In case you needed some more depressing news...

...here's something about the assault on labor unions.

WHAT WAS HIS FIRST CLUE? It seems that economist and Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson may have gotten the memo that some people may not be all that happy with the current state of the economy.

ONE WV BRIGHT SPOT is progress on child nutrition, especially in schools. This article features my friend Rick Goff, director of the state Office of Child Nutrition. The good news is that breakfast participation is going up in the wake of the passage of the 2013 innovative Feed to Achieve Act.

SPEAKING OF FRIENDS, another pal, the Rev. Jim Lewis, was featured in a nice spot on WV Public Radio yesterday. It's worth a look.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Down in Jungleland

Image by way of wikipedia.

I feel like I've been living in Bruce Springsteen-land for the last few weeks. And not in a good way.

Point of clarification: I love his music and I even torture several of his songs on guitar (including Thunder Road, The Ghost of Tom Goad, and Youngstown).

What I'm trying to say is that I've been reliving the kinds of stories he has often sung about. About working people who once had a shot at a decent life in this country before being sold down the river by the Judas economy and our Judas ruling class.

Specifically, I'be been working on what I hope will eventually be a report on The State of Working West Virginia. I've worked on a similar report for the last 6 years, but this one is a little different. It looks back on a period of time in West Virginia when at least those lucky enough to have a job had a pretty decent chance.

Around 35 years ago, believe it or not, WV had a higher median wage than the USA. Its workers also had a greater chance of being union members and were more likely than most workers in this country  to have health insurance and pension benefits.

That didn't last long. Employment in coal mining collapsed in the 1980s, when the REAL war on coal miners happened--and the coal miners lost. That was also the decade of the Reagan (counter) revolution, when manufacturing tanked and we entered the period of globalization. It was also the period of rising conservatism, when the social contract was shredded and the priorities of the US government focused exclusively on making the rich richer.

This was the period in which WV's largest employer switched from Weirton Steel to Wal-Mart. Need I say more?

It's been painful for me to look down that road because I lived through it and hated and fought against every minute of it.I keep hoping it will end but it never does. Even when we win victories for poor and working people, which we have, they all seem threatened by a never ending onslaught.

Maybe that's why when I watch things like the series The Walking Dead, about a zombie apocalypse, it just reminds me of today's political world. It's not a horror film--it's just a statement of the facts: the dead (capital) devours the living (labor).

JUST ONE LINK. Here's a good one from the New Yorker about the need to raise the minimum wage--and change this Judas economy.

Three for the road

My word-horde, to use the language of Beowulf, is running a little low at the moment. Fortunately, that is not the case with everyone.

THE ZIMMERMAN VERDICT. Here's a response from the New Yorker.

GROWING FROM THE MIDDLE. President Obama made the case this week for growing the middle class-and thereby growing the economy. Aristotle would probably agree. So would several economists discussed here.

MORE FUN AND GAMES WITH THE WV AG discussed here.

Good weekend wishes to one and all (mostly).

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Two for the road

It's been a long day but I'd like to share a couple of items.

The first tries to put to rest the overworked metaphor that links the federal budget to a household budget.

The second suggest ways to jump start the economy now.

Third one's a charm: in case you were Jonesing for an ancient icthyosaur update, click here.

Party on!

White out

I'm writing this on a borrowed computer in the midst of a Vermont snowstorm, and snowstorms are things Vermont does right. I'd like to include  picture of the snow but can't figure how to do it on this machine. However, if you picture a lot of white coming at you that should be close enough. It reminds me a bit of the section of Moby-Dick about the whiteness of the whale.

Another picture I'd like to include at some point is one of my sister in law's llama, who is quite cute. I didn't realize llamas had that big tooth thing going between their cloven lips. It makes me want to add a camelid to the Goat Rope Farm menagerie.

Otherwise, I have but one link to share and one comment to make about the long-awaited movie version of The Hobbit: what about the other half of the story?

HERE'S THE LINK. It's probably the best and most concise thing I've read about Washington's current conundrum over the economy and the national debt by friend and co-worker Arnie Alpert from New Hampshire.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: LLAMA TALL

Fractopia

Remember these guys?

People have been talking about the Marcellus Shale natural gas boom for a few years in WV. So far, most of it has been taking place to the north of my  normal stomping grounds but I made a visit last week to see how it hit Wetzel County, which sits right at the base of WV's northern panhandle.

Aside from the Ohio River border, most of the county is pretty rural and was relatively bucolic, the operative word being was. Now the countryside has been torn up along with the highways as well pads, frack ponds, and pipelines go in all over the place.

Fracking or hydraulic fracturing is a term you hear a lot in conjunction with shale gas drilling. It refers to the practice of pumping water, sand and chemicals into horizontal wells thousands of feet underground. Actually, fracking is only one of several steps along the way.

As I understand it, the whole process consists of site preparation (they call them pads), which I've heard called "mini mountaintop removal sites." Basically it means clearing and leveling an area of several acres. Then comes the drilling, which goes down thousands of feet vertically and then moves horizontally across the layer of shale in which the gas is trapped. Then they "seal" the shaft by pumping concrete in to supposedly protect ground water and aquifers from contamination. We all know that concrete never cracks, right?

Once the well is dug, an explosive charge is detonated along the horizontal shaft to break up the shale. After that the fracking is done, in which several million gallons of water, sand and God knows what kind of toxic stuff is pumped in at high pressure to help release the gas. About half of the frack fluid stays in the ground; the rest has to find a home somewhere else.

Once stuff starts coming up the drill shaft, the next step is flaring to eliminate waste gas. Once the gas is good to go, it is pumped along pipelines with the help of natural gas  compressors. I'm sure I left out a few steps. All this involves thousands of tons of traffic on rural roads and lots of noise, besides concerns about air, water, solid waste and hazmat contamination. In a word, it's a mess. And, yes, lots of jobs are involved, but most of those go to out of state workers.

The WV legislature created some pretty good draft legislation, but it was "tweaked"--some would say gutted--by Gov. Tomblin. More regulation needs to happen if the political will can be generated. And we need to create a future fund from natural gas and other severance taxes to make sure WV gets a little something out of this mess.

PRIORITIES. Here's a good op-ed by a friend of mine which makes the connection between huge cuts in state corporate taxes and possible cuts in child care for low income working families. Unsportsmanlike conduct, I say.

HARD TIMES. Here's a sneak preview of Paul Krugman's latest book on the messed up economy.

FLEAS. Dinosaurs had em. Big ones.

SPEAKING OF GAS, the dinosaurs apparently had plenty of that too.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Deja vu all over

It's time for federal budget kabuki theater again in the nation's capitol. House budget committee chair Paul Ryan just released his proposed budget, which is every bit as nasty and scary as it was last year. Bob Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities refers to it as "Robin Hood in reverse--on steroids." Read more about it here.

THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT in growing the economy is discussed in this op-ed by a friend of mine. It's nice to see somebody else feeding the right wing trolls that lurk at online news sources.

AND JUST TO COVER ALL THE BASES, here's an item on a jellyfish inspired aquatic robot.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Feeling good is optional

I have always felt that there is a lot to be learned from physical exertion. An example of that occurred to me after I started training for and running (or limping) in races again after knee surgery this summer.

Here is the life lesson I learned: there is absolutely no necessary connection between feeling good and doing OK. By that I mean that one can feel totally miserable and still meet or exceed goals. In one recent 5 mile race, my legs felt like broken dead sticks, my lungs burned and my feet hurt with every step. But I finished a few minutes ahead of my goal (though admittedly way behind most other people).

It would be nice to feel good when you're up against a challenge. It may even have happened to me at some point in the distant past, although I can't recall it. But it's not required. What is required is to keep going.

OPTIMISM, ANYONE? Paul Krugman seems to see sun shining through the economic clouds.

FEEDING THE TROLLS. Here's an op-ed by yours truly on why WV needs an office of minority affairs to address racial disparities.

AN UNFORTUNATE MEME: the welfare queen.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Would that it were so

Kudos to AFLCIO president and former UMWA leader Rich Trumka for calling for serious discussions about climate change and the future of coal. Of course, I don't expect political leaders in the Mountain State of Denial to pay a lot of attention, but every little bit helps.

ON THE POSITIVE SIDE, climate change may  make reptiles smarter.

NOT ONLY ARE CORPORATIONS NOT PEOPLE, but America isn't one either.

LOOKING AHEAD, Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz sees a rough year in 2012.

HAS ANYONE NOTICED that I've gone a week without mentioning zombies?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

My summer of Shelby

The R.H.O. himself.

The summer of 2011 officially ended last week and the weather is starting to act like it, for now anyway. I'll remember this season for several reasons, some pleasant, some not. The trip to Italy was cool; the constant knee pain not so much.

But aside from all that, I will remember this as my summer of Shelby. It was during this season that I listened to an unabridged recording of all three volumes of Shelby Foote's masterful Civil War trilogy.

I'm talking over 110 CDs of around an hour and 15 minutes each. If I did the math right, that comes out to 135+ hours. That's a lot of Shelby. He took up my time doing chores, driving, walking the dogs, mowing the lawn, etc.

I have mentioned before how I worship him and have been known to channel him from time to time. I love his long, rambling sentences and sharp wit. I only wish the version I listened to was read by the author. But then I'd listen to a recording of the real Shelby reading the phone book.

When you spend that much time with an author you notice things. I noticed that Shelby had a real issue with William Tecumseh Sherman, which is perhaps not so surprising from a true son of the south.

I wish I had a dollar for every time he referred to Sherman as a "red headed Ohioan." He seemed to be unable to refer to Sherman, who is bound to show up a lot in a book on the subject, without mentioned his hair color.

It made me wonder whether the divine Shelby had a thing about redheads too.

NEED A DOSE OF POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SANITY? Click here.

CLASS WARFARE, JUST MATH or basic morality?

THE AMERICAN LEFT and its impact on America is discussed here.

YOUR TALKING ANIMAL FIX is here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Feeding the trolls

I understand that it is the custom in Zen Buddhist monasteries to collect any remaining grains of rice after a meal and offer them to the hungry ghosts. Hungry ghosts in the Buddhist conception of the wheel of life and death are those beings who were greedy in previous lives.

In that unpleasant state or realm, one has a huge and empty belly that is always hungry but a tiny throat that can't swallow much. Feeding them is a meritorious act of generosity.

I've come to think of writing op-eds, like this one of mine, as a similar act since putting one in the paper feeds the trolls, which in this case refers to right wingers who lurk around the web in order to attach their remarks to pieces they disagree with like lampreys latching on to fish.

I devoutly hope that this act of providing nourishment will serve me well in my next rebirth.

THE DEATH PENALTY. E.J. Dionne argues that only conservatives can end it.

CLASS WARFARE, revisited.

CHIMPANZEES are just not that into cooperation.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Don't bee a stranger

When I was a small child, our family lived next to the kind of people who probably don't exist anymore. They were an elderly couple, the Richmonds, and they were what I can only describe as bedrock Appalachians, real mountain people. They knew all the old ways and skills of survival.

The man, Hinton, knew where to find fish in the river. He hunted for ginseng in the hills. And he claimed--and I believed--that he could follow honeybees to their hives. Hinton attempted to educate me about the benefits of honeybees. I was a hard sell since these creatures seemed to have been designed specifically to sting my feet when I played barefoot outside.

It took me a while to get the memo, but eventually I became a bee fan. I was sad to learn of the recent unprecedented decline in the bee population due to a mysterious syndrome known as colony collapse disorder. This was bad news not just for bee-keepers but for the many plants and crops that the bees pollinate.

Eventually, this hit home. For the past two summers, I don't recall seeing a single honey bee at Goat Rope Farm. I am pleased to announce that they are back and were as welcome to me as the return of a long lost friend. I hope they stick around.

TALKING SENSE. Here is Paul Krugman doing battle with bad economic ideas.

FAUX NEWS. Here's a look at 14 propaganda techniques used by a certain "fair and balanced" news network.

FROM EVIL TO HEROISM. Philip Zimbardo, the Stanford psychologist of prison experiment fame, is trying to see whether heroism can be taught. (Search Goat Rope archives in upper left hand corner for several posts on Zimbardo's work.)

A SENSE OF FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE may be innate in humans. Too bad some people apparently didn't get the memo.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Done deal

It looks like the sale of Massey Energy to Alpha Natural Resources is a done deal. Legal challenges to the sale have been turned back, while shareholders voted yesterday to approve it.

It really is the end of an era. For decades, Massey was a massive presence in West Virginia, not only in the coal industry, but in state politics, the media, and the courts. Its former CEO Don Blankenship was the face of Big Coal.

My initial reaction was to view the sale as a good thing. However, Ken Ward at Coal Tattoo had a great post yesterday about remaining questions regarding Alpha and promises that may have been made to retain key Massey personnel, including those connected to the management of the Upper Big Branch and Aracoma mines.

I can't help but think Alpha would have to get up pretty early in the morning to be worse than Massey in the Bad Old Days. We'll see.

Ward, who for my money is America's best coal reporter, posted this quote from Delaware Judge Leo Strine Jr. about Massey:

Convinced that it knew better than the public authorities charged with enforcing laws designed to make mining a safer and cleaner business, Massey management, with board knowledge, fostered an adversarial relationship with the company’s regulators and accepted as ordinary the idea that the company would regularly be accused of violating important safety regulations.

Of course, when a company has strong opinions about knowing better than the regulators, it is optimal to match that with a record of worker safety and environmental protection that is substantively spotless. But in the case of Massey, no such match existed, at least insofar as one credits actual judgments and other regulation-related losses suffered by the company under Blankenship’s tenure as CEO.

HOW WE GOT IN THIS MESS. Here's a brief from the Economic Policy Institute on the 10th anniversary of the Bush tax cuts.

THIS DIDN'T HELP EITHER. Here's a look at major companies that made big bucks but managed to have a negative tax rate.

SPEAKING OF MESSES, here's Robert Reich on the state of the US economy.

ALL THIS FROM TEETH? Scientists have found clues about the social structure of human ancestors from studying their teeth.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Tell it to your grandmother

There is a school of thought when it comes to writing that the goal is to make things so clear that one could explain it to a grandparent who was unfamiliar with the issue.

As an exercise, here's how I'd explain the current deficit/federal budget debate to one of mine (if any were still around).

Why do we have big deficits?

1. Because of the Bush tax cuts, which went disproportionally to the wealthy. (Solution: end them, or some of them anyhow);

2. Because of the wars, including particularly the Bush administration's war of choice in Iraq. (Solution: see above, minus the qualifiers.)

3. Because of the recession. For one thing, when the economy tanks, so do tax revenues. Also, various social programs--such as food stamps, unemployment insurance, and Medicaid--are designed to go up when the economy goes down while they help people get through the recession.

The Recovery Act and TARP were temporary programs designed to end the worst downturn since the Great Depression. And they kind of did, at least as far as helping the economy to grow again. We would probably be in better shape as far as jobs and economic growth go if the Recovery Act would have been bigger or more targeted to direct job creation.

In fact, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has argued that the first priority should be getting Americans back to work.

4. Because of the rising cost of health care. The Affordable Care Act has provisions that will help in this, but more needs to be done. Republican plans to gut Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP would do nothing to address health care costs--they'd just pass them on to consumers.

One more question: Why did we have the recession? My short answer is that we owe it to a lack of regulation in the finance sector of the economy. And the big dogs on Wall Street are the same drunk drivers asking to borrow the car keys again.

Final thoughts: seniors on Medicare aren't the problem. Nor are elderly or disable people or children on Medicaid. Nor are college students who receive Pell grants. Nor are families who rely on food stamps to get by. They didn't cause it and they shouldn't bear the brunt of dealing with it.

MCWORLD. Our world?

URGENT ZOMBIE ANT UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Relentless empiricism

I recently finished reading (really, listening to) Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The book was a bit grim but eye opening about the plight of women in many parts of the developing world.

One phrase that stuck in my mind from the book was "relentless empiricism." In context, the authors believed that people interested in development should be driven by reality rather than ideology or rhetoric. That phrase also reminded me of another useful aspect of Buddhist thought.

The Buddha may have been the original relentless empiricist, for he counseled his followers to accept nothing on the basis of faith, tradition or scriptures but rather to test all in the light of their own experience. This saying is attributed to him:

Believe nothing on the faith of traditions,
even though they have been held in honor
for many generations and in diverse places.
Do not believe a thing because many people speak of it.
Do not believe on the faith of the sages of the past.
Do not believe what you yourself have imagined,
persuading yourself that a God inspires you.
Believe nothing on the sole authority of your masters and priests.
After examination, believe what you yourself have tested
and found to be reasonable, and conform your conduct thereto.

He even encouraged non-attachment to his own teachings, comparing them merely to a raft to get from the bad side of a river to the good side. Once across, he taught, there is no need to carry the raft around.

FALLING. Here are some musings by Paul Krugman on the economy, the elections, and missed opportunities.

ASTROTURF. This item looks at the big money behind a "grassroots" movement.

MORE ALONG THAT LINE here.

A MORE IDEALISTIC TIME. A first generation member of the Peace Corps (and a friend of mine) looks back on his tour of duty here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Malthus, population and politics

A member of the "surplus population" breaks stones in a Victorian workhouse.

I've been musing on Darwinian themes here lately. If you like that kind of thing click on earlier posts.

Charles Darwin derived his idea of evolution by means of natural selection from Thomas Malthus' An Essay on the Principle of Population. The irony is that Malthus wrote it about humans and was mostly wrong and that Darwin applied to to the natural world and it was mostly right.

Moving from science to politics, Victorian era conservatives loved Malthus. They took his argument to mean that if workers got better wages, they'd only have more kids, for which there wouldn't be enough to go around, which would make them worse off than they were before. Give them jails and workhouses instead!

That has pretty much set the pattern for most arguments on the right against most progressive policy measures: anything that is aimed at helping poor folks would only hurt them, so the best way to really help them is to stick it to them.

Malthus turned out to be wrong about humans, at least for the period of the industrial era into our own. Advances in science and technology in the period since 1800 have made possible an expansion of population and an improvement in living standards for many people. And people tend to have fewer children as living standards rise and children are more likely to live to maturity, which is known as demographic transition.

In the modern world, hunger and starvation are more matters of politics than of population as such, more about distribution than demographics--although that might not always be the case in the future as we stress the environment and push the limits of the earth's carrying capacity.

EVIL, DANTE AND ALL THAT. Here's a shout out to a friend and fellow WV blogger over at Esse Diem for a post about the science of evil, a perennial favorite topic of El Cabrero.

ONE OUT OF FIVE AMERICANS believe some strange stuff.

SO MUCH FOR SUPPLY SIDE ECONOMICS. We have a problem with demand.

UPPER BIG BRANCH. The first settlements have been reached in wrongful death lawsuits as a result of Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine disaster, as Ken Ward reports in today's Gazette.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Hot dog

Whose dog is that?

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program for this urgent canine update from Goat Rope Farm. When I returned home yesterday, a strange dog awaited me.

Actually, it was Arpad, our Great Pyrenees. He's a long haired beast who loves cold weather--the colder the better--which means he's pretty miserable in the WV summer.

However, the Spousal Unit's sister, who has spent years working in animal hospitals, is way better at being a doggie barber than we are and she just happened to be here on a visit. Arpad got a buzz cut. Aside from a puff at the end of his tail (for a lion effect), he could be a Marine recruit.

He's tiny now. I hardly recognize him, but he seems a lot more chipper...if it really is him and not a clever Cylon impersonation (sorry, I've been watching Battlestar Galactica lately).

OK, back to the salt mines...

DAMAGE REPORT. Here's a look at how 30 years of "conservative" rule damaged the American economy.

IGNORING THE UNEMPLOYED. Here's a good editorial about the need for Congress to act to help the unemployed, a frequent subject of rants at this blog.

COUNT THE COSTS. Here's Ken Ward's Coal Tattoo on a new study by the WV Center on Budget and Policy about the impact of coal--benefits as well as costs--on the state budget. And here is his article about it for the printed paper. This ought to be good for another industry hissy fit.

CHIMPANZEE WARS. They happen.

NOT TOO FAR FROM WALDEN, a senior citizen from Concord is battling for a ban on bottled water.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

How absolute the knave is!

Goat Rope is still climbing Mount Hamlet, although we're nearing the summit. If you don't care for Shakespeare, you can scroll down to the links and comments section--although if you do, you'll be missing the graveyard scene.

As I mentioned yesterday, the gravedigger is the only person in the play who can hold his own against Hamlet. In their first exchange, Hamlet asks a simple question:

HAMLET: ...Whose
grave's this, sirrah?

First Clown: Mine, sir.

Sings
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

HAMLET: I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.

First Clown: You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not
yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.

HAMLET: 'Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine:
'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

First Clown:'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away gain, from me to
you.

HAMLET: What man dost thou dig it for?

First Clown: For no man, sir.

HAMLET: What woman, then?

First Clown: For none, neither.

HAMLET: Who is to be buried in't?

First Clown: One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

HAMLET: How absolute the knave is!

Hamlet, just back from his pirate adventure, has no idea that the grave will be Ophelia's. They banter some more before that becomes clear. It turns out that the gravedigger has had the same job since the day Old Hamlet slew the king of Norway and young Hamlet was born. He even knows about Hamlet's madness and trip to England, although he doesn't realize who he's talking to.

Playing along, Hamlet asks about reports of himself:

HAMLET: Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

First Clown: Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits
there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.

HAMLET: Why?

First Clown: 'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men
are as mad as he.

HAMLET: How came he mad?

First Clown: Very strangely, they say.

HAMLET: How strangely?

First Clown: Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

HAMLET: Upon what ground?

First Clown: Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man
and boy, thirty years.

Hamlet is usually untouchable in verbal sparring, but he can't score a point on this guy.

HEALTHY AND HAPPY. Here's an interview with Richard Wilkinson, co-author of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better.

WHO'S POOR THESE DAYS? Lots of people.

DEFICITS aren't the main problem right now, according to economist James Galbraith.

DOES EVOLUTION HAVE A DIRECTION? Maybe.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Carnal, bloody and unnatural acts

Edwin Booth as you know who, circa 1870.

The theme here lately is Hamlet, although you’ll also find links and comments about current events. If you like this kind of thing, please click on earlier posts. Today’s will provide a ridiculously brief summary of the play itself.

Old Hamlet’s ghost is seen on the battlements of Elsinore and those who see it decide tell young Hamlet. Meanwhile, Laertes, son of Polonious, counselor to king Claudius prepares to return to his studies in France after visiting Denmark for the funeral of Old Hamlet and the hasty wedding of his widow Gertrude to Claudius after only two months. Ophelia, Laertes sister, is warned against Hamlet’s affections and forbidden to see him by her father.

Hamlet sees his father’s ghost on the battlements and learns that we was poisoned by his brother Claudius. He is urged to avenge the murder but spare his mother, leaving her to Heaven. Hamlet swears his friends to secrecy and starts to act strange. His madness is feigned, but he is clearly depressed by what he learned and by Ophelia’s distance.

Ophelia reports Hamlet’s strange behavior to her father, who thinks he is mad for love. Claudius and Gertrude send for Hamlet’s old friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to pick his brain and report what they learn to the king.

Hamlet is torn by doubts about the veracity of his vision. When a troupe of players arrive, he decides to put on a play resembling the real murder and to watch Claudius’ reaction. The play hits close to home and Hamlet is convinced of Claudius’ guilt. He almost murders him, but hesitates since Claudius is at prayer (he would prefer to send him to hell rather than heaven). Hamlet then confronts his mother with is revelations and kills Polonius who is spying as usual (he thought it was Claudius).

Hamlet is ordered by Claudius to go to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Unbeknownst to them, they carry a letter demanding that the king of England kill Hamlet.

While Hamlet is away, the grieving Ophelia goes mad and drowns herself. Her brother Laertes wants revenge for her death and that of his father. Claudius assures him Hamlet is to blame.

Meanwhile, Hamlet turns up in Denmark again, having been captured and ransomed by pirates. While at sea, he read the secret letter and changes it, sending Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths instead. Claudius and Laertes agree to a plot to kill Hamlet in a fencing bout with poison.

Hamlet shows up at graveside which turns out to be that of Ophelia. He and Laertes nearly come to blows.

In the final fencing bout, Hamlet and Laertes poison each other but reconcile. Claudius accidently poisons Gertrude. Hamlet kills Claudius before dying himself. At the end, young Fortinbras comes in from his campaign against the Poles to find the carnage. Horatio lives to tell the tale.

That’s the outline, but in this play the words outweigh the action.

STANDING UP FOR SENIORS. The WV House of Delegates unanimously passed a resolution in support of in-home care for elderly people with disabilities. The state has recently cut back on the number of elderly people eligible for the program despite the fact that it saves money in the long run. As Gazette reporter Kate Long wrote:

It costs $20,000 to keep one person on in-home care for a year, with hospitalization, according to DHHR, compared with $60,000 to $70,000 for nursing home care. The state share for in-home care, under the stimulus, is now about $4,000 a year.

DEFICIT HYSTERIA could delay real economic recovery.

THE UNION DIFFERENCE is pretty big. A new study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that

Across all the states, however, unionization is strongly associated with increases in overall compensation, measured here by hourly wages and health and pension benefit coverage. In the typical state, unionization is associated with about a 15 percent increase in hourly wages (roughly $2.50 per hour), a 19-percentage-point increase in the likelihood of having employer-provided health insurance, and a 24-percentage-point increase in the likelihood of having employer-sponsored retirement plans.

URGENT COLORED DINOSAUR UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Get in it

Rev. Vernon Johns.

The Rev. Vernon Johns (1892-1965) is widely regarded as a father of the Civil Rights movement. In Taylor Branch's book about that struggle, Parting the Waters, he is described as a forerunner of Martin Luther King Jr.

He literally preceded King as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Johns was a pastor for a time in the capitol city of El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia.

I was reminded of Johns yesterday when a friend of mine who is a pastor and a leader in that city's African American community said that when Johns was a child, his father gave him this advice:

"If you see a good fight, get in it!"

I don't know about y'all but that works for me. It seems to apply pretty well to the current struggle over health care but I think it has broader application as well.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, there was a rally in support of health care reform in Charleston yesterday. I was all ramped up to go but was unhorsed by car trouble. Some days you eat the bear and some days the bear eats you.

(Parenthetically, it's ironic that Mass. Senator Ted Kennedy died when this issue, a longtime passion of his, is on the public agenda. I wonder what effect if any his passing will have on the debate.)

ON THE SUBJECT OF HEALTH CARE WHACKADOODLEISM, here's a good one from a few days back.

DEFICITS. Here's an analysis of what did and didn't cause the federal deficit.

A LITTLE GOOD NEWS about WV's economy appeared in yesterday's Charleston Daily Mail.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED