Y’all may have seen some version this image…it’s been flowing through the ‘tubes pretty freely:
I have to say, the whole tableau cracks me up: just look at Bobby Z.’s expression.
But beyond the momentary hit of the surreal contained therein, what you may have missed in the coverage of all this is the way Ha’aretz channeled its inner Bostonian when it introduced the article accompanying that pic with this subhed:
Several members of the American Jewish community were among those awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Tuesday by U. S. President Barack Obama.
Connoisseurs of the form will catch the echo of the iconic headline from an ’80s parody of The Boston Globe: “Hub Man Dies In Nuclear Blast”– which topped a story about a nuclear explosion over New York. I particularly enjoyed the subhed that ran something like “Boston Man, Eight Million Others Killed.” (This is a joke that has endless variations.) Ha’aretz has clearly taken notes.
You may consider this an open thread.
rea
No parrots were among those awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Tuesday by U. S. President Barack Obama . . .
beltane
Haaretz, though otherwise a fine paper, always does this. They are kind of like my 98 year old Jewish grandmother in this respect.
redshirt
Has it always been as so, for every country? Some foreign ocean liner goes down somewhere: 2 Americans die in Ferry crash (also, 500 Bangladeshi died too).
Tribal loyalties are fractal, are they not?
SatanicPanic
What’s up with the sunglasses? I thought only Bono was this lame
redshirt
@SatanicPanic: Wouldn’t you wear sunglasses all the time if you’d accomplished what Dylan has? I sure as heck would. Everywhere. Bolo ties too.
schrodinger's cat
@redshirt: I think so, yes but the US is rather a special case, since we consider ourselves the bestest and all.
Waynski
Job numbers not looking good for the Preznit this morning. Expect a day full of Republican told ya sos. That said, I was looking at this chart that Michael Tomasky linked to and it seems there’s a pattern of job growth slacking off in the middle of the year. The chart only goes back to the beginning of the Bush administration. Can any economically savvy BJer tell me if that’s a normal pattern in a recovery? Or should we all be panicking?
beltane
@SatanicPanic: He’s an old man, maybe all the flash bulbs hurt his eyes.
SatanicPanic
@redshirt: Not to meet the prez! That’s just bad manners. YMMV
redshirt
@SatanicPanic: There’s a photo from a few years back of Dylan and Springsteen hanging with the Prez at an Xmas event. Can’t find a link. I don’t recall Dylan wearing sunglasses then.
Some people are genuinely overly affected by bright lights, rather than just being ultra-cool.
Steeplejack
@SatanicPanic:
Yeah, it seems rude to wear sunglasses during a formal ceremony.
Adolphus
I think all local news does this, especially your second and third tier cities. I am not sure why the Boston market, so to speak, is being singled out. Unless of course it so so bad in Boston that even the critics in Boston always look for the Boston angles to local news provincialism that look for tenuous local angles on international events. Has there been some study? One particularly egregious headline or event?
Amir Khalid
Here’s a headline I wasn’t expecting to see.
SatanicPanic
@redshirt: If it turns out he has chronic migranes or some such ailment then I am an ass
Stuck in the Funhouse
@Amir Khalid:
ODS, and a lot of cocaine.
Schlemizel
The local POS pretending to be a news paper ran a letter to the idiotor whining about this photo in the previous days issue. Why, the writer wanted to know, should the Prez celebrate a man responsible for encouraging all those spitters on our heroes back in the 60s?
redshirt
@Amir Khalid: These are some freaky stories. Face eating? Intestine throwing? Bath salts are a hell of a drug. Damn.
Comrade Jake
Silly people. Clearly Dylan was wearing shades to cover up the fact that he was stoned. And who can blame him?
beltane
@Amir Khalid: Is it just me or does there seem to be an overabundance of bizarre incidents like this lately. Between the face chewer, the kitten torturing, porn-star murderer, and this guy it’s like Halloween has arrived several months early.
barath
@Waynski:
There’s one big pattern going on in the economy: rising oil prices into the fall that leads to decreased consumer spending and a slowdown about 6 months later. The slowdown causes oil prices to go down, easing things up again and causing growth in the fall. It’s happened for the last three years without fail.
redshirt
Also too: While I objectively see how Boston is lovely and wonderful etc etc, man do I hate it – especially the surrounding suburbs/highways/roadsystem/people.
arguingwithsignposts
@Amir Khalid:
Funny, I didn’t know they’d hired “the Internet” as coroner.
aimai
I’m a native Cantabridgian so we make fun of Boston regularly. I can still remember my father cracking up at that headline and referring to it as representative of all our coverage of everything. Its pretty much par for the course. As for Dylan being stoned–maybe he took some of what Laura Bush was hitting yesterday when she was there for her portrait unveiling?
aimai
Waynski
@barath: Thanks for the info! So I guess no need to clutch the pearls just yet.
Hill Dweller
@Waynski: When non-controversial stuff like the highway bill, which would create nearly 2 million jobs, can’t get through congress because wingnuts in the House are sabotaging everything, there isn’t a lot of hope for a quick recovery.
The moronic right wing has been channeling Hoover for 4 years, demanding cuts when we need pro-growth policies, which has led to a devastating loss of public sector jobs, undermining the recovery.
There are nearly 650,000 less public sector jobs now than when Obama was sworn in. To put that in perspective, public sector jobs grew during the first 3+ years of the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush administrations. If the public sector job totals had just stayed the same, never mind actually growing, we’d be near 7% unemployment, with much better growth numbers.
This has been the plan all along. Prevent anything from passing, demand cuts, stall the recovery, put the Republicans back in office.
Ash Can
I’m with Adolphus. News sources have played the local angle for as long as I can remember, with the exceptions of news sources specifically designed for broad national/international coverage. So it’s not at all surprising or even remarkable for Ha’aretz to say this.
And as for the sunglasses, meh on that too. If Dylan were doing it specifically to diss the president (which I really doubt), that would be a different story. But, especially given the kinds of insults this president has already had to endure, this is nothing. And besides, as others have said here, why shouldn’t he be able to wear sunglasses in the White House? He’s Bob Fucking Dylan, for cry-iy.
beltane
@aimai: And did you see Poppa Bush’s sock’s? What has the world come to! (I thought the socks were kind of cute)
beltane
@Hill Dweller: And when the Republicans implement European-style austerity at the federal level, leading to European-style 25% unemployment, we will finally achieve VICTORY!
Emily
My mother always claimed that if Jesus came back to earth the headline in the Des Moines Register would be “Iowans Attend Second Coming.”
Amir Khalid
@aimai:
Do the people of Cambridge, Massachusetts actually style themselves after the residents of that other famous university town?
RP
Those sunglasses are far better than Cheney’s green parka.
Tom Levenson
@Amir Khalid: Yes. See also the bar/club the Cantab Lounge.
RSA
I have to say I didn’t recognized Dylan. I thought, “Who’s the old French hipster getting the medal?” (Why French? I don’t know. Maybe the moustache and the expression.)
joes527
@schrodinger’s cat: Did you just say that American exceptionalism is ……… exceptional?
Waynski
@Hill Dweller: Spot on analysis, which leads to another concern: I honestly don’t believe a majority of the Republicans believe in austerity. I worry that if Romney takes power, they will actually provide the economy every bit of the stimulus it needs by spending on infrastructure big time, slashing taxes for the rich, getting an assist from the Fed (which will become suddenly unconcerned about inflation once one of their fellow travelers is in office), and we’ll get a boom that they’ll take credit for.
The encore will be: Deficits! Deficits! Deficits! and then goodbye to every last piece of the new deal, because that’s their real goal. And if people think they turned the economy around, they’ll have the credibility to get it done.
They believe in Keynes just as much as Krugman does. They usually just practice it through the defense budget.
Tony J
@redshirt:
You must have heard about the (probably, certainly apocryphal British newspaper headline of the 1930s?
“Fog in Channel – Continent cut off.”
Charlieford
@Hill Dweller: Unfair to Hoover.
Diane
My favorite Ha’aretz headline: “Two Jews and a black man help Phelps fulfill Olympic dream”.
Seriously. tinyurl.com/d5surlz
redshirt
Fair to say tribal loyalties go as such: me>family>neighborhood/town>state>country on one level, with a divisor in there somewhere of religion>political party>sports team?
Am I missing anything?
OzoneR
@Waynski:
DailyKos has decided to panic, it’s all Geithner’s fault and Obama never tried doing anything.
From the same commenters who appeared in diaries about stuff Obama did try to do and failed (i.e. transportation bill)
beltane
@Waynski: Slashing taxes on the rich won’t do jack shit to create a boom in a crisis such as the one we are experiencing. Our failed Job Creators are already undertaxed; shoving yet more money down their jockstraps will only make things worse.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
well, as a non-coastal, i’d like to say who you calling provincial?
but then you step back and consider florida and vegas, as amalgams.
MattF
@Amir Khalid: Grand Unified Comment Thread:
New Jersey Man in Critical Condition.
OzoneR
@beltane:
Most people know that and vote for the tax cutters anyway.
Villago Delenda Est
@Waynski:
Which, while it does have lots of payoffs (like the intertubes themselves, a DoD funded invention) it tends to be less direct than basic infrastructure spending, which usually has more immediate growth ramifications. The proof is toss up a bridge over a river where none was before, and watch the private sector react to the new traffic patterns.
beltane
@OzoneR: I don’t often visit GOS these days. Are they aware of what’s going on in the rest of the world or do they think we are living in some kind of bubble? These are very scary times, the whole post-1970’s economic paradigm we’ve grown up with is crashing around us, and the only real correctives would involve hurting the fee-fees of the global financier class and so will never happen.
Schlemizel
@RSA:
I wanted to caption it “President discovers homeless intruder in White House, garrotes him”
Waynski
@beltane: I get that, but I believe they will spend plenty at the same time just the way Reagan did and claim the tax cuts caused the boom as opposed to a massive military buildup. And slashing taxes for the rich will create an investment bubble (who knows in what this time? back to tulips maybe?). But just to clarify, I think they’ll do both and claim resultant growth is from the tax cuts and that the spending had nothing to do with it thereby perpetuating their tax cut nonsense for another generation.
beltane
@OzoneR: I’m not saying they won’t vote for them; I am saying that they won’t reap any benefits from voting for them. Most people are too stupid to make intelligent decisions regarding their own personal lives. It would be unfair to expect them to make intelligent decisions regarding macroeconomic concerns. Once I figured out that humans are no more than chimpanzees with only slightly enhanced cognitive abilities, I have never once been shocked by either stupid or violent behavior.
Waynski
@Villago Delenda Est: Agreed. I’m not saying they’d do Keynes well, but they’ll do it.
OzoneR
@beltane:
They’re sometimes aware of what’s going on, but their problem seems to be their inability to accept it.
One commenter actually said this
So your response is run around in a hair-on-fire panic? Propose a solution? He’s been doing that, and DailyKos has been backing him up on it. but its nit working so it never happened
redshirt
@OzoneR: BULLYZ PUPIT!!!
beltane
@Waynski: Bush did all of these things and there was no real boom in the overall economy (the housing “boom” was clearly the dead-cat-bounce of a failed economic model). Also keep in mind that any signs of a boom will bring about a sharp rise in energy prices which will cause said boom to go bust.
Back in the 1980s I knew an old Marxist who absolutely adored Ronald Reagan because he claimed Reagan’s policies would, in the long-term eventually lead to the collapse of capitalism. Seems the old man might have been right. The downside, though, is that we may revert to the older systems with mass poverty and entrenched inequality instead of progressing to a better economic model.
Linda Featheringill
I saw a picture of Dylan this morning. That’s apparently what happens when a scruffy young man becomes a scruffy old man. :-)
I wonder if Mr. Zimmerman has physical difficulties these days? He looks like he might.
charles pierce
Dammit, Tom, it’s “Hub Man” in the headlines, as in Frank Deford’s legendary hypothetical elevation of Cushing into the Chair of Peter — “Hub Man Tabbed Pontiff.”
Tokyokie
The National Lampoon’s small-town Sunday newspaper parody (mostly the work of P.J. O’Rourke and John Hughes; the paper was the Dacron Republican-Democrat) from 1978 had the lead headline: “2 LOCAL WOMEN MISSING,” with the subhed, “Japan Destroyed in Earthquake.” The lead art was a snapshot of the missing women on their front porch; the secondary art was a locator map with the head, “Pacific Ocean: Where Japan Was Located.”
beltane
@Linda Featheringill: He looks rather frail and unwell, which is why I’d cut him some slack on the sunglasses.
Egg Berry
@Linda Featheringill: I heard on a music show that he is suffering from very bad arthritis so that he can’t play guitar anymore (at least in concert), so he plays piano. FWIW.
Comrade Javamanphil
@rea: My first thought as well.
And now, Attila the Bun!
Brachiator
@Tom Levenson:
Hard to beat the original. The April 16, 1912 New York American main headline.
Good to see that obscure, little known fella Dylan getting a little appreciation.
LanceThruster
Despite my age, I did not “get” (i.e. “like”) a lot of Dylan (what I did like was truly awesome), but what the picture reminds me of is how goddamn much I miss Kurt Vonnegut.
redshirt
@LanceThruster: Heh. He does look like Vonnegut, old man version.
Waynski
@beltane: True about Bush, but much of what he borrowed he spent overseas or gave to the drug companies. Reagan spent the money here making ships, planes, guns and nukes. But since Russia is no longer a strategic threat it would kind of hard to justify that kind of buildup…Oh wait
Same formula. Different douche.
Nylund
My first thought was:
“I thought Kurt Vonnegut died?”
Comrade Mary
Dylan was a gorgeous young man and he’s aged surprisingly well. I like the Vincent Price moustache, too.
Mino
@beltane: The downside, though, is that we may revert to the older systems with mass poverty and entrenched inequality instead of progressing to a better economic model.
Their timing is bad. Climate change plus poverty = massive die-off of prols and elites. Did PETA elect Reagan?
JoyceH
There was a real headline in 1912 (one of the NYC papers, I believe) that said “John Jacob Astor Lost At Sea” with the subhead “1500 others also drown”.
Brachiator
@JoyceH:
See my comment 60 on this.
WereBear
@Egg Berry: That is really too bad. Losing something so intrinsic to one’s identity.
dj spellchecka
the headline on this event’s coverage at bigbullshit.com and many other outposts in greater wingnuttopia
Obama Gives Avowed Socialist Presidential Medal of Freedom
trollhattan
@Diane:
I seriously thought you were making that up–or it was a parody. I’m left hoping the Haaretz writers and editors have their tongues planted in their cheeks.
This, from the article, has me thinking that’s so.
aimai
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, it is the actual name of people from Cambridge. We aren’t “styling” ourselves, or “yclept” it, for that matter, at all.
aimai
pete
Dylan always looks thrilled by these events. But the best photo is this one.
rea
Dylan and I are getting old. :(
Elliott
I just can’t help myself; it goes like this:
HUB MAN WITNESSES ATOMIC BLAST
Six Million Die in Nuclear Explosion
Tom Levenson
@Diane: Reading that, my life is complete.
Thank you.
Bill
This was the joke inside news desks in the 1990s, about how different papers would cover the apocalypse.
New York Times: “World Ends. Third World Countries Hit Hardest.”
Wall Street Journal: “World Ends. Dow Jones Hits Zero.”
Washington Post: “World Ends. White House Ignored Early Warnings.”
USA Today: “We’re Dead. State-By-State Demise (Page 8A). Final Final Sports Scores (Page 8C)”
Marshall
My favorite version of the Globe Headline :
Saugus Man Dies in New York Nuclear Holocaust