Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Republicans in disarray!

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

This fight is for everything.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Join Maple in Celebrating Bob Dylan’s Birthday

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49Comments

  3. 3.

    Elizabelle

    Garrison Keillor’s parody of a Dylan song, from Mr. Zimmerman’s 60th birthday.  Kind of remembered it. “Like a rolling stone.  In a nursing home.”

    From Prairie Home Companion.  Times They Are A-Changing.

    Bob Dylan.  80 is the new 60.  For him.

  4. 4.

    lowtechcyclist

    Some are mathematicians, some are carpenters’ wives
    don’t know how it all got started, don’t know what they do with their lives

  6. 6.

    trollhattan

    Our dog does that very thing, grabs your hand when it’s time for petting. Really, dude.

    Happy birthday Bob! Watched Scorsese’s “Rolling Thunder” a few weeks ago. Interesting piece and gobs of historical footage I was not familiar with. So many artists rolled through that it makes a compelling time capsule.

    ETA “Rolling Thunder” is a sneaky melange of actual footage and fictional stagecraft. Very tongue in cheek.

  7. 7.

    Elizabelle

    @SiubhanDuinne:   Yeah, I look forward to reading that later.  (Watch out though, jackals, it is behind the paywall.  Seems like Esquire might allow you two free clicks on Charlie Pierce articles a month??)

    I know you all will have some good links.

  8. 8.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle:

    Thanks and sorry, should have mentioned the paywall. I forget it’s there because I subscribe solely for the pleasure of reading CPP.

  10. 10.

    Elizabelle

    @SiubhanDuinne:   No apologies needed.

    Another jackal put that link up on Facebook, and I noted the paywall (but still have one article left, thank dog).

    I like Charles Pierce, but I pay for enough subscriptions already.  Alas.

  15. 15.

    Another Scott

    OpenThread?

    Example #819204 that there is no such thing as a reasonable Republican: JuanitaJean:

    […]

    ORIGINAL STORY: No, “P” hasn’t announced his run for the WH, but he’s most certainly started in that direction. Since April, he’s been floating a run against criminally indicted Ken Paxton, who has somehow avoided trial for the last 5 years for securities fraud. A demonstrated weirdo who has managed to be on the wrong side of every issue, Paxton has become weakened by scandal and become a target for being primaried, and it looks like P has him in his political sights. P’s also been trying to shore up his conservative creds, even now pandering to the Texas GOP base which is all in on Trump, The Big Lie, and wishing death on everyone who disagrees politically.

    P’s latest allocation of federal emergency funds for flood control in Texas counties is the hard evidence that exposes his pandering to the base. In a $1 billion flooding mitigation grant from the federal government, Houston, which experienced 50% of the states’s damage from Harvey, received exactly…wait for it…zero. That’s right, Houston which went for Biden in 2020 and continues to vote Democratic, was punished for voting against those who are supported by P’s base. P has joined the deplorable wing of the GOP, happy to inflict suffering on fellow Texans, just to burnish his image for being an asshole for his base. They think its funny. Those who are suffering don’t. Oh, and his spokesman lied, saying that they followed federal guidelines for distribution, but that’s bullshit, just like everything else coming out of P’s office.

    […]

    P == George P. Bush

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  16. 16.

    zhena gogolia

    @Elizabelle: 
    Oh, I thought this was going to be Richard Belzer’s hilarious imitation of old Bob Dylan. I’ll have to try to find that.

  18. 18.

    Ruckus

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I think that Charlie likes Bob Dylan because he is so very honest about all of humanities faults and is amazed that for 60 yrs he’s been telling them to all of us, with so many not actually recognizing that.

    Bob Dylan is the truthful story teller, and has been for 60 yrs. That’s not an easy job nor is it something that many can do and even fewer can do it as well as Bob Dylan.

  22. 22.

    BC in Illinois

    Dylan is the songbook of my life.

    High School, I played Like a Rolling Stone on acoustic guitar. I was slow to warm up to English Rock.

    1970, my first concert with the future Mrs BC — when she was in college in Chicago and I was on a weekend pass from Hospital Corps School at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center — was to see The Band (without Dylan). 1974 (?), our first concert after I got out of the Navy was to see Dylan AND The Band in Bloomington IN. 

    Quarter-century later, late 90s, early 2000s, saw him with my son and daughter at SIU-Carbondale and at the Illinois State Fair, Springfield. “Train up a child in the way they should go . . .”

    2002, I practiced for a father-daughter waltz for the eldest daughter’s wedding, to a tape of The Times, They are a’Changing. “Come mothers and fathers, throughout the land.” I can still get chills and inner resolve from that song.

    Come senators, congressmen   Please heed the call
    Don’t stand in the doorway   Don’t block up the hall
    For he that gets hurt   Will be he who has stalled
    Theres a battle outside and it’s ragin’
    It’ll soon shake your windows   And rattle your walls
    For the times they are a-changin’

    Come mothers and fathers   Throughout the land
    And don’t criticize   What you can’t understand
    Your sons and your daughters   Are beyond your command
    Your old road is rapidly agin’
    Please get out of the new one   If you can’t lend your hand
    For the times they are a-changin’

    The line it is drawn   The curse it is cast
    The slow one now   Will later be fast
    As the present now   Will later be past
    The order is rapidly fadin’
    And the first one now   Will later be last
    For the times they are a-changin’

    I don’t care how old he gets; that’s still his song for me.
    [ Though I can also always listen to Gotta Serve Somebody. (Not everybody’s cup of tea.) ]

  24. 24.

    Brachiator

    @SiubhanDuinne: 

    I know not everyone here is a fan of Charlie Pierce, but his tribute to Dylan today is really worth reading

    The Dylan tribute is very well done. Thanks for the link.

  28. 28.

    Elizabelle

    For open thread:  good article on Biden’s day to day life in the White House.  WaPost.  Good photo of Biden with Champ and Major.  And this blurb.

    Weightlifting, Gatorade, birthday calls: Inside Biden’s day

    President Biden’s typical day reveals a creature of habit, eager to escape the Washington bubble. Critics say it’s a light schedule.

    Light schedule?  What critics??  (Do you hear that in Jen Psaki’s voice?  Good.)

    Worth a click, though, because it’s a sweet story, overall.  Given that it is about a decent man, who works very, very hard.

    I put the direct quotes in italics.

    Depending on the viewpoint, Biden has restored routine and order to the White House — or removed the freewheeling passion.  [Journalist-speak for “crazy train.”]

    … Unlike [TFG] — an avid TV watcher, Fox News enthusiast and self-proclaimed master of TiVo — Biden is not a voracious consumer of TV, but he does watch the morning shows when he’s working out, usually CNN’s “New Day” or MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

    Morning Joe could get you to pedal faster.

    … Along with Vice President Harris, Biden receives the President’s Daily Brief, a top secret intelligence update on global hot spots. At least once a week, he also meets with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin or Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and he regularly checks in with Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

    … To critics (!!!), Biden’s public schedule can seem notably light compared to his predecessors — often with just one or two brief public appearances a day, only sporadic travel (partly due to the pandemic) and weekends at his family home in Wilmington. A “lid,” meaning no further public activities, is often called early in the day.

    Again — what critics?  Biden is coming off a pandemic and a predecessor who fomented an insurrection and sabotaged a national pandemic response.  “Notably light.”  Uh huh.

    Ah.  Next up is a quote from Kevin McCarthy to Fox viewers about Biden’s lack of stamina vs. Trump’s light sleep schedule.  I will spare you.  Reporter Ashley Parker’s got the details.

    … Once a week, Biden eats lunch with Harris, following a pattern he established when he was vice president to Barack Obama. The White House photo office pulls together a slide show of images from their recent travel and events that the two watch on a monitor as they eat, allowing them to reflect on their week.

    Biden’s preferred lunch is a soup and a salad — usually a chopped salad with grilled chicken — and he is partial to orange Gatorade and Coke Zero. Offsetting the low-calorie diet, he has a well-known penchant for sweets, including chocolate chip ice cream.

    …  Biden has also been known to sneak out to the South Lawn or Rose Garden for fresh air, often with his German shepherds, Champ and Major.

    … Obama received a folder each night containing 10 letters that individual Americans had written him. Biden has continued the tradition, but where Obama would often pen return missives, Biden’s aides have arranged for him to meet some of the writers in person.

    … In 2018, in the middle of the [crazy train] era, Biden — who favors biographies and volumes on comparative religion — became obsessed with two books: “How Democracies Die,” by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, and “White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America,” by Joan C. Williams. He carried both everywhere, scrawling notes on the pages and pulling out well-worn copies to share passages.

  29. 29.

    Elizabelle

    Last paragraphs of the WaPost story.  I love that he calls Hunter every night.   You know he does.  [He also picks up telephone calls from his family immediately; does not let them go to voicemail.  He will just take the call and walk away, briefly, from the meeting it interrupted.]

    Biden usually returns to the residence portion of the White House around 6 or 7 p.m. After dinner, the president — whom aides describe as a “night owl” — often fields calls from advisers, with updates on the news. He also calls his son Hunter, who has struggled with addiction, every night before bedtime, texting him if he doesn’t pick up right away.

    And he reviews his briefing book for the next day, so he is ready anew for when he makes the short walk back to the Oval Office the following morning.

  31. 31.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle:

    President Biden’s typical day reveals a creature of habit, eager to escape the Washington bubble. Critics say it’s a light schedule.

    What? Not enough golf?

  35. 35.

    lowtechcyclist

    In the darkness by the riverbed, they waited on the ground
    for one more member who had business back in town
    but they couldn’t go no further without the Jack of Hearts

  36. 36.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Elizabelle: Weren’t people mad last night that nothing had happened yet and it was proof the Europe and the US weren’t going to do anything?  Whatever happened to having a little patience?

  37. 37.

    Splitting Image

    As of next year, Dylan’s 30th anniversary concert will cover only the first half of his career.

    Time for Bobfest II, you think?

  40. 40.

    Elizabelle

    @Omnes Omnibus:   Yep.  And:  they’re considering other targeted sanctions.

    But:  not fast enough!  Losers!  Amateurs.

    The WaPost:

    The measures, backed by all 27 E.U. leaders, were an unusually fast and powerful response to the brazen move by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko …

    European economic sanctions could include full-scale bans on doing business with Belarus’s biggest companies, state-owned operations that are crucial to keeping Lukashenko afloat, as well as a ban on Belavia, the state-owned airline, from operating within the European Union.

    “It’s as though we are in a very bad movie, with a dictator rerouting a plane because someone is critical of his regime,” Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel told reporters before the meeting. “If we are not able to react to this, we will never be have free movement, with a dictator who makes us land with many people on planes.”

  41. 41.

    Just One More Canuck

    @BC in Illinois: my wife’s dad picked The Times They are a Changin as the father daughter dance at our wedding – he’s seen Dylan well over 100 times

  43. 43.

    Calouste

    @Elizabelle: “Not fast enough” was especially stupid because there was already an EU council (I.e. meeting of Prime  Ministers) scheduled for today, and that was reported in Belarus context as well yesterday. I’m actually surprised they got Poland and Hungary on board with the sanctions.

  44. 44.

    karen marie

    @Elizabelle:   Pffft.  At least one airline (I can’t remember which one, though I read it this morning) announced they were going to reroute their flights to avoid Belarussian airspace.  Is the EU playing catchup to the airlines?

  46. 46.

    citizen dave

    @Splitting Image: Great observation!  Make it a 24 hour worldwide celebration.

    Big Bob fan but try not to foist him on others, and can laugh at him as well.  One fan review I’ve always remembered is someone pointing out the face Bob would make when he started blowing on a harp that is in the wrong key for the song.

    Looking forward for the circus coming to town again.

  47. 47.

    J R in WV

    @BC in Illinois: ​
     

    1970, my first concert with the future Mrs BC — when she was in college in Chicago and I was on a weekend pass from Hospital Corps School at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center — was to see The Band (without Dylan).

    BC, I was in school at Great Lakes in 1970… we may have actually seen one another. Went to concerts at Ravinia and down town, Saw Janis, Procol Harum, Frank Zappa at Ravinia, Jethro Tull and lots of blues masters down town. We would buy a round-trip train ticket, put the return ticket away, be penny-less at the end of the weekend.

    Saw the Fifth Dimension after their show at a restaurant downtown, didn’t bother them. They were trying to calm down after the show. Saw a police car burning riot at I guess it was Grant Park after a free blues concert by the lake side. Was a great town to be 20 y o in.

    We have seen Dylan several times, once with Tom Petty and the G Dead in Akron, probably the same summer you saw them. A great showman. Happy Birthday Bob!

  48. 48.

    Graham

    HBD Bob!

     

    He stands alone, no one even comes close. And the closest ones were heavily influenced by him and would not have been nearly as good. He created the ocean that others swim in, to borrow a phrase.

  49. 49.

    JAFD

    Also the 80th anniversary of the sinking of HMS Hood, with the loss of 1,415 of her 1,418-man crew.  RIP

    O hear us when we cry to Thee
    For those in peril on the sea.

    In lighter vein, I heard somewhere-or-other that three-quarters of the chocolate chip ice cream made in America is consumed within 50 miles of Independence Hall.    Way to go, President Biden !

    (Yrs truly grew up on both sides of the Twelve-Mile Arc, how didya guess ? ;-) )

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