It's not either or

Hoppy Kercheval is a big fish in the WV media pond with his conservative commentary and news reporting for WV Metro News. Occasionally I agree with him. I remember one time when that happened we agreed in an email exchange that on such occasions we should both reconsider our opinions.

He recently wrote a commentary in which he criticizes calls to diversify WV's economy while, correctly in my view, pointing out that a major problem is our low level of educational attainment.

I would only add that doing so would be one of the best ways to diversify our economy.

(I would also point out that big corporate tax cuts, which I believe he supported in the past, have also resulted in less funding for higher ed and higher tuition costs for WV students.)

I also sorta kinda agree with his implying that state government can't do a whole lot to plan an economy. I do think, however, that it can do the kinds of things that can position an economy to grow, like having a decent infrastructure, a great educational system, a skilled workforce and a decent quality of life.

Hard Times

The latest Front Porch podcast is out. This time the focus is on WV's tanking economy and budget and what we might be able to do about it. I'm not as pessimistic as some people. Maybe that's because I've been to Gaza...

How not to kill yourself

Every so often I teach a college class in sociology, often on the topic of "Deviance and Social Control." One of the topics usually covered is suicide. Sometimes I bring in literary readings, including Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech (soliloquy being too difficult a word to spell); a section of Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf (not to be confused with the 70s rock group); and good old Moby-Dick.

Of the three, Moby has the best practical advice for people who may have self destructive thoughts but want to avoid acting them out. He has a safety plan. Safety plans are familiar to people working in the field of domestic violence. Potential victims are encouraged to devise a plan for escape if things ever get bad enough. As I understand it, even batterers undergoing treatment in intervention and prevention programs are encouraged to use safety plans when they feel the tension level rising. It's a way of getting the hell out of a situation when before the situation gets to you.

Ishmael, the windy narrator of Melville's classic, has his own safety plan when he gets a bit too morbid:

 Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.

Maybe going off to sea on a whaling ship isn't the best option for people today when the hypos get the upper hand, but the basic idea is a good one. When things go bad, break the pattern.

We're just on the first paragraph of this greatest American novel and there's already been a potentially life saving tip. Who knows what else we'll find.

HERE'S ANOTHER GOOD IDEA: to wit, how not to give away the store and wind up with nothing when it comes to economic development incentives.

GOVERNMENT: WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? Here are some ideas

SPEAKING OF READING, here's a look at how important it can be for the brain development of children. I say, make the little ones read Moby-Dick! (Actually, I think I did read a kid's version when I was young, which might explain a lot.)

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

.

Pain vipassana

Every time I do some serious bookstore browsing I'm struck by the number of books on meditation. There are tons of them. I have a theory about that that goes something like this: reading or writing about it is way more fun than actually doing it. I've tried the sitting thing off and on over the years but seem to do better when in motion with things like karate.

One time a friend and I spent the night in a traditional Theravada Buddhist retreat center in WV's eastern panhandle. The practice there was to do seated meditation for an hour at a various intervals of the day, two being the bare minimum.

I decided to be hardcore so I wrapped up my legs into a full lotus posture, determined to gut it out. The method used there was vipassana or insight meditation and the basic practice was to sit and focus on breathing. If thoughts or feelings arose, one was to note them without judgment and return to the breath. Or something like that.

I spent most of the hour thinking "Jesus Christ, my knees hurt!" After a while though, I tried to just observe the pain rather than get caught up in. And, yes, that is way easier to say than do. But here and there, I managed to do it for a few seconds anyway and after a while I noticed that the pain wasn't constant but seemed to ebb and flow in intensity. Just observing it didn't make it go away but it did seem to create a little space for a moment or two.

I found that practice of "pain vipassana" to be useful at other times, such as endurance events like marathons or triathlons. I really don't enjoy doing those things--it's more like I enjoy having just finished doing them. The event itself is pretty much a total drag. But it did help to just observe the level of pain or discomfort and make the most of the times when the level went down.

I've been thinking about this because since Monday I've been hit with a sudden bout of what appears to be sciatica, which in my case is intense, sometimes agonizing pain in the back and down the legs. Going across the room sometimes seems like an ordeal--and I usually spend a lot of time in serious physical exercise. I'm determined to keep moving as much as I can until it gets under control, which means more pain vipassana.

But I'd SOOO much rather just read about it.

TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN. Here's a classic example of the low road approach to economic development, which usually involves giving away the store and getting ripped off in return. A telemarketing company located in Wheeling in 2006 because it got a three year tax break. Now they're moving to Pennsylvania. And we all know this isn't the first time something like this happened.

CORPORATE CRIMINALS? Here's another take on the Massey Upper Big Branch mine disaster can the various investigations going on related to it.

A GOOD READ. Here's an amusing list of the 10 books aspiring writers shouldn't read.

OVERDOING IT. While physical inactivity is a bigger problem for American children, pushing them too hard in sports can also do damage.

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

FEAR AND TREMBLING

Caption: This man has been overcome with it.

This is Haint Week at Goat Rope. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier entries.

(For the un-hillbilly, haint is Appalachian for that which haunts.)

Whatever haints may or may not be, one reason many people have believed in them over the ages is no doubt the feeling of fear or awe that sometimes strikes us in the apparent absence of an ordinary cause.

The 20th century German theologian Rudolph Otto referred to this feeling as the "mysterium tremendum." In his classic book The Idea of the Holy, he suggests that this feeling of awe lies at the basis of both religion and many superstitions:

The feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide, pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into a more set and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrillingly vibrant and resonant, until at least it dies away and the soul resumes its 'profane', non-religious mood of everyday experience. It may burst in sudden eruption up from the depths of the soul with spasms and convulsions, or lead to the strangest excitements, to intoxicated frenzy, to transport, and to ecstasy.

This feeling can take many forms:

It has wild and demonic forms and can sink to an almost grisly horror and shuddering. It has crude, barbaric antecedents and early manifestations, and again it may be developed into something beautiful and pure and glorious. It may become the hushed, trembling, and speechless humility of the creature in the presence of--whom or what? In the presence of that which is a mystery inexpressible and above all creatures.

The biblical Book of Job has a great description of this unbidden feeling of awe or dread:

“Now a word was brought to me stealthily, And my ear received a whisper of it. Amid disquieting thoughts from the visions of the night, When deep sleep falls on men, Dread came upon me, and trembling, And made all my bones shake." (4:12-14)

Otto believed that earlier, more "primitive" manifestations of this feeling had a dark side and generated belief in ghosts and demons:

Its antecedent stage is 'daemonic dread' (cf. the horror of Pan) with its queer perversion, a sort of abortive offshoot, the 'dread of ghosts'. It first begins to stir in the feeling of 'something uncanny', 'eerie', or 'weird'. It is the feeling which, emerging in the mind of primeval man, forms the start-point for the entire religious development of history. 'Daemons' and 'gods' alike spring from this root, and all the products of 'mythological apperception' or 'fantasy' are nothing but different modes in which it has been objectified.

From a purely psychological point of view, these unbidden feelings of awe and dread are the stuff of which haints are made.

POVERTY AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT is the theme of the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. One item of interest deals with the possibilities of micro-loan programs to alleviate poverty and improve health outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa.

CHANGE TO WHAT? It's been two years or so since some unions split from the AFLCIO to form Change to Win. Here's an item from In These Times about what's changed, what hasn't and what might.

DEATH PENALTY. Yesterday's Supreme Court decision could mean a temporary moratorium on executions.

LATEST PRESS ON MEGAN WILLIAMS MARCH includes this item from the Daily Mail about Malik Shabazz,one of the march's organizers, and this item from the Charleston Gazette about the decision of the Charleston NAACP not to support the march, a decision shared by several other predominantly African American groups in WV.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A CHALLENGE

Welcome to Albert Camus Week at Goat Rope. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier posts.

El Cabrero just noticed by accident that 2007 is the 50th anniversary of Camus' Nobel Prize for literature.

Here's what he had to say about the challenges of his generation (which kinda sounds like the challenges of ours):

Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself. Heir to a corrupt history, in which are mingled fallen revolutions, technology gone mad, dead gods, and worn-out ideologies, where mediocre powers can destroy all yet no longer know how to convince, where intelligence has debased itself to become the servant of hatred and oppression, this generation starting from its own negations has had to re-establish, both within and without, a little of that which constitutes the dignity of life and death.

Sound familiar? There's more:

In a world threatened by disintegration, in which our grand inquisitors run the risk of establishing forever the kingdom of death, it knows that it should, in an insane race against the clock, restore among the nations a peace that is not servitude, reconcile anew labour and culture, and remake with all men the Ark of the Covenant.

He believed, rightly or wrongly, that some people from his generation were up for the challenge:

It is not certain that this generation will ever be able to accomplish this immense task, but already it is rising everywhere in the world to the double challenge of truth and liberty and, if necessary, knows how to die for it without hate. Wherever it is found, it deserves to be saluted and encouraged, particularly where it is sacrificing itself. In any event, certain of your complete approval, it is to this generation that I should like to pass on the honour that you have just given me.

More to the point, are we?

SPEAKING OF (NOT) PREVENTING THE WORLD FROM DESTROYING ITSELF, click here.

CHIP UPDATE. The House passed a stopgap spending measure to keep funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program at its current rate through Nov.

DOES GLOBALIZATION MAKE FOR WAR OR PEACE? According to this analysis, it depends...

BANG FOR THEIR BUCK. It looks like the folks at Blackwater are a little trigger happy even by military contractor standards.

MEGAN WILLIAMS CASE. This is the latest legal news as of now. There have been rumors of outside groups coming to Logan County to protest but these have not materialized so far. Meanwhile, local residents have been discussing organizing some kind of positive community event in response to these crimes. More on that as plans develop.

TALKING SENSE. The Chicken Littles of El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia are always talking about how we rank at or near the bottom in this or that (often spurious) business ranking list. This post a while back from abetterWestVirginia.com is a good response.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

THE GODDESS STRIFE

Caption: This isn't one of her better pictures.

El Cabrero is a big fan of ancient Greece. Philosophy, art, literature, politics, history, a pluralistic approach to religion, name it. Unfortunately, the objects of my admiration sometimes had the self-destructive tendencies of the heroes of their tragedies.

They were like the Ziggy Stardusts of the ancient world. They took it all too far, but boy could they play guitar--or kithara, as the case may be.

Back in the heyday, Greece wasn't a unified country like a modern nation or an empire like those of Alexander the Macedonian or the Romans. It was a diverse collection of city-states which took political forms ranging from democracy to monarchy to tyranny to mixed governments. To the extent they were united at all, it was by language, myths, religion, and custom, including the famous panhellenic games which were the forerunners of our Olympics.

They had plenty of shortcomings but one of the biggest was an addiction to strife or Eris,which/who was also a goddess. According to the poet Hesiod in Works and Days, there were actually two goddesses of strife, one good one bad. The bad one led to war and destruction:

So, after all, there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the earth there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but the other is blameworthy: and they are wholly different in nature. For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: her no man loves; but perforce, through the will of the deathless gods, men pay harsh Strife her honour due.

The other, theoretically at least, to led healthy competition:

But the other is the elder daughter of dark Night, and the son of Cronos who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with is neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel.

In practice, the two often get muddled together, as you may have noticed.

According to another mythological strand, the whole Trojan war grew out of the spite of the vengeful goddess Eris at not being invited to a wedding (although, in my experience, strife is usually at most weddings anyway, invited or not). She makes an appearance in Homer's Iliad with a particularly apt description:

Strife whose wrath is relentless, she is the sister and companion of murderous Ares [god of war], she who is only a little thing at the first, but thereafter grows until she strides on the earth with her head striking heaven. She then hurled down bitterness equally between both sides as she walked through the onslaught making men's pain heavier. She also has a son whom she named Strife.

Anyway, strife or Eris, whether personified or not, brought down classical Greek civilization. The fall was long and slow, but a major step on the way was the long and fratricidal Pelopponesian War, masterfully recounted by Thucydides. That will be the guiding threat through this week's posts.

I don't plan on working the parallels between the Greeks and us too hard but I think it's safe to say that this goddess is still with us.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. William Schweke of the Center for Enterprise Development recently published this op-ed about a rational approach to economic development for West Virginia (and elsewhere). He warns that

the state should not be frightened into radical proposals by the dogmatic anti-government crowd to cut regulation, taxation and other responsibilities to the bone.

WORTH READING. The latest edition of Jim Lewis' Notes from Under the Fig Tree is available. Jim, an Episcopal priest (yay team!), is a master of metaphors and this issue is full of them.

UNLEASHING WHATEVER DEPARTMENT. Meanwhile, over at West Virgina Blue, Antipode has published a good critique of Unleashing Capitalism, a libertarian tract that has become the Holy Writ of the WV right wing.

CALLING ALL WEST VIRGINIANS. I've noticed that readers of Goat Rope come from all over, but I'd like to ask those who live in El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia to read this and respond appropriately in this economic justice campaign. Short version: please check out the link and contact the legislature (it's easy if you go there) to preserve access to education for welfare recipients. It's the best way for people to permanently escape poverty.

THREE ITEMS. For those who don't get the Charleston Gazette or the Sunday Gazette Mail, there are three items in there I highly recommend. One is an article by Paul Nyden on economist Dean Baker, who will be giving a talk in Charleston today on the theme of The Conservative Nanny State. Another is an op-ed by Perry Mann on a lifetime of reading. Finally, there is the heart-rending story by Tara Tuckwiller about a young girl from WV who is doing her part to stop the war in Iraq. Her mother is about to be sent there.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A DOG'S LIFE

Caption: The new ruling class? They might be better than the old one...

According to Business Week, around 63% of U.S. households, or 71 million homes, own least one pet, a number that has climbed from 64 million five years ago.

And they're not just for kids anymore. In fact, a lot of pets get more money spent on them than a lot of children:

There are now $430 indoor potties, $30-an-ounce perfume, and $225 trench coats aimed solely at four-footed consumers and their wallet-toting companions. Even those who shun animal couture are increasingly willing to spend thousands on drugs for depression or anxiety in pets, as well as psychotherapy, high-tech cancer surgery, cosmetic procedures, and end-of-life care. About 77% of dogs and 52% of cats have been medicated in the past year, according to APPMA, an increase of about 20 percentage points from 1996.

And speaking of dogs,

It wasn't so very long ago that the phrase "a dog's life" meant sleeping outside, enduring the elements, living with aches, and sitting by the dinner table, waiting for a few scraps to land on the floor. Today's dog has it much better. APPMA reports that 42% of dogs now sleep in the same bed as their owners, up from 34% in 1998. Their menu reflects every fad in human food—from locally sourced organic meat and vegan snacks to gourmet meals bolstered by, say, glucosamine to ward off stiff joints. Half of all dog owners say they consider their pet's comfort when buying a car, and almost a third buy gifts for their dogs' birthdays...

A STEP ON THE HIGH ROAD. El Cabrero has ranted a lot about a high road vs. low road approach to economic development for WV. Here's a story about a step on the high road from the Charleston Daily Mail:

Gov. Joe Manchin wants all West Virginians have access to fast Internet service by 2010, and Verizon West Virginia is hustling to remain a major player.

Manchin, Verizon West Virginia President Stan Cavendish and Sen. Jay Rockefeller were to be in Danville today to announce two initiatives aimed at delivering broadband services to rural West Virginians.

Cavendish was to announce that under an agreement with Verizon, a nonprofit organization, Connected Nation Inc., will produce detailed county-by-county maps of the state's broadband availability and service gaps.

The maps will be used to help develop plans to expand broadband. In addition, Verizon has pledged to speed up its efforts to make it available to more rural areas.

STRESSING THE TROOPS. This is no shock, but here's an item from The Observer UK about how stress and combat fatigue are wearing down U.S. military personnel in Iraq.

COUNTING THE COST. Yesterday El Cabrero and amigos held a press conference about the rising cost, human and otherwise, of the unnecessary war in Iraq. Here's the coverage from the Charleston Gazette.

SPEAKING OF GOAT ROPES, the big news in the capitol city of El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virgnia has been an agonizingly close vote on table games. I live out of the county and have no perros in that fight (other than my desire to tease certain friends about it). The election was held August 11 and initial results showed the measure passing by just over 30 votes. But more and more uncounted or over-counted or challenged ballots keep showing up. For a blow by blow summary, check out the masterful blog of all WV news, Lincoln Walks at Midnight. Nobody knows when we'll know.

Full disclosure: El Cabrero does not gamble if you don't count driving, eating, and generally buying things but I have nothing against those who do. However, a bet on how this will turn out might be interesting...

THOSE LOVABLE COAL OPERATORS. This is a few days old, but here's a profile from WV Public Radio of Bob Murray, CEO of the Utah coal mine where six men have been trapped for over a week. As you can see, he's no big fan of MSHA, safety regulations and advocates, or the United Mine Workers union.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

GODS AND EARTH GIANTS

Caption: Seamus McGoogle is a keen student of the science of hummingbirds.

It's interesting that some of the current debates on the nature of science and knowledge have ancient roots.

Consider the following questions: does science give objective knowledge about the world that is certain, universal and necessary? Or are all it's results provisional and tentative?

Other ways of putting it might consist of asking whether "laws" of science are discovered or made up? Is it about what is true or what seems to work best to account for experience?

This one goes all the way back to Plato, and probably farther. Plato, inspired by his teacher Socrates, believed that universal knowledge of truth was possible beyond the realm of senses or opinion. His main enemies were the sophists, traveling teachers of reasoning and rhetoric, who tended to be relativistic and pragmatic.

One such was Protagoras, who said "Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not." Plato was not amused.

In his dialogue The Sophist, Plato, through the character of the Stranger, describes this controversy as a war between gods and giants:

There appears to be a sort of war of Giants and Gods going on amongst them; they are fighting with one another about the nature of essence...

Some of them are dragging down all things from heaven and from the unseen to earth, and they literally grasp in their hands rocks and oaks; of these they lay hold, and obstinately maintain, that the things only which can be touched or handled have being or essence, because they define being and body as one, and if any one else says that what is not a body exists they altogether despise him, and will hear of nothing but body...

And that is the reason why their opponents cautiously defend themselves from above, out of an unseen world, mightily contending that true essence consists of certain intelligible and incorporeal ideas; the bodies of the materialists, which by them are maintained to be the very truth, they break up into little bits by their arguments, and affirm them to be, not essence, but generation and motion. Between the two armies, Theaetetus, there is always an endless conflict raging concerning these matters.

Plato, of course, thought he was on the side of the gods. It looks like the earth giants have won a few lately though.

SPEAKING OF GIANTS, congratulations to Jean Edward Smith, professor of history at El Cabrero's alma mater, Marshall University. Smith has won kudos for his recent biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt--peace be unto him. The title is FDR and the publisher is Random House. It has gained many positive reviews around the country.

Dr. Smith was quoted in the Marshall Magazine as saying "Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt stand head and shoulders about the 40 other men who (have) occupied the White House. Washington founded the country, Lincoln preserved it and Roosevelt revived it." Amen.

In El Cabrero's childhood home, it was less risky to make irreverent religious jokes than to dis the Roosevelts. It is now safer for my (legally) adult kids to do the same in my presence.

SPEAKING OF MARSHALL, the same issue of the magazine has an interesting article about how public investments in research at Marshall is starting to (literally) pay dividends. This is yet another example if any is needed of the vital role that public investments in education, research and infrastructure can lead to a high road approach to economic development--in contrast to the low roaders who want to cut these investment, eliminate the minimum wage, and eliminate regulations that protect workers from injury and death on the job.

NATTERING NABOBS OF NEGATIVISM. On a similar note, here's an op-ed by yours truly from yesterday's Gazette about the good things that are happening in WV that can get and keep us on the high road.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

GILGAMESH, ANYONE?

Gilgamesh, represented here by the rooster Stewpot, was a mighty ruler in Uruk.

If it's midsummer and you need a guiding theme to fill up a week's worth of blogging in an unpredictable world, there's just one clear choice--duh!--The Epic of Gilgamesh, of course. It is, after all, one of the earliest written stories in human history, even though it was only discovered in the 19th century. It could also be considered the first (literary) tragedy.

It has been a fairly long time since El Cabrero went on a weeklong mythological tear, and Sumerian/Mesopotamian mythology would be a Goat Rope first. We proceed...

As far as I can surmise, the basic theme of the epic is that, as Dirty Harry once said, "A man's got to know his limitations." It's a lesson we all have to learn.

Though written much later, it seems to refer to a possibly real ruler of the Mesopotamian kingdom of Uruk in what is now Iraq in the 3rd millennium BC. Gilgamesh was undoubtedly an alpha male, as we can see from the opening lines of the epic:

I will proclaim to the world the deeds of Gilgamesh. This was the man to whom all things were known; this was the king who knew the countries of the world. He was wise, he saw mysteries and knew secret things, he brought us a tale of the days before the flood. He went on a long journey, was weary, worn-out with labour, returning he rested, he engraved on a stone the whole story.

The story goes that he was the son of Queen Ninsun and King Lugulbanda and was 2/3rds god and 1/3 human. The arithmetic is never explained.

Gilgamesh was also kind of a pain to his subjects, rock and rolling all night and partying every day. His subjects began to complain:

Gilgamesh sounds the tocsin for his amusement, his arrogance has no bounds by day or night. No son is left with his father, for Gilgamesh takes them all, even the children; yet the king should be a shepherd to his people. His lust leaves no virgin to his lover, neither the warrior's daughter nor the wife of the noble; yet this is the shepherd of the city, wise, comely, and resolute.

They pray to the gods to think of some way of keeping Gilgamesh occupied and the gods respond by creating a companion for him, the wild and hairy man Enkidu, who lives with beasts in the forest and eats grass. Gilgamesh was destined to "love him like a woman"--not that there's anything wrong with that.

Unlike Gilgamesh, who is a founder of civilization, Enkidu is a child of nature, innocent of both culture and sexuality. A trapper who has seen him in the wild goes to Gilgamesh for advice on how to domesticate him. He prescribes the charms of woman. An unnamed sacred prostitute is sent to the (literal) watering hole where Enkidu hangs out.

Of that funky stuff which was the subject of 1970s song, Enkidu could not get enough. He treads the primrose path of dalliance with her nonstop for six days and seven nights, which would make him something of a prodigy. One hopes they kept themselves hydrated...

After that tryst, Enkidu loses his wilderness mojo. The wild beasts run from him and he can't keep up with them. It really IS always something, isn't it? The woman tells him:

You are wise, Enkidu, and now you have become like a god. Why do you want to run wild with the beasts in the hills? Come with me. I will take you to strong-walled Uruk...there Gilgamesh lives, who is very strong, and like a wild bull he lords it over men.

So they head to the big city for the next phase of the epic, about which more tomorrow.

COGITO ERGO BLOG.Goat Rope was recently nominated a "Thinking Blog" by the masterful blog of all things West Virginian Lincoln Walks at Midnight. Considering the source, I take that as quite a compliment--Thanks!

There's a cool little graphic that comes with it but El Cabrero can't think well enough to make it show up here. As part of the deal, I need to nominate five blogs that make me think, but I need to think about that some more.

LABOR JOINS THE FIGHT FOR GREEN JOBS. According to Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers union,

We need to put an end to the lies, the myths, the hysteria, that say you can have either a clean environment or good jobs. You can have both, or you have neither.

For more on high road approaches to economic growth and sustainable energy, click here.

HIGH ROAD LOW ROAD. On a related theme, here's an op-ed by yours truly on the choices facing WV as we try to build a better future.

THIS IS WHAT I'M SCREAMING. One fairly easy step that can be taken to get WV on the high road is making high speed internet available throughout the state. Here's a step in the right direction in Charleston. And you know what?--they didn't have to eliminate minimum wage or mine safety laws to do it.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

BODIES, BUDDHISM, BIG BOX RETAIL STORES, PIRANAS, AND MASSEY

Caption: Seamus McGoogle practices tiger style.

Yesterday's post on the late great Bruce Lee--may he rest in activity--got me thinking about the best lessons I learned from a life in the martial arts.

Here's a basic one: live in your body.

It's sad these days to see that so many people--especially children and young people--don't.

I remember times when perfectly healthy kids were absorbed playing basketball or even martial arts games on a video game when they could easily have been doing the real thing. That's become an all too common post-modern moment.

I remember a healthy neighbor boy whose sole activity consisted of riding a four wheeler...

Not living in one's body exacts a high social cost in terms of obesity, illness, bad health, mental problems, and general well being. The way our society approaches sports and activity does a great disservice to many people: sports and physical activity are too often things you watch rather than do or are only done by a few people for a few years.

The first martial arts legend I learned as a kid went something like this...

The arts that were eventually known as karate and "kung fu" (not a good term but a popular one) trace themselves to Buddhist monks who both sought enlightenment and were committed to nonviolence.

It was said that Bodhidharma, the Indian monk who is credited with bringing Chan (Japanese "Zen") Buddhism to China, settled at the famous Shaolin Temple and began to teach. The other monks, however were too physically weak to make any progress.

Zen teaching is opposed to dualistic thinking. The world of suffering (samsara) and the state of enlightment (nirvana) were not to be thought of as separate from each other. Much less body and mind...

Bodhidharma (known in China as Ta Mo and in Japan as Daruma) believed that one could not make spiritual progress if the body was neglected. He began teaching a series of exercises that eventually the monks would use to defend themselves without weapons on their travels.

That was legend; it probably didn't happen quite that way, but the point is valid: we should try to use and develop body and mind throughout the course of a lifetime.

That lesson was a keeper.

MAINE PASSES BIG BOX STORE LEGISLATION. This is from the AFL-CIO blog:

Maine is the first state to take a stand against big-box stores like Wal-Mart, Target and Home Depot that often swagger into a town, pushing out small businesses while harming the environment and sucking up municipal services. Gov. John Baldacci (D) last month signed into law the Informed Growth Act, which holds big-box corporations accountable and gives citizens a real voice in development decisions.

Specifically, the new law—which was strongly backed by working families and small businesses—requires developers of retail stores exceeding 75,000 square feet to conduct studies gauging a project’s impact on municipal services, the environment and local businesses. The proposed store can’t be approved if the studies find it is likely to cause a quantifiable “undue adverse impact” in any of these areas.

Although Maine is the first state to take this action, similar legislation has been introduced in six other states in the past two years. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports that states such as Montana and New Jersey have or are considering similar adverse-impact laws. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) vetoed a big-box impact law last year.

LIKE MANY BULLIES, PIRANAS ARE WIMPS. That's the verdict of a recent study on the fish.

MASSEY SUIT. It looks like our dear friends at Massey Energy had a bad day yesterday, when a jury awarded Wheeling-Pitt $219 million in a case over a contract dispute.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

WHAT THEY SAID...

Caption: Backward priorities aren't going to get us where we want to go.

More than a year ago, writer Holly Sklar wrote a strong op-ed with the title "Wanted: A High Road Economy." The immediate context of the piece was the now successful campaign to raise the long stagnant minimum wage.

But she also raises some serious issues about the choices that continue to confront us as we try to meet the economic challenges of the 21st century, both in the U.S. as a whole and in El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia.

Again, it comes down to the low road or the high road:

Waving the banner of "global competitiveness," corporate and government policymakers are running the U.S. economy into the ground. We are becoming a nation of Scrooge-Marts and outsourcers—with an increasingly low-wage workforce instead of a growing middle class.

She cites an all too familiar list of current trends: record numbers of Americans without health care; stunning trade deficits and debt to other countries; declining public investments in infrastructure and R&D; growing inequality and personal debt; etc.

She notes:

We will not prosper in the 21st century global economy by relying on 1920s corporate greed, 1950s tax revenues, downwardly mobile wages and global-warming energy policies. We will not prosper relying on disinvestment in place of reinvestment. We can't succeed that way any more than farmers can "compete" by eating their seed corn.

The low road doesn't even make good business sense. One of the sources cited by Sklar is the book How We Compete: What Companies Around the World Are Doing To Make It In Today's Global Economy by Suzanne Berger. In discussing the results of a study by the MIT Industrial Performance Center of more than 500 international companies, Berger says:

Contrary to the widely held belief of many managers, we conclude that solutions that depend on driving down costs by reducing wages and social benefits—in advanced countries or in emerging economies—are always dead ends. . .

Strategies based on exploiting low-wage labor end up in competitive jungles, where victories are vanishingly thin and each day brings a new competitor. . . As low-end firms that compete on price move from one overcrowded segment of the market to the next, there is virtually no chance of gaining any durable advantage. The activities that succeed over time are, in contrast, those that build on continuous learning and innovation.

In an interview from MIT's openDOOR in 2006, Berger makes it plain:

Globalization can continue to produce great benefits for our society--on the condition that we strengthen the infrastructure of education and research. We also need to recognize that openness has costs, and that the costs and benefits are not evenly distributed. Many who lose jobs because of the relocation of production or trade will not get new ones that pay as well. So if we are going to maintain broad public support for an economy open to international flows of goods and services and capital, we need to be sure that losing a job does not mean losing a family's access to basic necessities, like health care, provision in old age, and education.

That is talking sense.

EFCA HELD HOSTAGE IN SENATE. The U.S. Senate voted 51-48 for cloture on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) yesterday. Sixty votes were needed to move the measure to a floor vote. Supporters are planning on keeping up the campaign as long as it takes. Even yesterday's vote represents a victory of sorts--it's the first time in ages that a majority of senators voted to reform labor laws.

YOUNG AMERICANS in a new New York Times/CBS/MTV poll seem to be moving to the left of their elders on some issues. Details here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

ART AS CURE (OR AID) FOR LIFE

Caption: These guys don't worry too much about the horror or absurdity of existence.

Yesterday's post was about how art made life more livable. Here's another little odd tidbit on the subject from Friedrich Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy.

First a little preface. There is no denying that nasty things happen all the time to pretty good people and that nobody gets out of here alive. And, from a certain perspective, the human saga sometimes resembles hamsters running on treadmills.

It's just that healthy minded people usually ignore that kind of thinking. Nietzsche was not one of them...He was one of those who at times see "everywhere only the horror or absurdity of existence." But he believed there was a cure the ancient Greeks found that could break that spell and encourage people to say "yes" to life in spite of all its hardships:

Here, when the danger to his will is greatest, art approaches as a saving sorceress, expert at healing. She alone knows how to turn these nauseous thoughts about the horror or the absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live: these are the sublime as the artistic taming of the horrible, and the comic as the artistic discharge of the nausea of absurdity.

In other words, art, either as comedy or tragedy, makes life more bearable.

That's pretty extreme for most people, but it does, along with other things, help.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, the arts and creativity could also hold the key to a better future for places like El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia. According to CreateWV.com, a project of A Vision Shared and allies, "culture, creativity and innovation" are the keys to moving WV into the new economy.

To get there, though, we need several things, including talent, technology, tolerance for the new and the different, and the kind of quality of life that draws talented, creative people from elsewhere to come here and encourages our own talented and creative people to stay here and make a difference. This means public investments in education, infrastructure, and research and development.

This would be the high road to economic development and a better future for all. The alternative, such as it is, is a low road, which would slash investments in education, health care and infrastructure, reduce labor standards, and promote a race to the bottom.

Given the choice, I'd prefer the high road.

FOR MORE EXAMPLES of a high road approach, click here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

GHOST STORIES AND RUNAWAY MONSTERS

Public domain image courtesy of www.moviewallpapers.net.

One dark and story night in Switzerland in 1816, the story goes, a bunch of high strung artsy types decided to write a ghost story. If you were making odds at the time, the smart money would have been on the poetic host, Lord Byron, or his best known guest, the romantic poet Percy Shelley.

Score one for girl power instead. The hands down winner in the eyes of the ages was the work of Percy's young wife Mary, who gave us Frankenstein, which has become the source of many movies, cartoons, comic books, songs, toys, spoofs, etc.

According to Mary, the inspiration came from a waking dream:

I saw—with shut eyes, but acute mental vision—I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some power engine shows signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful it must be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.

Maybe one reason why the story of Frankenstein's monster has such (anonymously "donated") legs is that it was a prescient metaphor for modern life, when our own creations and actions sometimes get away from us and do a lot of unintended damage.

At the very least, it ought to help fill up a week's worth of blogging...

SPEAKING OF UNLEASHED MONSTERS, if you haven't already seen Newsweek's "After Bush" item, here is a little sampling:

Today, by almost all objective measures, the United States sits on top of the world. But the atmosphere in Washington could not be more different from 1982. We have become a nation consumed by fear, worried about terrorists and rogue nations, Muslims and Mexicans, foreign companies and free trade, immigrants and international organizations. The strongest nation in the history of the world, we see ourselves besieged and overwhelmed. While the Bush administration has contributed mightily to this state of affairs, at this point it has reversed itself on many of its most egregious policies—from global warming to North Korea to Iraq.

In any event, it is time to stop bashing George W. Bush. We must begin to think about life after Bush—a cheering prospect for his foes, a dismaying one for his fans (however few there may be at the moment). In 19 months he will be a private citizen, giving speeches to insurance executives. America, however, will have to move on and restore its place in the world. To do this we must first tackle the consequences of our foreign policy of fear. Having spooked ourselves into believing that we have no option but to act fast, alone, unilaterally and pre-emptively, we have managed in six years to destroy decades of international good will, alienate allies, embolden enemies and yet solve few of the major international problems we face.

HIGH ROAD OR LOW ROAD? There's been a lot of talk among WV's anti-labor right wing about "unleashing capitalism." I think they are at least 100 years late. Also, I'm not aware of too many people here who advocate for state ownership of the means of production or the collectivization of agriculture (although the possibility of having the goats around here confiscated sounds pretty good at times). The real question is, how can we promote high quality economic development for West Virginia in a way that benefits its people?

The economic royalists want a war on labor, starting with pushing for so-called "right to work" laws, which are more like right to work for less, as I argue here. That would be the low road.

There is a better way, one which might actually work:

West Virginia’s future economy is dependent primarily on one thing — investment in people, said Tom Witt, director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at West Virginia University.

“We need to keep an eye on this ball,” he told the Charleston Rotary Club on Friday. “This is going to affect our long-term economic development.”

Investing in people means more education, on-the-job training and health care, so people can become productive in the labor market, Witt said. People must also be encouraged to take part in the economy by actively seeking jobs and/or education, he said.

That would be the high road.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED