The proper measure

Random animal picture of Arpad chowing down on some old bones he found in the woods. I wouldn't look too closely at this picture if I was you.

"Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will" is one of my favorite sayings. It's attributed to the French writer Romaine Rolland and was also a favorite of Antonio Gramsci. I think this combination of apparently opposing attitudes works pretty well in dealing with social problems.

Pessimism of the intellect, as I interpret it anyhow, involves a hard-headed, totally realistic appraisal of the world and the current situation, without any kind of sugar coating. It's a good remedy against naive optimism, which is one crime for which there is no evidence whatsoever to convict me. Optimism of the will means the determination to do something about it, and the belief that one has a chance at some degree of success.

A few years back, I worked on a project that involved interviewing people about hope. In doing background research on the psychological literature, I came across this a book by Ezra Stotland titled The Psychology of Hope. In it, he had a great definition that works for me. Hope, he said, was "an expectation greater than zero of achieving a goal."

Pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will is a pretty good approach to lots of different situations. It may be particularly appropriate to the current social climate.

A MAJOR FIGHT IS BREWING over the federal budget. Deficit hawks in Congress could imperil economic recovery by slashing human needs spending. Here are some facts about the federal deficit.

NOT BIG ENOUGH. Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research argues that failure to pass a big enough stimulus to generate jobs was a fatal mistake that contributed to the results of the recent election.

A BIT MORE AUDACITY might have helped a while back, Krugman argues. It might even help now.

WELFARE TO WHAT. Here's a good review of several recent books on what happened in the wake of welfare reform.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Sins of left and right

I mentioned in yesterday's post that the political terms left and right are the result of which side of the room people happened to sit on in the early days of the French Revolution. The terms aren't particularly apt, but the difference between perspectives is real by whatever names they are called.

Using the old terms for now, it's probably safe to say that people on the right have been more supportive of the existing or old order and particularly of hierarchy, while those on the left have advocated a more egalitarian position, although I can imagine any number of arguments with that statement.

It seems to me that both perspectives have their own characteristic errors or excesses. People on the "right" have tended to believe that existing inequalities are something like facts of nature that cannot be changed. People on the "left" from the French Revolution onward have made a different kind of error by viewing human nature as a blank slate which can be changed given different conditions.

I think the reality is a bit messier. We probably do inherit a bit of evolutionary baggage which can get in the way of an egalitarian society. For example, many animals--especially but not exclusively males--strive for status all the time and many of both sexes are biased in favor of their own offspring. But that doesn't mean that any particular system of inequality--monarchy, feudalism, plutocracy--is a feature of nature that can't be changed.

THIS IS WHAT I'M SCREAMING. Here's a call for more action to get the economy moving by a member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

TO LOAN OR NOT TO LOAN? Some banks are thinking about the environmental impact of their lending practices.

WHERE THE RUBBER HITS THE ROAD. Health care reform passed Congress (finally) last spring. Now a lot of the action is happening at the state level. Here's an article about how things look in West Virginia.

CLEANLINESS is next to self-righteousness.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A Malthusian future?

Now that's a crowd. Image from the 2008 Olympics by way of wikipedia.

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, Darwin's idea of natural selection was shaped by Thomas Malthus' ideas on population. Simply put, he argued that humans tend to multiply faster than resources do, which leads to hunger and scarcity and all kinds of nasty checks on population.

This turned out not to be the case for industrial societies, which have been able to dramatically increase production and maintain growing populations. There is also a tendency for population growth to slow as living standards rise. But Malthus might have been at least partially right. There have been numerous cases where pre-modern civilizations collapsed due to over-stressing their environment and growing beyond its carrying capacity. Jared Diamond's book Collapse gives several examples and is a compelling read.

The scary part is that if we don't work towards a sustainable approach to economy, energy, ecology and population, we might head that way ourselves. If that happens, it will be more due to our doing wrong than to Malthus being right.

BIG CHANGES. The Recovery Act is making big changes in technology and clean energy, most of which have been under the radar, as Time Magazine reports.

WHILE WE'RE AT IT, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Recovery Act has lowered unemployment by up to 1.8 points in the last quarter. The problem is that it wasn't big or targeted enough, as Paul Krugman again argues here. Now things have gotten to the point were firefighters are being laid off in many cities.

NOT THE BEST PR DEPARTMENT. The Manhattan Mosque controversy might not be sending the best message around the world.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING WHY FISH IN THE ARCTIC DON'T FREEZE, click here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Of reading, classics, vampires and such

I usually keep a pile of several books going at any given time and try to turn a page or two of each per day. Usually these are pretty dense and a page or two is plenty.

