Daily Ramblings:
Something Came Up Out Of The Sea ...06/15/2005 08:43:24 pm
When reading the actual autopsy report on Terri Schiavo (copy saved on my server here), two things struck me - two things which I didn't see in the plethora of mainstream media stories prompted by this document.
1. Dr. Stephen J. Nelson's analysis of her brain ends with this statement (on page 20):
Neuropathologic examination alone of the decedent's brain - or any brain, for that matter - cannot prove or disprove a diagnosis of persistent vegetative state or minimally conscious state.
2. Cause of death (on page 2):
Complications of Anoxic Encephalopathy
(Anoxic Encephalopathy is the original condition of oxygen deprivation that afflicted Terri Schiavo in 1990.)
So there you have, firstly, a clear statement that the relevant examiner is incapable of drawing a conclusion on the key question of the "persistent vegetative state;" and, secondly, a loaded judgment that her death was due to a "complication" of her condition, rather than due to deprivation of food, and, in particular, water.
None of what is in this autopsy, and especially in the standard media spin that is being put on it, changes the fundamental facts of Terri Schiavo's death. She was an innocent woman who was not being kept alive by a heart and lung machine, or other extraordinary means. She was simply being supplied with food and water, along with the kind of basic care that a person would give to their pet hamster (or risk the wrath of the ASPCA). She did not even require a Koran, directions to Mecca, and culturally appropriate dishes.
The State of Florida, as directed by the courts, decided not to feed her anymore. Yes, there were other things in play - the opinions of the husband, the parents and other family members. Yet, someone's right to basic nutrition when in a helpless condition might have been assumed by many to be an overriding factor in these kinds of disputes. So one would think, but here we are. A nation where you can sue a tobacco company because you decided to smoke for 40 years; a nation where Senators cringe in "embarrassment" because murderous and fanatical foreign enemies are kept confined in Guantanamo Bay; a nation where beached dolphins are fed through tubes; a nation where billions are spent to follow safety and environmental regulations designed to lengthen some impossible-to-determine number of lives; a nation where convicted killers of the most brutal kind evade their death sentences for decades: In this nation a woman who committed no crime was denied food and water until she was dead. Of-course it's also a nation where a million innocent and helpless humans are disposed of every year (those that don't get eaten), because they are judged inconvenient.
In the continuing battle over America's destiny as a society - a battle whose lines can be traced from the Declaration of Independence and Trenton, through Dred Scott v. Sandford and Gettysburg, and on through the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1973's Roe v. Wade fiat, the case of Terri Schiavo will linger as a defining moment.
Addendum 06/17/2005 10:07:38 am: Michelle Malkin, who has written so much good stuff on this case, also looked in detail at the autopsy report and has some interesting observations.
Mama, You Been On My Mind ...06/15/2005 10:14:22 am
And if anyone doesn't believe that Dylan reads RWB every day, note that in yesterday's set list he included two songs that I quoted here yesterday - Drifter's Escape (quoted at the top of the page) and This Wheel's On Fire (quoted in the previous post about the Tharp musical). And don't give me any arguments about the timing of the latter post versus the timing of his appearance on stage. He's probably checking the site mid-performance from a laptop anyway.
Something's Burning, Baby ...06/14/2005 09:08:15 pm
"I am taking dance lessons, learning fire spinning ... It is going to be great."
So says stage actress Jenn Colella, according to Broadway.com, regarding the "upcoming as-yet-untitled Twyla Tharp/Bob Dylan project." It is expected to premiere in San Diego next January and run through early March.
Here is an example of some fire spinning:
And there's really nothing anyone can say...
This wheel's on fire,
Rolling down the road,
Best notify my next of kin,
This wheel shall explode!
If Dogs Run Free ...06/09/2005 07:08:15 am
I expect to be incommunicado for the next several days, so here are some more pictures of my dog. (Click here for the rest ...)
Dear Mr. Ahmed II ...06/08/2005 02:57:39 pm
Yes, following an appropriate pause after our previous correspondence, Mr. Ahmed (or perhaps Mr. Sani, since he seems to vary how he signs off), did indeed reply. As you will see, he did not directly address all the points I raised in my message, but clearly feels I'm someone with whom he can ultimately do business. He also has a tendency to repeat himself and go on and on, so below is his slightly edited response, and then what will surely(!) prove to be the final email sent to him by yours truly.
My dear Mr. Bob,
I received your mail with due appreciation for you prompt response. Content duly noted,I am also very happy for the good work which have done in making it possible for me to locate you and your family. I am ready and willing to work with you. My upmost interest now is how this money will be transfer back to you than the bank to sit on it .I am agreed to talk with you on the percentage that can favour both of us.
...
I will want you to send me your Telephone/mobile and Fax numbers, including your Full names, Age,Address,sex,Occupation and Nationality so that it will enable me to contact you for further details about this transaction, and also i shall write the bank officially stating that you are the rightful beneficiary and Next of Kin to my late client fund.
Please my dear ,see my Id card, picture of Late Mr Fredrick before he died in Hospital and His estate here in Nigeria,they are under attach,to show that i am really whom i said i am,then call me on my direct line +234-802-3867XXX.
...
I hopefully wish to hear from you urgently while i await your favourable response to this effect.
Thanks and God bless.
Barrister Ahmed Sani (Esq).
Yours Attorney at Law.Attachment:
Dear Mr. Ahmed,
Firstly, God bless you too. Bless you in particular for providing to me this final photograph of my dear brother Fred, horrible though it undoubtedly is to behold. If you can also inform me of any last words he may be known to have uttered, I would be eternally your debtor.
Speaking of debtors, of-course you still owe the Bob family a sum of $10 million. I'm sure you'll agree that all this talk of bank account numbers and fax numbers is really getting us nowhere. With such a sum as is involved, it must inevitably come down to the face-to-face meeting, the firm handshake and the steady meeting of the eyes of honest men.
To wit, I am despatching my accountants, Mr. Goldfarb and Mr. Jones-Wellington (pictured below), directly to Lagos via the next available charter.
They are resourceful gentlemen, and are sure to locate you presently and satisfactorily arrange our business. I am certain that you will find them most charming, and perhaps you can direct them to some choice sights in your beloved country. And yes, never fear, they will be bearing tartar sauce - enough for you and all your family!
Best regards,
R.W. Bob
Attachment:
Time Out Of Mind ...06/07/2005 09:50:35 pm
"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." (St. Augustine, from his Confessions)
Bob Dylan's Time Out Of Mind was released in 1997. I'm not exactly sure when I read the piece I'm happy to be able to reproduce below, by Ronnie Keohane - maybe I read it a year or more after it was written in 1998. In any case I'd already listened to Time Out Of Mind many times. Suffice it to say that after reading this, I've never listened to it in the same way again. And, whether or not you hear all the same things she heard in it, I think that her perspective is eye- (and ear-) opening. (Read the whole thing here.)
Steal A Little And They Throw You In Jail ...06/06/2005 02:15:18 pm
So, someone with a poor understanding of copyright law is selling Bob Dylan's lyrics for profit over at CafePress.com. Don't some people even think?
Rhetorical question.
Conceit Is A Disease ...06/05/2005 09:58:47 pm
I was just leafing back through Chronicles, and on page 170 I came across Dylan's little passage on the song Disease Of Conceit, from 1989's Oh Mercy album. It seems that Dylan wrote the lyric in 1988 - he doesn't provide many dates in his memoir, of-course, but he writes of something that he was paying attention to in the news around the time he composed it - namely the "defrocking" of the preacher Jimmy Swaggart by the leadership of the Assembly of God.
Jimmy was Jerry Lee Lewis's first cousin and was a big TV star, and the news came as a shock. He'd been linked to a prostitute, caught on camera leaving her motel room in sweatpants.
...
The story was strange. Swaggart clearly wasn't in good shape, hadn't looked at the road. The story didn't make any sense. The Bible is full of these things. A lot of those old kings and leaders had many wives and concubines and Hosea the Prophet was even married to a prostitute, and it didn't stop him from being a holy man.And so, without in any way saying his song is "about" Swaggart, Dylan is willing to risk that misinterpretation by giving away some of what was floating around in his mind at the time.
More interesting to me at the moment, however, is the tone of his remarks on Swaggart. It's what's not there that sticks out - namely, the condescension and contempt that would epitomize a typical East or West Coast view, not only of Swaggart, but of anyone who could be called a "tele-evangelist." The term itself is essentially a term of abuse amongst the enlightened and secular elite (and the not so elite). Even to say someone is "like a tele-evangelist" is tantamount to saying that they are a charlatan.
And yet, these are individuals who have huge audiences across the nation - audiences who are certainly seeking God, whether or not they are ultimately finding Him through the words of these small-screen preachers. While they provide easy targets for the knowing sneers of the wise and the prudent, there is no sneer detectible in Dylan's writing on Swaggart and his fall from grace. Instead, in an analogy that someone as steeped in the Bible as Dylan has to realize the audaciousness of, he brings up the Old Testament prophet Hosea.
And from the first chapter of Hosea is this:
When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, "Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD." Hosea 1:2
You might interpret this as God using Hosea to send a message to the people of Israel about themselves. Is Dylan obliquely implying the same thing about Swaggart?
In any case, his take on the tele-evangelist reminds me also of this quote from his Biograph interview in 1985: "Pop music on the radio? I don't know. I listen mostly to preacher stations and the country music stations and maybe the oldies stations ... that's about it."
And the image of Bob Dylan lying back listening to Christian radio is reminiscent in its turn of certain sequences in his 2003 film, Masked & Anonymous. It opens to the voice of a preacher on the radio, declaiming in a completely over-the-top tone (actually the voice of the director, Larry Charles, apparently). One's first instinct is that this guy is nuts, and his words are only there to be mocked. Like a lot of one's first instincts with regard to scenes in this film, however, you might find yourself questioning them after repeated viewing (some would say your sanity should be questioned if you sit through this movie more than once, but that's another story and another argument). The initial tirade of this preacher - he is also audible later in the film - ends with these words:
Will man destroy the earth to move on? Is that his destiny? Ask yourselves a question, people: Are you humble before God?
(This is followed by the dulcet tones of the Magokoro Brothers singing My Back Pages in Japanese.)
So, Dylan's handling of the Swaggart story in Chronicles seems to show that despite his special affection for New York City, he was never overtaken by the smug cosmopolitan cynicism that many there possess. It also, I think, displays his kind of rough and tumble sense of faith and Scripture; God can make His word shine through the thickest fog and turn human flaws (and flawed humans) to His ends. The same is underlined by his own taste for radio preachers, and his desire to put something like that in front of his film audience and challenge them to question their ears (should I be laughing or is this the one person in this movie who is making sense?).
Too much can be read into all of it - and of-course that's why RWB is here. Nevertheless, it's an example again of Dylan being both surprising and in another sense remarkably consistent. The threads can seem disparate until you start lifting them up and finding that they're all joined together after all.
PS: And no, I wouldn't dismiss the notion that Dylan handles Jimmy carefully out of a healthy fear of Jerry Lee.
One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later) ...06/04/2005 10:12:14 am
This is a somewhat stale story that is now circulating in various media outlets as "breaking news;" it's really just some quotes from Mr. Bono Vox:
Bono is suspicious of Bob Dylan's "so-called eccentricity" - he is convinced the legendary singer is hiding behind a mask.
The U2 frontman claims Blonde On Blonde star Dylan conceals his true self beneath a façade - and the real Dylan is a strong family man who adores his children.
He says: "I think underneath all the so-called eccentricity, which I think is just a mask, there's a very true person.
"He's a good father - I've seen him with his children - with a moral compass, and who can get lost at sea like everybody. But I think he's very strong."Nothing radical there, and since Dylan has frankly expressed himself as someone who cares deeply about his family since about 1967 - and demonstrated it concretely by guarding their privacy above all else - it's hard to see how this qualifies as news to anyone. But then, one of the reasons for this site is the fact that just about anything that is true on the subject of Dylan is news to a lot of people.
In any case, the one amusing thing about this story is how Dylan is labeled in this instance. I've never seen this one before: The U2 frontman claims Blonde On Blonde star Dylan conceals his true self ...
Excuse me? Did a movie just hit the theaters, with Dylan starring in it, called Blonde On Blonde? Of all things, in June of 2005, to pull out the title of his 1966 album - though certainly one of his best - and reduce Dylan to being a star of that recording ... it's just one of those impenetrable media oddities, I guess.
Of-course here in the offices of RightWingBob.com, we can only cheer whatever incremental progress has taken place to prevent the journalist in question from dragging out the tried and true "anti-war icon" or "conscience of a generation" labels. A case of champagne is duly on the way to the relevant editor with our compliments.
Real Live ...06/01/2005 09:20:18 pm
It's a copy and paste festival here at RightWingBob.com ... because this guy says it like it should be said, and his words warrant reprinting as-is - with a few things bolded for emphasis.
On Monday, Americans honored all of the men and women who have fought for our country's security and our freedom. Throughout our history, many millions of Americans have come to the country's defense. The United States certainly could not have survived or succeeded without their service.
Defending one's country is not, of course, a uniquely American idea. Yet some still seem to wonder why tens of thousands of Iraqis volunteer for their security forces when it is known that doing so makes them targets of attacks by violent extremists; or why Afghans in growing numbers risk their lives and often the lives of their families to defy the terrorists in their country; or why millions in Lebanon, Georgia, Ukraine and elsewhere dare to demonstrate against dictatorships when the penalty is known to be imprisonment or death.
They do it because they want to build better futures for themselves and their families and are willing to pay the cost. Those privileged to live in free countries are forever in the debt of those who make our freedom possible.
And no force in the world has done more to liberate people that they have never met than the men and women of the United States military. Indeed, that's why the recent allegation that the U.S. military is running a gulag at Guantanamo Bay is so reprehensible. Most would define a gulag as where the Soviet Union kept millions in forced labor concentration camps, or I suppose some might say that -- where Saddam Hussein mutilated and murdered untold numbers because they held views unacceptable to his regime. To compare the United States and Guantanamo Bay to such atrocities cannot be excused.
Free societies depend on oversight, and they welcome informed criticism, particularly on human rights issues. But those who make such outlandish charges lose any claim to objectivity or seriousness. The Washington Post, to its credit, rejected the comparison between Guantanamo and a gulag in a recent editorial.
Unfortunately, efforts to bring the detainee issue into proper context have been somewhat rare. Two of the country's largest newspapers, for example, have devoted more than 80 editorials, combined, since March of 2004 to Abu Ghraib and detainee issues, often repeating the same erroneous assertions and recycling the same stories. By comparison, precious little has been written about -- by those editorial boards about the beheading of innocent civilians by terrorists, the thousands of bodies found in mass graves in Iraq, the allegations of rape of women and girls by U.N. workers in the Congo.
Yes, there have been instances where detainees have been mistreated while in U.S. custody, sometimes grievously.
But consider these facts. To date, there have been approximately 370 criminal investigations into the charges of misconduct involving detainees. Out of 68,000 detainees that have been in U.S. custody over the period since September 11th. And of some 525,000 service members, men and women of the various services who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in Guantanamo Bay, less than one-tenth of 1 percent have been found to have committed illegal acts against detainees.
It's also important to remember that the people being detained at Guantanamo are, with good reasons, suspected terrorists. Many, if not most, have been systematically trained to lie and to claim torture. At least a dozen of the 200 already released from GITMO have already been caught back on the battlefield, involved in efforts to kidnap and kill Americans.
Much was made recently of a news story falsely accusing service members of flushing a Koran down the toilet. But little has been said about the great lengths that the military go to at Guantanamo Bay to accommodate the religious practices of detainees in their care. There are specific instructions as to how those involved in the custody of detainees should handle themselves with respect to religious matters. Special meals are provided to meet cultural dietary requirements. Schedules are respectful of prayer. Indications of the direction to pray are provided. Detailed guidelines are provided to the service people as to the -- which govern the handling of the Koran. [To view the standard operating procedure click here: PDF or HTML.]
Copies of these instructions have been publicly available, but they have received comparatively little media attention. I have not yet seen a complete printing of those instructions in any journal. This lack of media attention to U.S. policy guidance to treat detainees humanely creates misperceptions.
But to try to equate the military's record on detainee treatment to some of the worst atrocities of the past century is a disservice to those who have sacrificed so much to bring freedom to others.
So, to the men and women who wear our country's uniform, and to their families who support them, I want you to know how proud we are of all of your able service. We are in your debt. And to those who may be considering serving our nation, know that there is no finer calling, no nobler cause, and no greater act of patriotism.
You won't see the transcript of Donald Rumsfeld's preamble to today's Defense Department news conference in tomorrow's New York Times ... but that's why you're not reading the New York Times right now.
The value of having a Secretary of Defense in this time of war who is not running for some other job, and who therefore is not carefully guarding his political viability, is something well worth remembering. A press conference like today's is a good reminder of what that means.
That being said ... Rumsfeld/Rice in '08!*
*OK, I'm not convinced about Rice, but you can't beat the alliteration.
Original text copyright © 2005 by RightWingBob.com
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