Tag: Bob Dylan

and for sheer bizarreness!

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

The WaPo editorial for today calls out McSame for yet another “vile smear:

WITH THE presidential campaign clock ticking down, Sen. John McCain has suddenly discovered a new boogeyman to link to Sen. Barack Obama: a sometimes controversial but widely respected Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi. In the past couple of days, Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have likened Mr. Khalidi, the director of a Middle East institute at Columbia University, to neo-Nazis; called him “a PLO spokesman”; and suggested that the Los Angeles Times is hiding something sinister by refusing to release a videotape of a 2003 dinner in honor of Mr. Khalidi at which Mr. Obama spoke. Mr. McCain even threw former Weatherman Bill Ayers into the mix, suggesting that the tape might reveal that Mr. Ayers — a terrorist-turned-professor who also has been an Obama acquaintance — was at the dinner.

For the record, Mr. Khalidi is an American born in New York who graduated from Yale a couple of years after George W. Bush. For much of his long academic career, he taught at the University of Chicago, where he and his wife became friends with Barack and Michelle Obama. In the early 1990s, he worked as an adviser to the Palestinian delegation at peace talks in Madrid and Washington sponsored by the first Bush administration. We don’t agree with a lot of what Mr. Khalidi has had to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the years, and Mr. Obama has made clear that he doesn’t, either. But to compare the professor to neo-Nazis — or even to Mr. Ayers — is a vile smear.

For his part, Mr. Khalidi, an academic of the first degree, squashes McSame like a bloated cockroach and even throws the clammering, allusion-hungry masses (that would be us) a bone:

Which reminds us: We did ask Mr. Khalidi whether he wanted to respond to the campaign charges against him. He answered, via e-mail, that “I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over.” That’s good advice for anyone still listening to the McCain campaign’s increasingly reckless ad hominem attacks. Sadly, that wind is likely to keep blowing for four more days.

Thought folks might enjoy this, wether a Dylan fan or not, some good stuff and a free listen as well as downloads

It comes from the NPR Music Notes – All Songs Considered newsletter and site.

Exclusive Preview: Bob Dylan’s ‘Tell Tale Signs’

“Peace in our times?”

Moving broken line | stable broken line | stable broken line

Moving solid line | stable solid line | stable solid line

Trigrams: Heaven over Earth moving to Wind over Thunder

12. Obstruction	42. Benefiting
Obstruction. This is not the other not benefiting the noble one’s persistence. Much goes, little comes. One cannot continue, one is being obstructed. This is frustrating. There is more loss than gain. This isn’t the other going against one’s interests, actually. Blaming someone may make one feel better, but isn’t helpful at solving the problem.	Benefiting. It is beneficial to have a goal to move to. It is beneficial to cross the big river. Benefiting from the situation. It’s a good idea to have a plan for undertaking something, to make good use of the opportunity.

Moving line 1:

Pulling out grass and entangled roots because of its accumulation.

Persistence brings good fortune.

Progressing.

Removing something that has accumulated and is now in the way, weeding it out by the root. Under the surface, things may be more entangled than one thought. Things go well by persevering with this. There is progress being made.

Moving line 4:

Having a higher purpose.

Without fault,

but it is a category separate from happiness.

Working on something that’s important to you, perhaps regarding your personal or spiritual development. There is nothing wrong with that. It is no pleasure to go through this development, but it really needs to be worked with.

Well it’s past midnight here, but on the West Coast it’s still Bob Dylan’s birthday.

Took a few things to nudge me into realizing this.

When I checked out meteoriot’s site, lose the label I noticed an entry, crossposted from Docudharma, lol … and it had a video whose tragedy was it was more relevant today than ever.  As meteoriot noted, Dylan was only 22 when he did Masters of War:

‘Course he wasn’t too bad at the love songs, either:

So, I was trying to decide what to listen to while I did my exercise bike time and I looked around to see what there was I hadn’t listened to in a while.  Usually, I listen to either Gackt Red or Gackt Blue (highly reccomended), sometimes I listen to Elton John from the Garden (Greatest Hits Live), somtimes Freddy’s Tribute Concert, and sometimes the Statler Brothers Farewell show (all just fabulous).  Then I looked, and I saw the Last Waltz!  Bingo!

I’ve been singing the song “Masters of War” a lot lately. Every time I practice, I play it. I’d guess I’ve worked through it, either listening or playing, at least 500 times since September. The verses are burned into my consciousness. Every word is still relevant; the military industrial complex is every bit as powerful now as it was when Dylan wrote about it in 1963 at the ripe old age of 22. 22! And he created what’s gone down as one of the most succinct, eloquent protest songs of all time, certainly one of the landmark antiwar pieces.

But for all its brilliance, what futility he must have felt. A guitar and a voice vs. the military-industrial complex. These people didn’t hear a word he said. They were tucked away, safe and sheltered. That their trade was a curse on the whole world was not their problem, and mere criticism could not and did not move them. If Bob Dylan was president, maybe they’d mind, but he wasn’t even a speck. But he did have two things: the moral high ground, and the First Amendment. That’s all anybody has, really. If right is on your side, you can be vocal about it and hopefully others will hear and join. Accusation, for all its pitfalls, is a necessary step toward justice.