It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Fewer Canadians are satisfied with their prime minister, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. 29 per cent of respondents approve of Stephen Harper’s performance, and 28 per cent say their opinion of the head of government worsened over the past month.
Do you approve or disapprove of Stephen Harper’s performance as prime minister?
Jul. 16
Jun. 16
May 23
Approve
29%
31%
33%
Disapprove
47%
47%
47%
Not sure
23%
23%
20%
Of course when you do this don't expect to get any respect.
Wright said the government should rethink its strategy of tightly controlling its message, agenda, and delivery, which is almost exclusively done by Prime Minister Harper, who has been widely criticized for running a one-man show.
“It will really take the prime minister to decide whether he is going to stick by this style of leadership or if he is going to try something different,” said Wright.
One of my favorite Dylan songs for its William Burroughs like poetic imagery. And it still influences folks today, see here and here.
"Desolation Row" is the ninth and final song of Bob Dylan's sixth album, Highway 61 Revisited. This eleven minute song contains lyrics full of evocative imagery, poetry, and cultural references. It is the album's only purely acoustic track, in contrast to the thunderous electric rock and roll sound that Dylan was completely embracing for the first time with the album. It was recorded in New York City, New York on August 2, 1965; the take on the album was the second time Dylan had sung the song. Charlie McCoy plays the lyrical acoustic guitar passages throughout the song.
The songs of this period received wide critical acclaim. In the New Oxford Companion to Music, Gammond used Desolation as an example of Dylan's work of the mid-60s that achieved a "high level of poetical lyricism." In 1969, Dylan told ROLLING STONE he wrote this song in the back of a New York cab. Since it is 659 words and clocks in at more than eleven minutes, that's a long cab ride. It was spliced together from two consecutive takes during the last sessions for Highway 61.
They're selling postcards of the hanging They're painting the passports brown The beauty parlor is filled with sailors The circus is in town Here comes the blind commissioner They've got him in a trance One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker The other is in his pants And the riot squad they're restless They need somewhere to go As Lady and I look out tonight From Desolation Row
Cinderella, she seems so easy "It takes one to know one," she smiles And puts her hands in her back pockets Bette Davis style And in comes Romeo, he's moaning "You Belong to Me I Believe" And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend You better leave" And the only sound that's left After the ambulances go Is Cinderella sweeping up On Desolation Row
Now the moon is almost hidden The stars are beginning to hide The fortunetelling lady Has even taken all her things inside All except for Cain and Abel And the hunchback of Notre Dame Everybody is making love Or else expecting rain And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing He's getting ready for the show He's going to the carnival tonight On Desolation Row
Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window For her I feel so afraid On her twenty-second birthday She already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic She wears an iron vest Her profession's her religion Her sin is her lifelessness And though her eyes are fixed upon Noah's great rainbow She spends her time peeking Into Desolation Row
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood With his memories in a trunk Passed this way an hour ago With his friend, a jealous monk He looked so immaculately frightful As he bummed a cigarette Then he went off sniffing drainpipes And reciting the alphabet Now you would not think to look at him But he was famous long ago For playing the electric violin On Desolation Row
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world Inside of a leather cup But all his sexless patients They're trying to blow it up Now his nurse, some local loser She's in charge of the cyanide hole And she also keeps the cards that read "Have Mercy on His Soul" They all play on penny whistles You can hear them blow If you lean your head out far enough From Desolation Row
Across the street they've nailed the curtains They're getting ready for the feast The Phantom of the Opera A perfect image of a priest They're spoonfeeding Casanova To get him to feel more assured Then they'll kill him with self-confidence After poisoning him with words
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls "Get Outa Here If You Don't Know Casanova is just being punished for going To Desolation Row"
Now at midnight all the agents And the superhuman crew Come out and round up everyone That knows more than they do Then they bring them to the factory Where the heart-attack machine Is strapped across their shoulders And then the kerosene Is brought down from the castles By insurance men who go Check to see that nobody is escaping To Desolation Row
Praise be to Nero's Neptune The Titanic sails at dawn And everybody's shouting "Which Side Are You On?" And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot Fighting in the captain's tower While calypso singers laugh at them And fishermen hold flowers Between the windows of the sea Where lovely mermaids flow And nobody has to think too much About Desolation Row
Yes, I received your letter yesterday (About the time the door knob broke) When you asked how I was doing Was that some kind of joke? All these people that you mention Yes, I know them, they're quite lame I had to rearrange their faces And give them all another name Right now I can't read too good Don't send me no more letters no Not unless you mail them From Desolation Row
In this song, Desolation Row, Dylan is warning people that society is heading for destruction, an apocalype, if it continues in its then direction. With the US locked in a deadly embrace with Russia, teetering on a knife-edge of mutually assured nuclear destruction, it was reasonable for people to be concerned (more like scared half to death), but governments of the time characterised anyone who spoke out against the Cold War as unpatriotic, even traitorous. When we read the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, it is horrifying to realise just how close the world came to letting the generals on both sides unleash a nuclear holocaust that would have likely destroyed much of the world as we know it.
In this song, Desolation Row, Dylan uses cultural and religious stereotypes as metaphors to describe this lunacy of main stream 1960's American society. Desolation Row is the name he gives to the place where people have gone to opt out of the lunacy, and who are being punished by society for not wanting to participate in the lunacy. For example, the lines "They're spoonfeeding Casanova to get him to feel more assured. Then they'll kill him with self-confidence after poisoning him with words. And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls "Get outa here if you don't know, Casanova is just being punished for going To Desolation Row"
Desolation Row is a counter-culture destination, though more a state of mind than an actual place. In this example he is referring to the average wage slave who is made to work long hours doing dehumanising work until they have a heart attack and die: Now at midnight all the agents, and the superhuman crew (the FBI and other covert agencies looking for un-American activists), come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do (and who are therefore dangerous). Then they bring them to the factory where the heart-attack machine is strapped across their shoulders (the yoke of dehumanising work) and then the kerosene (to burn the midnight oil, to work long hours) is brought down from the castles (capitalist corporations) by insurance men (Actuaries who calculate how long someone is likely to live under these circumstances) who go check to see that nobody is escaping to Desolation Row (no-one is opting out of the system)
The name Desolation Row may have been derived by combining the best of Desolation Angels (Kerouac) with Cannery Row (Steinbeck).
Jack Kerouac spent the summer of 1956 as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak, and wrote The Dharma Bums and Desolation Angels from his life transforming experiences on the peak. On the other hand, John Steinbeck'sCannery Row is a place where the outcasts of society found a home. Cannery Row is an actual place in Monterey California. It refers to the derelect sardine cannery whose close environs was occupied in the book by homeless men and the town brothel. The cannery was derelect because the sardines had disappeared through a combination of over-fishing, agricultural run-off and unspecified pollutants from a nearby army base. For Steinbeck, what happened to the sardines was symbolic of the ruthlessly exploit until exhausted attitude that society and the military-industrial complex had for the environment and ordinary people. Wring all the goodness out of something, then when it worthless, toss on the rubbish-heap and give it to the worthless people who are no use to us.
Another very good example of a CIA-organized regime change was a coup in 1963 that employed political assassination, mass imprisonment, torture and murder. This was the military coup that first brought Saddam Hussein's beloved Ba'ath Party to power in Iraq. At the time, Richard Helms was Director for Plans at the CIA. That is the top CIA position responsible for covert actions, like organizing coups. Helms served in that capacity until 1966, when he was made Director.
In the quotations collected below, the name of the leader who was assassinated is spelled variously as Qasim, Qassim and Kassem. But, however you spell his name, when he took power in a popularly-backed coup in 1958, he certainly got recognized in Washington. He carried out such anti-American and anti-corporatist policies as starting the process of nationalizing foreign oil companies in Iraq, withdrawing Iraq from the US-initiated right-wing Baghdad Pact (which included another military-run, US-puppet state, i.e., Pakistan) and decriminalizing the Iraqi Communist Party. Despite these actions, and more likely because of them, he was Iraq's most popular leader. He had to go!
In 1959, there was a failed assassination attempt on Qasim. The failed assassin was none other than a young Saddam Hussein. In 1963, a CIA-organized coup did successfully assassinate Qasim and Saddam's Ba'ath Party came to power for the first time. Saddam returned from exile in Egypt and took up the key post as head of Iraq's secret service. The CIA then provided the new pliant, Iraqi regime with the names of thousands of communists, and other leftist activists and organizers. Thousands of these supporters of Qasim and his policies were soon dead in a rampage of mass murder carried out by the CIA's close friends in Iraq.
Now this is an endorsement indeed. What can you say about the only Republican candidate for President endorsed by both Canadian Progressive Bloggers and Blogging Tories because he ain't a Reagan Republican but a Goldwater Republican. Come back Barry all is forgiven.
The Economist, stalwart voice of international capitalism, agrees with me that Musharraf rigged the raid on the Red Mosque to maintain his autocratic power.
ELECTIONS loom and Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, has chosen his campaign strategy: war. This week he declared an open season on Islamist terrorists. “We are in direct confrontation with extremist forces. It is moderates versus extremists.” His comments came after a series of attacks, mainly on the army in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), claimed more than 100 lives. He also revealed that when his term of office expires in October, he will seek re-election (indirectly, from an electoral college) without stepping down as army chief. He told senior Pakistani journalists that a purely civilian government would not be strong enough to control extremists.
More and more Pakistanis seem disenchanted with General Musharraf, now in power for eight years. His critics feel vindicated. They had predicted that he would use the violence that followed the storming of a radical mosque in the capital Islamabad earlier this month to justify extending military rule. Conspiracy theorists went further, suggesting he had engineered the showdown for just this reason.
Succinct, to the point. Couldn't have said it better myself.
The kidnapping of 23 South Korean voluntary aid workers by the Taliban in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province once again proves that the West backed Afghan government at Kabul isn’t anywhere close to controlling the law and order situation in the country let alone trying to stamp out the remnants of the country’s ex rulers.
As the Taliban forces continue to rise why hasn’t the Afghan government or their American backers done anything to stop them? Well, the truth is that they are trying but are sorely losing the battle. The reasons for the same are two fold; firstly it is quite clear that the Afghan people are bitterly disappointed with the Karzai government. The Karzai government had an excellent opportunity to build by the democratic institutions of the country and invigorate their countrymen’s faith in democracy after the fall of the Taliban. But frankly the Karzai government has squandered that opportunity and has actually managed to turn many Afghan’s away from democracy. Now the belief in Afghanistan is that democracy is not all that it is cracked up to be. The sole reason for the Afghans being put off by the present government and its promises of democracy is none other than ‘corruption’. The menace of corruption has percolated to every nook and cranny of the Afghan administrative set up. Everyone from top government officials to low-level clerks need their palms greased to accomplish the smallest of tasks. Such is the menace of corruption that some Afghans are looking back at the Taliban regime as the ‘good old days’, where no doubt there were several moral and social restrictions but at least corruption was kept in check. They say that during the Taliban days they probably had to bribe the top officials to get their work done but now they have to bribe everyone from top to bottom.
While claiming a populist mandate to change the Wheat Board, Harpers attempt to rig a plebiscite has been given its just demise. It never fails to amaze me that while claiming to represent the popular interest of farmers, the Conservatives are afraid of a fair fight over the Wheat Board. That is of course because the right wing farm lobby they represent is a minority of Prairie farmers, and is even a minority in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where it has its biggest base.
Fearing defeat at the hands of the real popular base of Western farmers, the Tories attempted to pull a fast one, and thanks to this ruling they have to go back to the drawing board.
For other coverage of this from fellow progressive bloggers see here.
Move over Dr. Kervorkian make room for Oscar the Cat. A truly American creature ala Edgar Allen Poe. Of course being raised amongst the demented and dying, how Poe-tic, a cat would 'sense' death it's a component of its sentience. Making it not such a strange animal.
Oscar barely tolerates anyone on the ward who's not hours away from death, says the article. Even if they're barely conscious, brains barely registering the world anymore. But if someone's about to go?
Oscar arrives at Room 313.The door is open, and he proceeds inside. Mrs. K. is restingpeacefully in her bed, her breathing steady but shallow. Sheis surrounded by photographs of her grandchildren and one fromher wedding day. Despite these keepsakes, she is alone. Oscarjumps onto her bed and again sniffs the air. He pauses to considerthe situation, and then turns around twice before curling upbeside Mrs. K.
One hour passes. Oscar waits. A nurse walks into the room tocheck on her patient. She pauses to note Oscar's presence. Concerned,she hurriedly leaves the room and returns to her desk. She grabsMrs. K.'s chart off the medical-records rack and begins to makephone calls.
Within a half hour the family starts to arrive. Chairs are broughtinto the room, where the relatives begin their vigil. The priestis called to deliver last rites. And still, Oscar has not budged,instead purring and gently nuzzling Mrs. K. A young grandsonasks his mother, "What is the cat doing here?" The mother, fightingback tears, tells him, "He is here to help Grandma get to heaven."Thirty minutes later, Mrs. K. takes her last earthly breath.With this, Oscar sits up, looks around, then departs the roomso quietly that the grieving family barely notices.
"Many family members take some solace from it. They appreciate the companionship that the cat provides for their dying loved one," said Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor of medicine at Brown University.
After about six months, the staff noticed Oscar would make his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses. He‘d sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours.
Oscar is better at predicting death than the people who work there, said Dr. Joan Teno of Brown University, who treats patients at the nursing home and is an expert on care for the terminally ill
Oscar wouldn‘t stay inside the room though, so Teno thought his streak was broken. Instead, it turned out the doctor‘s prediction was roughly 10 hours too early. Sure enough, during the patient‘s final two hours, nurses told Teno that Oscar joined the woman at her bedside.
No one‘s certain if Oscar‘s behavior is scientifically significant or points to a cause. Teno wonders if the cat notices telltale scents or reads something into the behavior of the nurses who raised him.
I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat. This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point --and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.
Pluto --this was the cat's name --was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets.
Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character --through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance --had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me --for what disease is like Alcohol! --and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish --even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.
One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.
When reason returned with the morning --when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch --I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.
In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart --one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself --to offer violence to its own nature --to do wrong for the wrong's sake only --that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; --hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; --hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offense; --hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin --a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it --if such a thing were possible --even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.
Of course I would suggest you read the rest of the story as the protagonist gets his just comeuppance as I suggested here; Animal Crimes.
