does not apply to garlic, a plant to which I seem to have some kind of karmic affinity.

While I'd prefer not to discuss the rest of the garden, I say with pride that this was a good year for garlic. I harvested our crop a while back and it looks like it will be enough to carry is through a good part of the year. This is saying something, since in this household garlic winds up in just about everything with the possible exception of breakfast cereal.

There is something about planting something just before the dead of winter and harvesting it just before the dead of summer that appeals to me.

BAD IDEA DEPARTMENT. Here are looks at two of them, including the Balanced Budget Amendment and the Boehner plan.

I'm getting pretty tired of this ****.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The grammar police

It isn't her full time gig, but the Spousal Unit sometimes serves as a member of the axillary grammar police. In this capacity, she lacks the formal power to conduct arrests and criminal investigations and impose formal sanctions.

This does not deter her, however, from running around the house ranting and foaming at the mouth about particular grammatical or semantic atrocities.

The latest offense that set off a tirade was an ad that said "To each their own." This mingling of singular and plural was in her eyes an offense which all the waters of the Mississippi, the Volga and the Yangtze could never wash away.

Had I but the courage, I would have said "Irregardless, I could care less"--just to watch the sparks fly.

UPPING THE ANTE. The prospects for an agreement on raising the federal debt limit hit a snag.

WONKY BUT IMPORTANT. Here's a look at why spending caps and a balanced budget amendment are bad ideas.

WHY DO DOGS BARK? Click here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

To strip or not to strip

One of the bombs dropped on miners by planes friendly to coal operators at the Battle of Blair Mountain. Fortunately, this one didn't go off. Image by way of wikipedia.

If you've been following events in West Virginia lately, you will be aware that environmentalists protesting mountaintop removal mining recently retraced the historic 1921 miner's march to Blair Mountain, which was the largest workers' insurrection in American history (so far, he added wistfully).

Labor groups for the most part didn't take part in this march but plan activities of their own to preserve this historic site.

I've made several trips to Blair myself, mostly before the surrounding area was heavily stripped. I was particularly fond of an old abandoned fire tower up on top. It was rickety and scary as hell to climb, which didn't deter me from going up several times. What can I say? Us hillbillies like to climb things.

It reminded me of the mountain the devil was said to have taken Jesus to during his temptation.

The tower is, alas, long gone. It's unclear how long the mountain will remain, although an article in the Wall Street Journal reported that

Alpha Natural Resources Inc. of Abingdon, Va., said it doesn't intend to conduct mountain-top removal in the historic battleground area, but acquired one active operation outside the 1,600-acre boundary when it bought Massey Energy.

"We agree that Blair Mountain is an area of historical significance, and an appropriate commemoration of the 1921 events ought to be considered," said Alpha spokesman Ted Pile. But, he added, a commemoration shouldn't "abrogate the legal rights of the many property owners and leaseholders in the area."

I'm not sure how to interpret that. I like the first part of the statement, although it might have been undone by the latter part.

Once again, let me remind the Gentle Reader that the best place to keep up on all things coal is Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward's Coal Tattoo blog.

THE LATEST BAD IDEA. An unbalanced Balanced Budget Amendment under consideration in the US House would push through deeper cuts than even the Ryan plan.

YOU ALREADY KNEW THIS. Aside from a weak job market, wages are pretty stagnant too.

CREATING JOBS. A new study suggests that workforce training is more effective than cutting business taxes.

URGENT WEIRD ANIMAL SOUNDS UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED