Four days ago, at the end of a post regarding the Mumbai attacks and in particular the murders of the Chabad there, I wrote the following:

It is curious to me, by the way, that the clearinghouse for all conceivable Bob Dylan-related news, Expecting Rain, has not featured a single link over the past several days related to the brutal massacre at the Chabad center in Mumbai. There is no religious organization with which Bob Dylan has had closer and more public links, as fans interested in his “journey of faith” would know very well. In fact, there is possibly no organization, period, which which he’s had closer and more public links, other than the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). Dylan jealously guards his independence and does not lend his name lightly to just any cause, as attentive fans would also know very well. And readers of Expecting Rain would know that there are often links there to stories which have a far more tenuous relationship with Bob Dylan, and sometimes stories which have no relationship whatsoever with him. And readers of this humble website might remember the attention we gave to a recent link on Expecting Rain to a piece of classic, crazed anti-semitic screed (the kind of thing which, when given a pass by many in Europe in the 1930s, led not so indirectly to the Holocaust — although they didn’t work Bob Dylan into the script back then). Why, by contrast, does the outrage against Chabad in Mumbai not rate a solitary mention on a site that is supposedly about all things Dylan? It’s genuinely curious.

Thank you to a number of readers who’ve written to say that they also were struck by the way the Mumbai and Chabad story was ignored on Expecting Rain. One reader took me to task a little for my naïveté: don’t I know that Expecting Rain is politically biased? What do I expect?

Well, Karl Erik Andersen — the resident of Norway whose website Expecting Rain is — no doubt has his own political opinions and I think that most people would judge, based on the predominance of links to certain stories with certain kinds of political content (sometimes not even including an offhand reference to Bob Dylan) that he is somewhat to the left of RWB. And indeed, it was the predominance of leftist perspectives in the Dylan web-world that inspired me to create my own website here, so it’s something of which I’m very well aware. However, Expecting Rain has linked on numerous occasions to articles on this very website, when people have sent those links in. It seems to me beyond question that Expecting Rain has also linked numerous times to other stories which had strong Dylan content but which put forth a political perspective that Karl likely doesn’t share. So, I simply can’t make the case, even to myself, that Expecting Rain bans links to conservative-type stories that have Dylan content — although the other kind predominate, both because that is what predominates in the media at large and also because those are the links that get sent in by motivated readers.

What then is going on here? I don’t know, but there is a saying that a stool needs three legs to stand, so let’s see if there is something in this that can stand upright.

The recent concern began in October, when Expecting Rain published a link to a blog post that put forth some classic antisemitic theories, concerning the “Jewish world organization” and so on. I posted about it here: The Great Bob Dylan Conspiracy. Karl didn’t take down the link or put any notation beside it, but did say this beside a link to my story about it: “I trust that most readers will sift what they read through their own filters and see through it.” I thought that insufficient, because, of-course, there are children (certainly teenagers) who read Expecting Rain to discover things about this Bob Dylan guy, and something this evil should not be presented as unremarkable. All the more so because the writer of it was clever to include a variety of truths and half-truths about Dylan in his piece, lending credibility (he hoped) to his overall theory. On a broader level, I would hope that any European would be conscious of the way in which — not too long ago at all — antisemitic libels were permitted to promulgate without sufficient challenge, leading ultimately to the persecution and murder of six million European Jews in the Holocaust. It wasn’t just Hitler’s idea; it was not just something he conceived, planned and executed on his own. There were accomplices beyond numbering, and this very much includes those who said nothing “when they came for the Jews,” rhetorically and otherwise. It would be nice to think a Bob Dylan fan would be especially sensitive to this, but there you go.

Next there was the story of the attacks by Islamic terrorists in Mumbia, India. It was the biggest story in the world, for several days, and a key part of it was the attack on the Chabad center and the murder of the Jews there. I’ve already characterized Bob Dylan’s notable links to the Chabad, but again: Dylan has appeared on their fundraising telethon on multiple occasions. On one of those occasions he attested in an unprecedented way to the worth of the organization (see YouTube clip here):

This is Bob Dylan. I’m in England right now, working, so I can’t be there tonight, but I’d like to say that I think Chabad is a great organization helping people in need, helping to set them free from the misconceptions and devastation which is destroying their lives from within.

Of course this a fierce battle, for those responsible for poisoning the minds and bodies of America’s youth are reaping great profits. If you can help Chabad to help others who have fallen victim to the lies and deceits of those who are much more powerful, do so.

Most recently, it was reported that Dylan attended Yom Kippur services with the Chabad in Atlanta in 2007.

Considering the kinds of things that get highlighted as relevant to Dylan fans on Expecting Rain every day, why would this enormous worldwide story of the brutal murder of members of the Chabad organization not warrant a single link?

And there is also a third leg here, if you’ll pardon the expression.

This goes back to August of 2006, and I frankly hadn’t thought about it much since then, until now. But on that occasion, as I related in a post at the time, I myself sent a link in to Expecting Rain to a story in a Montana newspaper which drew heavily on Bob Dylan’s song Neighborhood Bully in considering the situation of Israel. The link didn’t get published. I vented about it here, and Karl did have the graciousness and fairness to put a link on his site to that post. Beside that link, he offered just this response: “I don’t use all the links I get.” There was no explanation as to why the link to the Neighborhood Bully piece didn’t pass muster, while many articles with far less Dylan content (and sometimes none) were just fine. In my post at the time about it, I put it down to a political bias, and to what I guessed was Karl’s fierce antiwar stance (the column in question was very much advocating Israel’s right to go to war with Hezbollah).

However, I’m now thinking that I was mistaken in that perception, for reasons to which I’ve alluded already. I don’t think that the webmaster of Expecting Rain rules out (or rules in) stories based exclusively on a left/right political line. The thing which these three instances have in common is not about left or right. It is about something else.

Now, Karl owns and runs his own website, and he has the complete right to put whatever he wants on it, and to exclude whatever he wants. I frankly wish I didn’t have to have to write all this crap about his site — I have better things to do (really!). And it would be nicer to not criticize anyone, and to keep getting links. Expecting Rain must surely be the most visited Dylan-related website of all. But if my own site has no other purpose, it is certainly to at least raise this kind of question. And so I have. If Expecting Rain ever chooses to explain the filter being employed that accounts for all of the above, I’ll be happy to publish that explanation right here.

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Posts which might be related to this one based on a mysterious algorithm:

• Following up on Mumbai, Chabad, etc.
• Expecting Little
• The Great Bob Dylan Conspiracy