At the moment, my pile consists of some stories by Chekhov, The Fall by Camus, Vol. II of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Aristotle's Politics and Eaarth, Bill McKibben's new book about climate change (which is a real downer, by the way). Oh yeah, and Thoreau's Walden.

I don't always see eye to eye with Henry, but I share his fondness for old classics:

Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length give way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader far more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem.

Still and all, sometimes you need to clear the palate and there's nothing to do just that like a vampire novel. For fun, I've been listening to Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan's The Strain. These vampires aren't sexy or teenybopper heart throbs or tragic existentialists. They are totally repulsive viral parasites with totally gross appendages. Listening to it made mowing the lawn a bit more entertaining.

I have a feeling Thoreau wouldn't have been a big fan of vampire novels.

PLAYING WITH FIRE. As I've been ranting for the last week or so, deficit mania could make the recession worse. And Krugman thinks so too.

WHATEVER. This is disappointing.

THIS COULD EXPLAIN A LOT. Research on voting behavior suggests that such decisions are often made on the basis of non-verbal and superficial factors.

A LITTLE GOOD NEWS. Blenko Glass, a WV company that specializes in handmade glassware has fought its way back from the brink after nearly closing for good last year.

MONKEYS like TV too.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Now and here

El Cabrero has been spending time with Henry David Thoreau lately. I'm the first to admit that he was a bit of a crank and that if I spent a week with him on the Concord and Merrimack rivers, I might have pitched him overboard.

But still...he really has his moments. I love the ones where he basically smacks the reader upside the head and challenges him or her to pay attention, something I am only sporadically capable of doing.

Here's today's sample:

Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star, before Adam and after the last man. In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages.

WE ARE NOT AMUSED. The US Senate fell a few votes short of 60 on an important vote that would have extended unemployment benefits and fiscal relief to states and helped preserve jobs.

1937 BLUES. The victory of the deficit hawks, as in the vote above, could likely extend the slump, as Paul Krugman argues here.

AND BESIDES, a new Gallup/USA Today poll shows public support for more spending to create jobs.

HOW BAD IS IT? According to the Working America blog,

If the 15 million unemployed workers in this country stood side-by-side, literally shoulder to shoulder, they would stretch from Bangor, Maine to Los Angeles, California… and back again.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: REALLY ELEVATED

Meanly, like ants

In this age of multi-tasking, a dose of Thoreau really clears the palate. If he felt out of place in the mid 1800s, what would he think of an era in which people listen to music, carry on a conversation and send text messages while driving a car?

...we live meanly, like ants...Our life is frittered away by detail...Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.

That's a tall order for an ADHD nation.

IMPORTANT SENATE VOTE. The vote to extend key provisions of the Recovery Act--including unemployment insurance extensions and aid to states--is likely to take place today. It has been scaled back further after a failed vote yesterday. If you haven't contacted your senators, please do so today and urge them to vote yes on "the extender bill." Click here to get started.

MAKING THE CASE. In testimony before Congress, Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute urges more aggressive action to deal with unemployment.

THE COMMON DENOMINATOR between BP and Massey Energy is greed, according to union leaders Cecil Roberts and Leo Girard.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Before the curtain rises

Kronborg Castle in Helsingoer, Denmark, aka Elsinore.

Goat Rope is in the throes of a long jag on Shakespeare's Hamlet lately, although you'll also find links and comments about current events. If you are a fan of the melancholy Dane, please click on earlier posts.

A lot of the important actions in Hamlet take place before the actions portrayed in the play. Hamlet’s father, known hereafter as Old Hamlet ruled Denmark with success and was apparently happily married to Gertude (although one wonders whether she might have trodden the primrose path of dalliance with Old Hamlet’s brother Claudius while her husband was smiting his foes). Their son Hamlet was born about 30 years before the play, although he seems younger.

Old Hamlet was as warlike as you’d want a king to be. At one point, he accepted a challenge from the king of Norway, aka King Fortinbras, to single combat over contested land and won on the same day young Hamlet was born. Fortinbras’ brother, Old Norway, became king of the diminished Norwegian lands, but his nephew young Fortinbras would seethe to regain lost glory.

Young Hamlet was entertained as a child by the jester Yorick and later went to study at the university of Wittenberg, incidentally and anachronistically home to reformer Martin Luther (and to Doctor Faustus in the tragedy of Shakespeare’s sometime rival Christopher Marlowe).

While Hamlet was away, Claudius, apparently long jealous of his brother for more than one reason, made his move. He poisoned Old Hamlet while the later slept and married Gertrude within two months of his brother’s death.

Claudius gained the throne, in effect usurping it from young Hamlet, who was clearly old enough to succeed his father. Young Hamlet was shocked and bitterly disappointed to find the wedding follow so closely upon the funeral. He took comfort in the love of Ophelia, daughter of Claudius’ counselor Polonius and brother of Laertes.

Something was rotten in the state of Denmark and it was only going to get worse.

THE BOOGEY MAN. Here's another column by the prolific Dean Baker about dealing with the recession.

A NEW POLL shows significant support for public spending aimed a getting the economy moving again.

MOVE OVER, SPIDERMAN. A new gadget may make it possible for people to walk up walls.

EAT IT. Food rules for our time.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Two silly ideas

Earlier this week, I overheard WV Public Radio coverage of the With-Friends-of-America-Like-These-Who-Needs-Enemies event in Logan County and was struck (among other things) by these remarks of Don Blankenship:

“As someone who has overseen the mining of more coal than anyone else in central Appalachia, I know the safety and health of my coal miners is my number one job," he said.

"I don’t need Washington politicians to tell me that, and neither do you," he said.

"But I also know that Washington and state politicians have no idea how to improve miner safety. The very idea that they care more about coal miner safety than we do is as silly as global warming."

I think he might have been technically correct. It seems to me that both ideas share the same degree of silliness, which is to say none at all.

And as for the devotion to coal mine health and safety, here's a look at the report on the Aracoma mine fire prepared by Gov. Manchin's investigative team. The fire, in which two miners died, also resulted in the heaviest MSHA penalties in the agency's history.

HEALTH CARE RESTART? A CNN poll found a boost in support for health care reform among those who watched President Obama's speech last night.

STIMULUS. According to a new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus, is working:

Although meant chiefly to help the broad economy, the stimulus plan Congress enacted earlier this year (the American Recovery and Re-Investment Act of 2009, or ARRA) had the important secondary effect of significantly ameliorating the recession’s impact on poverty.

This analysis, which comes one day before the Census Bureau will release updated poverty figures (for 2008), examines seven of the recovery act’s provisions — two improvements in unemployment insurance, three tax credits for working families, an increase in food stamps, and a one-time payment for retirees, veterans, and people with disabilities — and finds that they alone are preventing more than 6 million Americans from falling below the poverty line and are reducing the severity of poverty for 33 million more. Those 6 million people include more than 2 million children and over 500,000 seniors....

POVERTY SPURT. The WV Center on Budget and Policy is expecting a spike in recession-induced poverty, which means among other things that we need to take full advantage of all the opportunities available through the stimulus.

URGENT LEVITATING MICE UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A good deed for the day

Last month's health care rally in DC.

If you're casting about for something to do today or have a few minutes to spare in a good cause, today is a national call in day to Congress to support health care reform.

This is a critical time to weigh in on the issue. Big guns and loud voices are trying to kill meaningful health care reform. But here's a good reality check: the Center for American Progress estimates that while Congress is in recess in August, 400,000 more Americans will lose health coverage.

From the AFLCIO blog:

Now it’s time for Congress to hear the voices of America’s workers. Together with Health Care for America Now! (HCAN), AFL-CIO unions, state federations, central labor councils, community allies and health care advocates are mobilizing for a National Call-In Day for Health Care tomorrow, July 28, from 9 a.m. EDT to 5 p.m. EDT.

Call 1-877-264- HCAN (1-877-264-4226) and tell your representative in the U.S. House to support the House health care reform bill, (H.R. 3200). You also can e-mail or fax your lawmaker with the same message. Click here to find your representative and his or her contact information.

The House bill contains a public health insurance plan option and shared responsibility, including an employer “pay or play” requirement—and does not tax health care benefits working families receive through their jobs.

The word is that despite public opinion research that shows major support for reform, calls against it are outnumbering those in favor by two to one.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, here's a commentary on the subject I did for WV Public Broadcasting.

THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. Tennessee is using part of its share of stimulus money for direct New Deal style job creation for unemployed workers. That's what we need all over the country.

GUT FEELINGS. Here's an interesting article about scientific research into hunches and intuition.

OH THE WATER. Here's an interesting green energy possibility using ocean currents. I guess we won't be doing a lot of that in El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia (unless climate change gets really bad).

BUT WAIT--NOT TO WORRY. Ken Ward's Coal Tattoo describes a coal industry confab in which climate change was denied. That's a relief. Guess I can scratch that one off the list. I wonder whether they talked about how many dinosaurs were in Noah's ark...I bet you could fit a lot in if you used babies.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

"It's all about the kids"

Pious platitudes about children are a mainstay of American politics, although in this as well as other things there's generally way more to the talk than the walk. This is especially true when it comes to children in poverty, which can have lifelong affects.

This item comes from Wired Science:

The biological legacy of childhood poverty may linger for decades, leaving adults who grew up poor more likely to get sick.

Genome scans of 103 adults found altered patterns of stress-related gene activity in those from low-income backgrounds. The patterns persisted even when poverty was left behind.

The findings, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could explain why heart disease, cancer and other diseases of aging appear to be unusually common in adults who grew up poor, regardless of their current income or lifestyles.

The best response, however, isn't pity. As William Blake put it,

Pity would be no more
If we did not make somebody poor...

A BOOST. The Economic Policy Institute argues that the coming increase in the federal minimum wage will provide a real stimulus to the economy.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities corrects misconceptions about the stimulus.

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT. Here's a personal reaction to President Obama's pledge to eliminate nuclear weapons by a survivor of Hiroshima.

FORECLOSURES are still increasing.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Curse of the zebra mussels

Well, El Cabrero is back in Paradise (he said, with irony) after over a week beside a lake in Vermont. Sometimes I get a little nervous on leaving my beloved state of West Virginia because I'm afraid of missing something, but I was able to monitor conditions here by means of the Precious (aka, the iPhone).

One big insight came my way last week: the wheels of karma may turn slowly but they do turn. Sometimes anyway. Pity me not but lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold...

Several years ago on another visit to the in laws up there, we stopped and splashed around in Lake Champlain. At one point, my mother in law attempted to dissuade her grandson from venturing further into the lake by warning him about zebra mussels.

I must admit that this struck me as hilarious, a typical grown up way of scaring a kid into not doing something, as in "if you go one step further into the lake, a savage pack of carnivorous zebra mussels will tear you limb from limb."

I've laughed about that ever since, most recently last week when I decided to take a swim in the selfsame lake. But no sooner had I ventured out to where it was neck deep than my own toe was seriously sliced open by...you guessed it...a zebra mussel shell.

I was hoisted on my own petar...this is what happens when you mess with my mother in law.

FROGS IN HOT WATER are us.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, a number of economists are talking about the need for a second stimulus.

SIMPLE LIVING, by itself, may not cut it, according to this item.

TOP TEN SCIENEC MUSIC VIDEOS here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Up and down

El Cabrero is a big fan of Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. His books have a dreamlike quality, often seamlessly blending the ordinary and the surreal. My favorite of his is The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. If you haven't read it, I'd suggest dropping everything and grabbing it.

One quote from that book has stuck in my mind for several years. It's a good summary of the Taoist view of adapting to life's ups and downs. Here it is:

"It's not a question of better or worse. The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when you're supposed to go up and down when you're supposed to go down. When you're supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you're supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When there is no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up. If everything dries up, the world is darkness. 'I am he and/ He is me:/ Spring nightfall.' Abandon the self, and there you are."

It's all about water.

MASS LAYOFFS are at their highest point since the mid-1990s, according to the Economic Policy Institute's latest snapshot.

ON THAT NOTE, here is Dean Baker's analysis of the latest depressing unemployment report.

WHICH IS WHY Paul Krugman and others are calling for a second stimulus.

FOOT IN MOUTH SYNDROME. Here's an article about why it's hard to keep the former out of the latter.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Ziggy and Xerxes

Themistocles, leader of the Greek naval forces at Salamis. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

"For pride will blossom; soon its ripening kernel is
Infatuation; and its bitter harvest, tears."

A common image of Greek tragedy is one that El Cabrero likes to think of as the Ziggy Stardust interpretation. I am referring to the David Bowie song in which the title character "took it all too far/but boy could he play guitar"--i.e., he was someone brought down by excess.

That doesn't work for all tragedies but it fits Aeschylus' The Persians pretty well. In it, the Persian ruler Xerxes plays Ziggy. Master of a huge land empire and incredible wealth, he wasn't content with what he had but planned a massive invasion of Greece.

For Aeschylus, Herodotus, and many others, Xerxes was the embodiment of hubris and excess, which was also impiety--the pagan equivalent of blasphemy--against the gods.

One example of this impiety as far as the Greeks were concerned was Xerxes' audacity in building a bridge of ships across the Hellespont, the narrow body of water between Asia Minor and Europe. This was seen as the attempt to shackle the sea itself. When a storm damaged this project, he was said to have ordered the sea to be flogged.

In biblical language, this is the pride that goeth before a fall. And the fall comes fast in the tragedy.

It begins with the anxiety of the Persian court and Xerxes' mother Atossa over the army's fate. It gets worse. A messenger arrives with news of the total defeat of the Persian navy at Salamis. It gets so bad that Atossa consults the shade of her dead husband and former emperor Darius, who is appalled by the excess and loss. (Note: not to be nitpicky, but the real Darius planned to do the same thing but died before he could do it.) By the end of the play, a chastened and humbled Xerxes slinks home.

The play can be interpreted as Athenian triumphalism but it seems to me that it was also a warned to a confident city-state and budding empire to avoid making the same kind of mistakes. Too bad it was a warning not taken.

ANOTHER ROUND. Economist Dean Baker is one of several calling for a second stimulus.

GOING UNDERGROUND. Here's an item about infiltrating hate groups.

ANIMAL REGRET. They may experience it too.

IN CASE YOU'RE RUNNING A LITTLE SHORT, here's a new hominid.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Shoshin

Zen master Suzuki Roshi made the concept "beginner's mind" a common phrase in the US. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

There are a lot of great Japanese words that don't translate well directly into English. One that I like a lot is "shoshin," which literally kind of means "first mind" but is usually translated as "beginner's mind."

The word was made famous by Zen master Shunryu Suzuki's book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, where he said

If your mind is empty, it is ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.

The importance of shoshin is another lesson that got drummed into my head and other body parts over decades of practicing the martial arts and of sparring.

In training, some of the toughest and most dangerous people to spar with are not experienced martial artists--they are new people who walk in off the street. You kind of know what to expect from people who have been training a while--there are conventions everywhere, after all. But some of these new people would do wild and crazy things that would never have occurred to me. They can really catch you by surprise--thanks to having a beginner's mind.

I've often found that I actually fought better after I'd stopped training for a while and then went back. This was because the ties of old habits got weaker in the meantime and I wasn't as stuck in old ruts. Beginner's mind again.

Sometimes the Spousal Unit, La Cabra, will attack me with totally random kicks, punches and throws that look so bizarre that I can't defend against them because I don't recognize them as legitimate techniques. Ditto beginner's mind.

It's really easier to fight somebody when you know what they're going to do because they are creatures of habit. And it's easier for you to lose if you always fight the same way. The advantage of sparring with lots of good fighters is that they will continually force you to adapt and improve, provided you don't give up.

I think people who work for social justice could benefit from trying to keep a beginner's mind and approach each situation with a fresh start, even if it's just another chapter in a long drawn-out struggle. It's easy to defeat, dismiss, and label people and groups that get stuck in the same old rut.

As Henry David Thoreau put it in Walden,

It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves….The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!

A GOOD DEED FOR TODAY. Call your senators toll-free at 1-800-473-6711 and urge them to support President Obama's economic recovery proposal and not to make substantial cuts in programs that could help put the country back to work. The number is provided by the American Friends Service Committee.

WHAT HE SAID. Here's Paul Krugman talking sense on the economic recovery package.

THE RECESSION AND THE ELDERLY. It's hitting pretty hard, according to his issue brief from the Economic Policy Institute.

THE CHANGING FACE OF GREEN. Here's an interview with Van Jones, author of The Green Collar Economy.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Reversion to mean

Don't try this at home. Or anywhere else. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

Sometime back in the 1990s, Jim Carrey was in a Saturday Night Live skit where he played an office worker who once got cheers from co-workers for telling someone "I'll see you in hell!" Because that worked so well one time, he said it over and over for the rest of his life in the most inappropriate situations.

It was a funny skit but that kind of thing happens a lot in real life. Sometimes we keep trying the same thing because it worked once or because it's the only thing we know how to do.

This was another life/strategy lesson that was drummed into my head and other body parts by sparring in the martial arts, which is kind of a theme this week. Here's how...

Senior students in a fighting dojo are a source of inspiration and terror. They provide encouragement and example, but they also routinely and without malice thrash junior students. This is regarded as something like a Christian duty, the theory being that they do it so other people won't be able to.

When I was a lowly green belt or so, one of the terrors of our dojo was a guy named Brooks. He was a nice guy but a fighting demon. Once when we were sparring I got really lucky and managed to throw a fast spinning back kick to his face. I'm not sure which one of us was more surprised. Luckily for me, he was mostly amused.

(It's a totally impractical kick that could get you killed in some situations, but it looks really cool if you can get away with it.)

After that, for a while I was just like the guy in the SNL skit if you substitute spinning back kick to the head for "I'll see you in hell."

As it happened, there was a tournament coming up. I thought I'd breeze through it with the kick. It worked once, right? You can probably predict the outcome. Let's just say that no trophies followed me home that day.

It never worked on Brooks again either...

Lighting does not often strike twice in the same place. And just because you get lucky once, it does not follow that you will again if you do the same thing. In statistics they call this reversion to the mean. A basketball player who routinely scores 20 points a game may sometimes go on a streak of high or low scores, but over time it averages out.

Enjoy life's spinning back kicks when you can get away with them--but don't count on them. It's better to stick to basics anyway.

DESPITE WHAT YOU MAY HAVE HEARD there's strong public support for an economic stimulus package.

REALITY CHECK. With all the noise about economic policy emanating from and about Washington these days, I highly recommend regularly visiting the site of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. I admit to being a policy wonk, but you don't have to be one to go there and look at the impact of existing and proposed legislation on ordinary people.

HEALTH CARE. Many struggling small businesses are cutting health insurance benefits as the economy sours.

ANOTHER CASUALTY OF THE RECESSION is green energy.

THIS SHOULD HAVE GONE IN YESTERDAY. WV Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin has decided to recuse himself from cases involving Massey Energy until the US Supreme Court rules on the situation. Benjamin was elected in 2004 with over $3 million from Massey CEO Don Blankenship. On more than one occasion, he was the deciding vote in cases favorable to Massey.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Eat bitter

Doh! Block print from the Bubishi, a Chinese martial arts manual. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

El Cabrero has often thought that those who want to make the world less violent and more just could do a lot worse than study and practice the martial arts. I'll go a step further and particularly recommend those arts which entail sparring with live opponents who are not trying to make you look good or enhance your self esteem.

There's nothing like getting your clock cleaned a few dozen (or hundred in my case) times by people who are really good at it to give you a sense of realism and pragmatism.

One great lesson you get by making a habit of sparring it that the mere fact that you want something to happen or not happen by itself has absolutely no bearing whatsoever one whether you can be successful. Success happens, if it does, by paying attention to what is going on in the moment and adapting your actions to openings as they occur. And by paying your dues.

Most people who have been successful in sparring (or in lots of real life endeavors to which it is analogous) have had to take some lumps along the way. The Chinese have two great expressions for this needed step. One is that one needs to "eat bitterness" before one can eat sweet. Another calls for "investing in loss."

I've done plenty of both. I remember once very early in my karate career when my old man observed a class in which I sparred with my first instructor. I have since lost track of the teacher and wonder to this day if he was really as good as I remember him to be or if I ever got anywhere near his level in later years. His technique seemed impossibly strong and precise, his katas or forms were crisp and powerful. And he was a bad dude when it came to sparring.

On that particular occasion, we bowed as usual and he proceeded to mop the floor with me. I probably have been clobbered worse many times since then, but I can't remember when.

After it was all over, my dad said "You really had him worried in the first few minutes."

"Really?" I said, desperate for any encouragement.

"Yeah. He thought he'd killed you."

STIMULUS ACTION ALERT: the American Friends Service Committee is urging people to call their US senators and urge them to prevent the derailment of President Obama's stimulus proposal, which is facing hard opposition. AFSC is also urging that the Senate reject a flawed and error-prone anti-immigrant measure called E-verify. The toll free number is 1-800-473-6711. To find your senators, click here.

El Cabrero and amigos will be holding a public meeting in Charleston, WV tonight on the subject.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, Hooverism lives. And while the economy tanks, welfare rolls remain at or near their lowest levels in 40 years.

DYSTOPIA. Here's an abstract from an article from the Jan. 26 New Yorker about those who see gloom and doom on the horizon. It's worth tracking down the full article.

GETTING TO UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE. This article, also from the New Yorker, discusses getting there from here.

MALLED. America's love affair with shopping malls is in the post-honeymoon phase.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Not a god

The theme here lately is the failure of "conservative" economic policies, which is one of those topics where figuring out where to start is harder than figuring out what to say. The reader will also find links and comments about current events below.

One main feature of the failed economics of the past is a cult like worship of "markets," which are endowed with some kind of supernatural intelligence by true believers. In the real world, there are all kinds of ways markets can fail, as even the most mainstream economics textbook will say. Here are a few:

*Imperfect competition. Adam Smith famously said in The Wealth of Nations that

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

But one big difference between Smith's day and our own is the eclipse of small independent butchers, brewers and bakers and the rise of giant corporations which often dominate markets and distort prices. Some forms of imperfect competition are monopolies or oligopolies (domination of an economic sector by a few businesses).

*Externalities. In an ideal market situation, which generally only exists inside the heads of true believers, prices "tell the truth," so to speak, about the costs of the products. Often however, there are social costs passed on to the public or to individuals which don't show up on any corporation's bottom line. Climate change is a classic example, but so are the numerous cases of people and communities damaged by sickness, pollution, etc. as the result of economic activity. The tendency is to socialize the costs while keeping the profits private.

*Information asymmetries. Market transactions can also go awry when one party has more or better information than another and is thus able to take advantage of the situation. Imagine, hypothetically, that some people made big bucks (for a while) selling mortgage based derivatives and other such "financial instruments" to people who got burned in the process. Golly, good thing that never happens...

Another problem with markets is that they don't do a good job of providing for public goods like roads, bridges, schools, fire and police protection, etc.

I won't even go into crony capitalism, i.e. the use of political influence to win profits and advantages for big businesses. Imagine, for example drug company lobbyists writing a prescription drug benefit bill or credit card companies writing bankruptcy legislation. Good thing that never happens, either...

All of this isn't to say that markets are evil and should be banned. It's just to point out that there are lots of ways they can mess up and melt down, which is why there is also a need for a degree of regulation. The market=God idea is one that is long overdue for a decent burial.

HOW'S THE WEATHER? El Cabrero and the gang at Goat Rope Farm were without phone, water, electricity and email since Tuesday. Here's hoping the Gentle Reader made it through the storm. I'm scheduling this post early in case the power is gone tomorrow. If anything really bad happens between now and then, please accept our condolences. If anything really good happens, please accept our congratulations.

STIMULUS PASSES. The US House passed the stimulus package yesterday along party lines.

A BETTER BAILOUT is discussed here by Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz.

SPORTS AND SUCH are the subjects of the Rev. Jim Lewis' latest edition of Notes from under the Fig Tree.

ANTIWHAT? Here's a list of five world leaders accused of being the Antichrist. (Personal note: those who picked #5 might have been onto something. )

BIRD BRAINS outlasted the dinosaurs.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Paradigms

The philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn hit a home run in 1962 when he published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Part of his theory was that in any given period, people make us of dominant models or paradigms to explain the world.

When problems grow with the older paradigm, some innovators develop alternate paradigms to better account for observations. From time to time, the new model triumphs and the old paradigm is put on the shelf--often after a bitter fights and with some people still clinging to the old.

In American economic history, we've seen three paradigms rise and fall (and maybe rise again). One was the classic idea of lassez faire or unregulated capitalism, in which there was little government interference with the economy--although, as I argued in yesterday's post, in reality the government often intervened on behalf of the wealthy.

It wasn't that bad a model in an age of small, independent producers and a truly competitive economy. But as economic power centralized and as economic crises became more and more serious--and even threatened the survival of capitalism itself--another paradigm emerged.

The new model is associated with the great English economist John Maynard Keynes and it recognized that sometimes markets could totally melt down. Keynes advocated a role for regulation, public investments, and transfer payments to promote economic stability and a rising standard of living for all.

This model was dominant from the New Deal era to the Reagan era and it enjoyed considerable success until the oil-related stagflation of the late 1970s. Meanwhile, there were those who were hostile to the Keynesian paradigm from the beginning, even though it may have saved capitalism from an even more serious crisis in the 1930s.

A coalition of right wing politicians and "free market" economists mounted a political and economic assault, promoting a model that is sometimes called "neo-classical." It called for deregulation, tax cuts, reduction or elimination of the social safety net, etc. and has been the dominant model from around 1980 until the latest economic meltdown.

For the life of me, though, I'm amazed that it lasted this long or took so long to crash. At this moment that paradigm is pretty much dead and it's not clear whether the next one will be a revived and updated Keynesianism or something else. Our situation is like that of the old Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times."

SPEAKING OF KEYNES, here's New Republic writer John B. Judis on the continuing relevance of his ideas.

DEAD ENDERS. Opponents of a the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the economic stimulus package developed by the House and supported by President Obama, are pulling out the stops and plugging the failed policies of the past.

COUNTRY MATTERS. Here's an interview with writer Wendell Berry on rural life, community and such.

HERE WE GO AGAIN. WV Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin is planning on hearing another case involving Massey Energy. Benjamin, then a political unknown, was elected in 2004 after Massey CEO Don Blankenship spent over $3 million to elect him. The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that questions the propriety of Benjamin participating in cases involving Massey.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, some Mingo County residents are going to sue Massey for polluting their water with coal sludge.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Whose nanny state?

The theme at Goat Rope these days is the bankruptcy of "conservative" economic theory, which is pretty clear these days. But before getting there, I think it's a good idea to clear up some misconceptions.

One such is the idea that progressives want to use the government to redistribute wealth, while those who call themselves conservative believe in leaving it to "the market."

As the economist Dean Baker has pointed out over and over again, the reality is that both use the government to redistribute wealth. The main difference is that the former use it to distribute wealth upward and the latter prefer to use it to benefit those with low or moderate incomes--and this has been true for well over a century.

As Baker points out in his free web book The Conservative Nanny State (linked above), there are any number of ways that state power has been used to spread the wealth upward. These include:

*chartering corporations. These were not present from the day of creation. In fact, corporations are legal entities recognized by governments which protect investors from legal liabilities and enjoy the same legal rights as persons. If a sole proprietor or partnership incurs serious debts or liabilities, the owners are responsible for the whole thing. Corporations protect investors by limiting what they can lose if things go south.

*issuing patents, which give some businesses an artificial monopoly for a period of time as a reward for innovation. I'm not debating the value of the idea, just pointing out that in a really free market system, people would be free to make knock offs of inventions and sell them for less than those who came up with them.

*using state power to break strikes and thwart labor organizing.

*using tax policy to impose relatively heavier burdens on labor than on investment income.

The list could go on and on but you get the idea.

STIMULATE US. If your congressperson is sitting on the fence about the American Renewal and Reinvestment Act, which would help those hardest hit by the recession and help get things moving again, this would be a good time to give them a nudge.

RESTORING THE BALANCE. Here's Robert Reich on the role unions can play in rebuilding the middle class--but we'll need the Employee Free Choice Act to get there.

MILITARY MARRIAGES are often another casualty of war.

SCIENCE IS BACK, which is probably a good thing.

URGENT SPITTING COBRA UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Medicine for the mind

Daruma dolls for everyone! Image courtesy of wikipedia.

Lately Goat Rope has been about Buddhist lore, although you'll also find links and comments about current events. For the last week or so, the focus has been on legends about the figure of Bodhidharma or Daruma, who is said to have brought Zen from India to China and is also associated with the martial arts.

While the legends show Daruma as a pretty fierce figure, he has become a beloved figure in Japanese popular culture and his stylized image is featured in dolls, toys, kites, tops and many other forms.

As mentioned yesterday, one particularly popular form is the Daruma okiagari doll, which bounces back up when it has been pushed over, in accord with the popular saying, "seven falls, eight rises."

H. Neill McFarland in his book Daruma: The Founder of Zen in Japanese Art and Popular Culture explains the deeper meaning of both the toy and the saying this way:

The tactics thought to be implicit in this combination of image and adage, though also enigmatic, are of the essence of Asian philosophy and strategy, either for coping with life's vicissitudes or for practicing the martial arts. Maintain a low center of gravity. This enables one to rise up repeatedly, utilizing the momentum generated by the act of falling. Yield without breaking. Like the supple bamboo bending before the wind, one may practice the resistance of nonresistance (muteiko no teiko).

Thus, one who knows and ponders the cryptic little motto "Seven falls, eight rises" may view the bobbing motion of an okiagari Daruma as a symbolic enactment of life's experiences and contrasts--the ups and downs, the highs and lows, the successes and failures--and prepare to face them with perseverance and resilience. For this purpose, Daruma is said to be a kind of medicine for the mind (shinyaku).

STIMULATING. The economic recovery package unveiled by the US House yesterday actually does a lot of the things this blog has been screaming for over the past few years.

LESS WORK FOR MORE WORKERS. The number of involuntary part-time workers has doubled in the last year, according to the latest snapshot by the Economic Policy Institute.

SMILE AWAY. It might help.

FRIENDLY SKIES? It's hard to believe that all 155 passengers survived a flight that crash landed in the Hudson River.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED