Of dogs, politics and scatology

Arpad, shown here before his summer haircut, goes wherever he wants to.

Anyone who has been around the block a few times knows that politicians can be full of surprises. Sometimes they do things that are disappointing or downright infuriating. Sometimes they surprise you the other way, by supporting decent stands for reasons which may be principled, cynical or even kind of random.

The surprises can come both from ones you like and who support your issues and from those you think are hopeless.

A while back, a friend of mine who happens to be a Quaker with some lobbying experience (you know who you are) gave me some good advice for the occasions when they go your way. I may be paraphrasing, but I remember her words coming out something like this:

When the dog uses the bathroom in right place, you gotta say "Good boy!"

Actually, the original version might have been a bit more colorful. Still, it stuck in my mind as good advice. I always try to say "thank you" when there's an occasion.

DEBT CEILING The US House majority is playing a game of debt ceiling chicken to force major cuts in domestic spending. To extend the canine metaphor, I believe that would constitute going to the bathroom in the wrong place.

STUDENT LOANS might be the next bubble.

BACKROOM DEALS?. Here are some interesting developments in the sale of Massey Energy to Alpha Natural Resources.

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN on religion.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Brother, can you spare a book?

I don't usually complain about this, but I'm about to have too much time to read. I'm talking air travel, including two 14 hour flights. Usually I have a pile of books going at any given time, but it's not really practical given limited luggage weight and limited space.

This has created an interesting dilemma...what to take?

Here's what I've come up with so far:

1. It's about time to read Don Quixote again, especially since I'm going on a Quixotic trip. It really is a hilarious book. There's an old story that King Philip III of Spain once saw a man reading a book and laughing until he cried. The King said something like, "Either that man is crazy or he's reading Don Quixote."

2. Since I'm headed there, I'm going to try Dancing with the Dead: Memory, Performance, and Everyday Life in Postwar Okinawa, a gift from the in laws.

3. A friend loaned me a copy of Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. Or maybe Jared Diamond's Collapse. I listened to it before but it deserves a real read. The jury's still out between those two.

4. We get The New Yorker at Goat Rope Farm. Man, do those things pile up. I never seem to get around to reading them, although the Spousal Unit manages to. I'm thinking about rounding up all the old ones I can find and taking them along. I can scatter them as offerings to other travelers as I go.

That's the plan anyhow.

WHAT HE SAID. NY Times columnist Bob Herbert talks sense about job creation here.

ALL DONE. The "final" piece of health care reform legislation, which also overhauled student loans, was signed yesterday.

BANKING ON REFORM. Here's TARP oversight committee chairperson Elizabeth Warren on the need for financial reform.

URGENT BAT UPDATE here.

CUTE LITTLE ROAD-RUNNER DINOSAUR UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A hit, a very palpable hit

Some of Goat Rope's regular readers will be glad to know that this is just about the end of a long jag on Hamlet. If you've already had your limit, scroll down to the links and comments section.

We're now at the climax of the play, when Hamlet and Laertes are about to engage in a fencing match. The king, who has conspired with Laertes to poison Hamlet, pretends to have made a fine bet on his victory. As the courtier Osric puts it,

The king, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary
horses: against the which he has imponed, as I take
it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their
assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so: three of the
carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very
responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages,
and of very liberal conceit.

Hamlet asks Laertes for his pardon, blaming his madness for the death of Polonius:

Give me your pardon, sir: I've done you wrong;
But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows,
And you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd
With sore distraction. What I have done,
That might your nature, honour and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet:
If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then? His madness: if't be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;
His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
Sir, in this audience,
Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
That I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,
And hurt my brother.

I'm not sure I'd buy it if I was Laertes, but with all the twists and turns of plot it's hard to tell just how mad or sane Hamlet was. Laertes is not reconciled but pretends to agree to a truce.

I am satisfied in nature,
Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most
To my revenge: but in my terms of honour
I stand aloof; and will no reconcilement,
Till by some elder masters, of known honour,
I have a voice and precedent of peace,
To keep my name ungored. But till that time,
I do receive your offer'd love like love,
And will not wrong it.

You know how it turns out. They fight, exchange wounds and blades in the mixup and wind up poisoning each other. Gertrude drinks the poisoned wine intended for Hamlet. Laertes confesses all and says "The king's to blame." Hamlet finally revenges his father's murder by killing Claudius.

The thrill of seeing it live was of course the fight scene, something audiences were as crazy about in Shakespeare's time as our own.

But there are still a few great lines left, which will keep until tomorrow.

MEMORY LANE. Has it been 20 years since WV's great teacher's strike? I guess so. I remember it fondly. After the UMWA/Pittston coal strike ended in early 1990, I was going through labor dispute withdrawal when state teachers were kind enough to oblige me. The strike spread like wildfire from southern WV and won major gains for teachers. It was a short wild ride.

RETURNING VETERANS from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan face higher unemployment rates than civilians.

A NEW POVERTY TRAP. Private for-profit schools often lure students into heavy student loan debt without delivering on the promise of good paying jobs.

TALKING SENSE ON PRISONS. Here's an op-ed on prison overcrowding by my friend the Rev. Matthew Watts.

DID I MENTION that I hate the day after daylight savings time goes into effect?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Panta rei

There were two poles in ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. One of these, represented by Parmenides and Zeno, taught that the ultimate reality or the One, was eternal and changeless. Presumably, this meant that the world of the senses was an illusion.

El Cabrero has always been a fan of their philosophical foe Heraclitus, who basically taught that change was the only permanent reality. The title of this post is from a saying of his to the effect that all things change and flow. Here's a mix from him:

Everything flows and nothing abides;. Everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.

You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet others go ever flowing on.

Cool things become warm, the warm grows cool; the moist dries, the parched becomes moist.

It is in changing that things find repose.

He was also famous for saying that "war is the father of all things." By that he didn't mean literal war, although that was a fact of life then and now. Instead, he meant that life and the universe itself consist of constant strife and conflict, with forces endlessly bouncing off each other. This constant conflict made all things possible:

Homer was wrong in saying, "Would that strife might perish from amongst gods and men." For if that were to occur, then all things would cease to exist.

Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

Change and discord leading to harmony... I'll take some of that. While it lasts.

BACK HOME BUT HOMELESS. Many returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are homeless.

RELIGION AND NICENESS may or may not go together.

ANOTHER DAY OLDER AND DEEPER IN DEBT. College loans are a heavy burden for many young Americans.

URGENT EXTINCT WOOLY RHINO UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: INDISTINCT

GILGAMESH'S QUEST FOR IMMORTALITY

Caption: Earlier in the story, Gilgamesh and Enkidu overcome the fierce monster Humbaba.

Welcome to Fun With the Epic of Gilgamesh Week on Goat Rope, a lighthearted look at history's earliest surviving epic. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier entries.

On previous post, we've met Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. Gilgamesh met his best friend the hairy man Enkidu. They had glorious adventures, killing the monster Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven.

But these excessive deeds have come at a cost: Enkidu is dead and a despairing Gilgamesh is about to go on a long quest in search of immortality. He is determined to cross the sea to the farthest lands in search of Utanapishtim, the Sumerian Noah, who survived the flood. Utanapishtim and his wife are the only humans who have been granted immortality.

He leaves Uruk and travels far, meeting scary scorpion people and Siduri, the kindly woman wine grower at the edge of the sea. She advises Gilgamesh to accept human limitations:

You will never find that life for which you are looking. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping. As for you, Gilgamesh, fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man.

Gilgamesh, of course, isn't willing to take that good advice (which sounds a lot like Ecclesiastes). After further adventures and missteps, he finally makes the crossing to visit the immortals.

To his surprise, Utanapishtim is not a glorious king or warrior but just an old guy taking it easy with his wife. Utanapishtim tells the Sumerian version of the Flood story. According to this one, the gods weren't so much upset with human sinfulness as with their noisiness. (They kind of had a point.) The story of the ark and the release of birds will sound familiar, although there are differences from the Genesis version.

As far as immortality goes, Gilgamesh is pretty disappointed. He is told:

There is no permanence. Do we build a house to stand for ever, do we seal a contract to hold for all time? Do brothers divide an inheritance to keep for ever, does the flood-time of rivers endure?...From the days of old their is no permanence.

Finally, though, at his wife's prompting, Utanapishtim reveals to Gilgamesh one last chance to achieve immortality.

Stay tuned--same bat time, same bat channel.

A GOOD STEP. The U.S. House voted yesterday to cut subsidies to companies providing student loans, increase the size of Pell grants, and reduce interest rates on the loans.

AARRGH. Looks like it's a good year for sea piracy.

NEITHER FREE NOR FAIR. One rationalization for opposing the Employee Free Choice Act is a supposed desire to protect workers rights to a secret ballot. Here's a little comparison between federal elections and union representation elections.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED