The tales that really mattered

I like to quote Vernon Johns, an African-American pastor who was a pioneer in the civil rights movement. His father told him, "If you see a good fight, get in it."

But it seems to me that the best or most righteous fights or struggles are not the ones that you go out looking for; rather, they are the ones that come to you.

In one of the more hopeless parts of The Lord of the Rings, the sturdy hobbit Sam Gamgee expressed a similar idea. Reflecting on the adventures related in old stories and songs, he said

I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually--their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on--and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it might call a good end...I wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into?

That's a good question. I wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into as well.

GREED IS IN, but that doesn't make it right.

JUST SAY NO. West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller came out swinging against Republican proposals to kill Medicaid and Medicare. To their credit, acting governor Earl Ray Tomblin and WV's newest senator Joe Manchin also oppose the plan. (Note: to get to the story scroll down after clicking on the link.)

TWO MINUTE WARNING. The clock is running out on a chance to modernize WV's unemployment system.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING, dinosaurs probably had lice.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Shuri Castle (and lots of other stuff)

Karate training at Shuri Castle, Okinawa, circa 1930s.


Reconstructed castle today.

A friend has requested more Okinawa pictures, so here goes. As I've mentioned before, my main goal in making the trip was to train in traditional karate but I did have some time to make some side trips.



One site played a major role both in Okinawan history and in the history of karate. For several centuries, Okinawa was an independent kingdom with the seat of government in Shuri, close to the port city of Naha which kind of absorbed it.



According to tradition, many masters of Shorin ryu karate (Shorin is Japanese for Shaolin) were associated with the court and some may have been bodyguards for the royal family. Bodyguarding was a bit complex in Okinawa since most people were forbidden to carry arms, which is where the karate came in. Things got even tougher in the 1600s when the Satsuma clan from Japan invaded. The monarchy wasn't eliminated, but its power was curtailed and Okinawa was forced to pay tribute. It was probably around that time that karate became a clandestine activity, one often practiced at night in secret locations.



The original castle, alas, was destroyed in WWII but has since been rebuilt. It's full of gardens, walls, ponds, statues, monuments and walkways.



A word about the style itself. Shorin-ryu is a name for several related karate styles that are associated with Shuri. It is characterized by fast, whiplike movements that generate power from the body's center of gravity, known as hara in Japanese and tandein in Chinese. I was lucky enough to spend some time with several prominent Shorin-ryu masters and to learn the correct traditional forms of several karate forms or katas, which are pre-arranged series of movements that contain the essence of a style.



In particular, I was able to learn the traditional form of three Naihanchi katas, which were the favorite of Motobu Choki (1870-1944), pictured above. These are symmetrical katas performed moving back and forth in the horse stance without turning the body, as if one is literally up against a wall or the edge of a cliff. Motobu, by the way, was something of a brawler in the day, and he believed Naihanchi had everything a karateka needed to know.

Any how, here's to Shuri and Shorin.

MORE ON THE MINE DISASTER AND SUCH here.

AND MORE OF THE SAME from the other side of the country here.

AND MORE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF UNIONS here.

A LOUSY LINK. Literally.

MIGHT AS WELL THROW IN something about space aliens.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

AN EDUCATED MAN

Statue of Carter G. Woodson, "The Father of Black History," in Huntington, WV.

The theme of this week's Goat Rope is Black History and its many connections with West Virginia. If this is your first visit, please click on the earlier entries.

The fact that people anywhere are celebrating or thinking about the history of African Americans this month is largely due to the efforts of Carter G. Woodson, who lived from 1875 to 1950.

Woodson was born in Buckingham County, Virginia to parents who were former slaves. He and his brother moved to West Virginia to find work in the coal mines and his family eventually moved to Huntington in 1893.

One thing that he particularly enjoyed as a young man was listening as friends read aloud from newspapers and books and discussed current events. He said

In this circle the history of the race was discussed frequently, and my interest in penetrating the past of my people was deepened and intensified.

Woodson eventually attended and graduated from Douglass High School in Huntington. He attended college in Berea, Kentucky and went back to Huntington to serve as Douglass' principal. He traveled extensively and continued his studies at the Sorbonne and the University of Chicago and earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1912. Although he wasn't the first African-American to do so, he was the first son of slaves to reach this goal. In addition to other academic posts, Woodson served as Dean of the West Virginia Collegiate Institute, now West Virginia State University.

Woodson was at various times active in the NAACP and collaborated with Marcus Garvey, but the passion of his life was the study and preservation of black history. In 1915, he was involved in the creation of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and published several books on various aspects of black history, including the influential textbook, The Negro in Our History. He also founded the Journal of Negro History in 1916. He paid for much of his historical activities out of his salary as an academic.

He campaigned with eventual success to have the second month of February set aside for the observation of black history. It has since grown into the whole month.

Interestingly, Woodson's passion for preserving African-American history was picked up by a contemporary scholar with West Virginia origins, Henry Louis Gates Jr., who with Kwame Anthony Appiah edited the Encyclopedia Africana.

CANADIAN BOOGEYMAN. Opponents of universal health care love to tell horror stories about the Canadian system. Here's a little de-bunking.

CITIES are struggling to be more green.

THE CHICKENS of Goat Rope Farm have it REAL good compared to these guys.

COLUMBUS was guilty of many things, but apparently not of bringing lice to the "New World," Peruvian mummies indicated.

CIVILIZING THE SAVAGE TODDLER. This doctor claims to know how.

SURFACE OWNERS have introduced a bill to restrict the damage done by oil and gas drillers in WV.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED