Maggie's Farm

This is Dylan's rousing version of Ledbelly's Duncan and Brady, in Dublin, 2000. I think Jerry Garcia brought the song to Dylan's attention. Some of the lyrics here. "Been on the job too long..."

The guy gets the job done. Listen to how you can rock a folk song, and make it new:

The song came out on Dylan's 5th album, Bringing it all Back Home, in 1965. Wiki says that Dylan said that the title is meant to be a fraction: Love Minus Zero divided by No Limit. Simple math.

Here's Dylan in Newport, 1965:

Dr. Bob has some quotes from the hip pomo writer David Foster Wallace, who commtted suicide in September. Here's one:

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already — it’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

Heade is considered a "member" of the Hudson River School of landscape artists. This is Thunderstorm on Narragansett Bay (1868).

From his 2006 Grammy-winning album Modern Times. I like this smooth rocking song more each time I listen to it. "I got the pork chop, she got the pie, she ain't no angel and neither am I..."

Only Bob could write this song. Audio only, from the album, with distracting images:

Live in NYC's City Center, Nov, 2006:

Everybody has ideas for McCain. Anchoress posts this idea. I like it, but it's not a game-changer.

Why isn't it? Because people are worried about the future. Revenge and justice for the Fannie and Freddie Dem sleazes can wait, and will be served cold - in the increasingly  unlikely event that McCain wins the election.

The only Dylan song that ever made it to #1 in the charts was the Byrds' 1965 cover of Mr. Tambourine Man. Here's some background on that. 

Here are the Byrds playing the song at a 1990 Roy Orbison memorial, with Bob helping out, tentatively. If this won't improve your day, nothing will:

Our own Dr. Bliss and our net friend AVI are our go-to people on tribalism.

For better or worse, tribalism is in our blood. It probably was essential for human survival, and probably still is for non-human primate survival. Probably for us, too, if we value our own culture at all. I do value mine - my culture and my subculture.

AVI takes a look at Tribal Elders, Young Turks, and politics.

From guest author Bruce Kesler:

 Health care could be the next Fannie Mae type disaster.  Similar forces are at work, and despite the lessons that should be drawn instead may be accelerated by the current financial meltdown.  These forces are exaggeration of need and rights among the poor, greed by many of the rest of us, and many politicians seeking votes or contributions.

The forces in the credit crisis were the appeal to provide opportunities for home ownership to the poor and the consequent inflation of housing values that provided paper gains to the middle class and wealthy.  Underlying these forces was a pyramid scheme profiting the political and financial elites that was dependent on trust in repayment of subprime loans by many without the means or stake in doing so.

Thus, ultimately the taxpayer and more careful consumers and investors are required to pay off, also making other worthy goals unaffordable.    

You're the unluckiest hunter in the world, so take the Survival Quiz at Field & Stream (h/t, Viking)

Seed Time and Harvest (1937)

This lady has fun campaigning. See any Teleprompter? Neither do I.
Rock on, Sarah.

Brit media snobs look down their noses at Palin. But it's not just Eurosnobs. We hear the same thing around here - entirely from women. (Is this about the Narcissism of Small Differences? Is it because hating happy, normal, well-adjusted people makes you feel smart? Or is it envy of her studly husband, her self-made success, and her obvious femininity and good cheer? Or is it all - probably - just because she's not a bien-pensant angry Chardonnay-and-Brie Limousine Lefty?)

Some examples we've heard lately:

- She's too feminine (I think that means she's trim and sexy)
- She didn't go to the right schools
- She takes religion too seriously (that's from church-goers)
- She talks with a funny accent
- She's not well-travelled
- She says "nucular" and "I-raq."
- She has too many kids, she's like a farm animal
- A woman who likes to kill animals? That's sick!
- She likes oil. Nobody likes oil. (said by a Lexus SUV driver.)
- Alaska is nowhere
- Nobody we know in Washington knows her
- She wouldn't fit in at our cocktail parties (actually, I think she'd be the life of the party)

In other words, "She's not really one of us." These, I would contend, are all class-related, "We're so sophisticated" attitudes. When you think about it, it's funny how class-conscious and intolerant Liberals can be when they want to.

 Below is Palin in Carson on Saturday. Thank goodness for all of those non-snobs. They are the heart and the heartbeat of America, and we Eastern elites should thank God for them.

 As Jungle Trader links:

Michael Goodwin of the New York Daily News: "Some day, we will look back with disgust at the abuse Palin has taken and wonder how it could happen in this great nation, circa 2008."

Why humans are unable to imagine death: Scientific American.

But we do imagine it, don't we? Or try? The Mayans viewed it as floating on a foggy ocean, and I like that image. We Christians have no clear image of Paradise, other than being "with" God - whatever that means.

Oct 1, with Charlie Rose. It's long, but he is always worth listening to, especially since, as Kudlow terms it, "the economy fell off a cliff in September." This election, now, is about the economy - period. Neither Pres candidate is able to speak intelligently or knowledgeably about it, and Sarah Palin is the only of the 4 who has ever worked in the real world.

A reader reminded us of Jonathan Edwards' 1971 hit "Sunshine." The lyrics seem appropriate to today's politics. One verse:

well how much does it cost
i'll buy it
the time is all we've lost
i'll try it
he can't even run his own life
i'll damned if he'll run mine...(sunshine)

Complete lyrics here.

Here he is singing the tune in 2006 in Gruene, Texas:

My Montauk Daisies always come into bloom in the first week of October. It's worth the wait but, depending on the first frost, their bloom time can be brief.

Advice to those who grow them: They don't need fertilizer. They want full sun. Prune them to 4-6" high each early spring or you will end up with a huge, scraggly shrub a bit like the one below.

At Theo, who also provided this toon:

From a post by AVI:

I'll tell you something about lying from having to deal with it so much all day (not just my patients, but their agencies and families as well). When someone refuses to take any responsibility, blaming everything on someone else, they are usually lying. If they thought they were only 10 or 20% at fault they would pony up, lay out the facts, and trust that most observers would get it right. If they are 50-70% at fault they would admit to some responsibility and try to spin the impression on the rest. Only when people are well over 70% at fault do they have to take a reverse strategy and avoid the facts and try to construct a simple narrative of blame that they hope catches on with people. When people make categorical statements of blame, it's like Honest John's Used Cars.

A word of caution. Some politicians have perfected statements of appearing to take responsibility in their introductory comments but quickly moving on to zero blame for them.

"When there's a will to fail, obstacles can be found."  

John McCarthy, as quoted in Trying to Try at Overcoming Bias

Columbia will hold a referendum on ROTC this fall. I sure hope they will bring it back, but I don't know why a referendum is needed. This ROTC ban is left over from the anti-Vietnam War era.

Did Columbia College's Sha-Na-Na invent the 50s?

The lyrics are here.

This note-taking guide deserves its own post. It's methodical.

My approach to study has always been this: Read the paragraph, close the book, repeat it in your own words, reconstruct any graphs or equations from your own understanding, then add a sentence about why it matters. Then go on to the next.

However, I have been known to doze during the "close the book" part of the process.

You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk dancing.

Sir Arnold Bax. More on learning from experience at Sippican.