Dodging a bullet

I think it was mostly luck and an unforeseen and unforeseeable outbreak of rationality in the recent WV legislative session, but the Mountain State managed not to pass one of those controversial "religious freedom" bills that are a license to discriminate. Similar bills have been causing controversy--and costing money--in several states. It's nice that we managed not to embarrass ourselves, even if it was kind of an accident.

Meanwhile, this NY Times article on inequality, longevity and geography is worth a look. For some reason, we didn't look too bad in this one either.

NOTE: for some reason, the several  hundred odd (no disrespect intended) people who subscribed to this blog via email haven't been getting it for a while. I'm going to try something. Please let me know if it works if you happen to get this and read it. Thanks!

A tale of two counties

This New York Times story  has gone viral in these parts of West Virginia so you may have already seen it, Gentle Reader. It's about the gap in wealth and income--and longevity--between a rich county in Virginia and McDowell County, West Virginia. Sad but true. But I'll take folks from McDowell any day of the week.

Must see TV

I have to give props again to Stephen Colbert for this hilarious "report" on an Appalachian small town in eastern Kentucky which is, so far, the smallest to adopt a Fairness ordinance banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Vicco has a population of around 334...and an openly gay mayor.

Props to the people of Vicco, too!

WHERE YOU LIVE may affect how long you live. And WV doesn't come off too good from this look.

PATRIOT COAL. Union miners are voting today on a proposed agreement with Patriot Coal (search Patriot Coal in upper left corner for more information). I'm not sure how the vote will go but if I was a gambling man I'd say it will pass. The big news is that the UMWA leadership got a better deal for its members than a federal bankruptcy judge after the judge's ruling.

MEDICAID, PRISONS, DRUG ABUSE. An audit from Oregon suggests that the former will help reduce problems with the other two. And save millions.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Point taken

This blog is dedicated to the cutting edge of positive social change...and like other stuff too. One example of the "other stuff" category was a link featured in yesterday's post about a scientific study of longevity records of Korean eunuchs from the 14th to early 20th century which suggested that castration might lead to a longer life.

(Which makes me think that longevity is sometimes overrated.)

I received an email yesterday from a Goat Rope reader who pointed out that such surgical measures did little to promote longevity for members of a certain religious outer space cult back in the 1990s. Duly noted.

One can only hope that anyone today who adopts such a drastic measure in search of a few more years of life is selective in his choice of religious affiliation.

REDISTRIBUTING WEALTH seems to be OK with some folks when the direction is upward.

BAD LIT, REVISITED. Here's an item dealing with the true love a certain vice presidential candidate has for a really bad writer.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Let them eat emergency rooms

It's kind of entertaining these days watching the whole political circus. Or circuses, to be more exact, there being so many to choose from. I must admit to being amused by presidential candidate Mitt Romney's latest prescription for health care for the uninsured: using the emergency room.

Ironically, this is something that another Mitt Romney not so long ago denounced as "socialism," as this Huffington Post article points out. His  Massachusetts plan, this Mitt said, was designed to put a stop to that.

On the other hand, many conservatives view the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, as socialistic, even though it was modeled largely on the Massachusetts plan associated with you know who.

Is anybody else confused yet? Would the real socialist please stand up...

Meanwhile, for all the talk about how unpopular health care reform is supposed to be, I imagine there would be hell to pay if provisions of it were actually repealed.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, WV is on the verge of making decisions about how its health care system will unfold. I wouldn't look for a lot of boldness here.

HE'S RIGHT THIS TIME. El Cabrero is not always on the same page with David Brooks, but I think he nailed with this piece on conservatism old and new. To tell the truth, I kind of like the old version.

A DRASTIC CURE. An historical study of Korean eunuchs suggest that castration could lead to longer lives. Which leads me to ask, who wants to live forever anyway?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Of monkeys, people and religion

Hanuman, the Indian monkey god.

El Cabrero spent a good part of the week careening around West Virginia. For entertainment and edification, I listened to a recording of primatologist Frans De Waal's book The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society.

In it, he made an interesting point that never had occurred to me, i.e. that religions that developed in places where people lived in proximity to monkeys and/or apes didn't separate humans from the rest of the natural world. Presumably it would be harder to do so when there were little furry human look alikes running around.

Dude has a point. Compare and contrast Hinduism and Buddhism with Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

FRACK PICTURES to come next week.

POLITICS, GENES AND BRAINS discussed here. Comment: as interesting as books on that topic are, they don't explain why things are so polarized today.

GET OUT THERE AND JOG if you want to live longer.

MORE TO DENY here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Things are tough all over

Random animal picture.

This news item caught my eye today:

Retired Massey Energy Co. chief Don Blankenship's total compensation fell 48 percent in 2010 as he tried to right the struggling company following the nation's deadliest coal mine explosion in decades, an Associated Press analysis of a regulatory filing shows.

Blankenship earned just over $9 million in total compensation last year, compared with $17.3 million in 2009.

Maybe we should take up a collection. I'll get right on that. As soon as I finish organizing my nonexistent tie collection.

A NO GO. Eighty four percent of Americans oppose Republican House Budget Chair Paul Ryan's proposal to kill Medicare and gut Medicaid and other programs to pay for more tax breaks for the rich in the name of deficit reduction. More on that here.

A NEW TWIST ON THE WARRIOR POSE. Wounded soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are turning to yoga as part of their rehabilitation.

WORKING FOR A LIVING. Here's a look at the state of West Virginia's workforce from the WV Center on Budget and Policy.

WANT TO LIVE LONGER? these things might help.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Goats versus picnic tables

Don't bet on the picnic tables.

WHERE'S THE BEEF? Krugman takes the president to task again here.

TALKING SENSE. This op-ed by some friends of mine talks sense about taxes, budgets and deficits.

JAWING AROUND. A Kentucky coal miner found the jawbone of a 300 million year old shark 700 feet underground.

AUTHOR CHRIS HEDGES spoke in Charleston WV this weekend about the decline of liberal institutions.

UNION SUPPORTERS rallied at the state capitol Sunday as well. El Cabrero was on the way when the fan belt died in my old car.

BOUNCE BACK from stress if you want to live to be 100

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Hammer time

There is an old saying that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. We tend to get pretty attached to our hammers and use them whether they make sense or not.

(The problem with thinking everything can be fixed with a hammer, as any West Virginian can tell you, is that it leaves duct tape out of the equation altogether. But I digress.)

This is yet another thing I find useful in Buddhist thought, especially for people interested in social justice. Activists can get stuck in ruts--or sometimes time warps--doing the same things over and over. I love rituals--but not ritualism.

The Buddha taught that "attachment to form is a hindrance," which means that having fixed ideas about how things are or what to do can get in the way of getting anything done. Every day, every situation, every conflict is unique and demands a unique response, which may or may not look like anything that went before it.

CLIMATE CAPITALISM? Maybe so, maybe not. Read more here.

OKAY. Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship reports having "a totally clear conscience" about the Upper Big Branch mine disaster.

IN CASE YOU PLAN ON LIVING A LONG TIME, here's some advice.

OR, IF NOT, here's something on near death experiences.

ON THE SUBJECT OF DEATH, sitting a lot could make it happen quicker.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED