A Voice Of His Times

By Sturgeone, a Trail Mix Contributor

Bob……….Like Homer, a wandering guitar player, and a voice of his times.

[Bob Dylan received the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”.]

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35 thoughts on “A Voice Of His Times”

  1. from rolling stone:

    ….Moby Dick, All Quiet on the Western Front and Homer’s The Odyssey.

    “The themes from those books worked their way into many of my songs, either knowingly or unintentionally. I wanted to write songs unlike anything anybody ever heard, and these themes were fundamental,” Dylan says during the 30-minute lecture.

    Dylan then summarizes those classic stories and how folk music often cited their themes and motifs.

    “The Odyssey is a great book whose themes have worked its way into the ballads of a lot of songwriters: ‘Homeward Bound,’ ‘Green, Green Grass of Home,’ ‘Home on the Range,’ and my songs as well,” Dylan said.

    “The Odyssey is a strange, adventurous tale of a grown man trying to get home after fighting in a war. He’s on that long journey home, and it’s filled with traps and pitfalls. He’s cursed to wander … He’s a travelin’ man, but he’s making a lot of stops,” a nod to the Ricky Nelson single.

    [….]

    “Our songs are alive in the land of the living. But songs are unlike literature. They’re meant to be sung, not read,” Dylan said.

    “The words in Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be acted on the stage. Just as lyrics in songs are meant to be sung, not read on a page. And I hope some of you get the chance to listen to these lyrics the way they were intended to be heard: in concert or on record or however people are listening to songs these days. I return once again to Homer, who says, ‘Sing in me, oh Muse, and through me tell the story.'”

  2. from  business insider story ‘This is huge’: National-security experts were floored by the leaked NSA document on Russia’s election hack

    [….]

    Russian military intelligence, according to the document, launched an attack on at least one US voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to at least 100 local election officials shortly before the election.

    In addition to being the strongest indication so far that Russia interfered in the US election, the document also indicates that Russian hackers may have “penetrated further into US voting systems than was previously understood,” The Intercept, which first published the document, reported.

  3. Poetry was meant to be heard out loud from some itinerant story teller spreading news, history, and entertainment for the crowds.  As it happens, I expended a few words on Dylan’s Prize

    Speaking of history, today would be a good day for a repeat watching of The Longest Day which can be watched in full on You Tube if you can’t get it on TV on demand.

  4. one of the more recent and far more delightful replays of Ulysses odyssey

    and lyrics of above very fitting with Dylan’s theme

    I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow

    The Soggy Bottom Boys

    I am a man of constant sorrow
    I’ve seen trouble all my days
    I’ll say goodbye to Kentucky
    Where I was born and partly raised
    Your mother says I’m a stranger
    My face you’ll never see no more
    But there’s one promise, darling
    I’ll see you on God’s golden shore
    Through this open world I’m about to ramble
    Through ice and snow, sleet and rain
    I’m about to ride that morning railroad
    Perhaps I’ll die on that train
    I’m going back to Kentucky
    The place that I started from
    If I knowed how bad you’d treat me
    Honey, I never would have come

    from wiki:”Man of Constant Sorrow” (also known as “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow“) is a traditional American folk song first published by Dick Burnett, a partially blind fiddler from Kentucky. The song was originally titled “Farewell Song” in a songbook by Burnett dated to around 1913. An early version was recorded by Emry Arthur in 1928, which gave the song its current titles.

    There exist a number of versions of the song that differ in their lyrics and melodies. The song was popularized by The Stanley Brothers who recorded the song in the 1950s, and many versions were recorded in the 1960s, most notably by Bob Dylan. Variations of the song have also been recorded under the titles of “Girl of Constant Sorrow” by Joan Baez, “Maid of Constant Sorrow” by Judy Collins, and “Sorrow” by Peter, Paul and Mary. In 1970 the song was recorded by Ginger Baker’s Air Force, with vocals by Denny Laine, and reached No. 85 on the Billboard Chart.

  5. Thinking of D-Day reminded me of my earliest crush on a screen star:  Richard Todd.  If you can enjoy an obituary, this one might be appropriate for the actor in many war films including the Longest Day where he played the man who had been his commanding officer while another actor played his much younger self.

    When I reminded him that he had been one of the first paratroopers to drop into Nazi-occupied France on D-Day  –  his assignment as a captain in the Parachute Regiment was to prevent a German counter-attack by seizing and holding the Pegasus Bridge over the River Orne  –  he said: ‘That was wartime. You behave quite differently in war. You don’t have much time to dwell on what you’re doing when the bullets are zipping around. 

  6. Patd

    One of my favorite albums is Alison Krauss with Union Station, the group whose members that provided much of the music for Oh Brother.  Constant Sorrow is on the album with Alison on fiddle.  Here is another great, sad song from that album.

  8. bb & flatus & other mixers who know about these mysterious techy-type things, how plausible is the preliminary conclusion that election tally itself wasn’t affected if this part from the intercept story is right given the initial success of the hacking?

    ….the Russian plan was simple: pose as an e-voting vendor and trick local government employees into opening Microsoft Word documents invisibly tainted with potent malware that could give hackers full control over the infected computers.

    [….]

    In any event, the hackers apparently got what they needed. Two months later, on October 27, they set up an “operational” Gmail account designed to appear as if it belonged to an employee at VR Systems, and used documents obtained from the previous operation to launch a second spear-phishing operation “targeting U.S. local government organizations.” These emails contained a Microsoft Word document that had been “trojanized” so that when it was opened it would send out a beacon to the “malicious infrastructure” set up by the hackers.

    The NSA assessed that this phase of the spear-fishing operation was likely launched on either October 31 or November 1 and sent spear-fishing emails to 122 email addresses “associated with named local government organizations,” probably to officials “involved in the management of voter registration systems.”  The emails contained Microsoft Word attachments purporting to be benign documentation for VR Systems’ EViD voter database product line, but which were in reality maliciously embedded with automated software commands that are triggered instantly and invisibly when the user opens the document. These particular weaponized files used PowerShell, a Microsoft scripting language designed for system administrators and installed by default on Windows computers, allowing vast control over a system’s settings and functions. If opened, the files “very likely” would have instructed the infected computer to begin downloading in the background a second package of malware from a remote server also controlled by the hackers, which the secret report says could have provided attackers with “persistent access” to the computer or the ability to “survey the victims for items of interest.” Essentially, the weaponized Word document quietly unlocks and opens a target’s back door, allowing virtually any cocktail of malware to be subsequently delivered automatically.

  10. Anyone catch Pruitt on MoJo or on the shows over the weekend?  I wonder how many out of work coal miners are wondering who the hell got the 50,000 jobs he claimed were created. (His claim got 4 Pinocchios from Glenn Kessler today).

  11. “out of work coal miners are wondering who the hell got the 50,000 jobs”

    pogo, mostly folks in wyoming

  12. Belmont Stakes Update:  Conquest Mo Money and Irap are out, Hollywood Handsome is in.  All of the horses now have assigned jockeys.  Post position draw is tomorrow.  I will update then.  In the meantime, this is who I have riding from the trail.

     

     

  13. This is all a weird mixture of anger and bigotry rolled into a hunt for an invisible boogey-man.  The fact is, 32% of the folks out there are going to follow this clown off the edge of the flat earth – just because – they need to belong.

    Trump is not a businessman – he’s an entrepreneur.  Had he been a real CEO he would have been escorted out of the building by just about every board of directors that have ever existed.

    But nonetheless, that 32% follows blindly, thrilled that the man is going to kill health care, take money from public education, turn back the clock on environmental protection and give billions to the uber-rich.  I do understand these people though.  One recently asked me when the Mexicans are going to start going back to Mexico.

    It’s the 80/120 rule!  What makes a person with a 120 IQ special?  Those with the 80’s.

    I guess for there to be thoughtful, intelligent, thinking, caring people out in the world (like us ;o)), there also has to be a hefty amount of ignorant morons (is that redundant)?

  16. no no not noregard too?  gonna run outta lawyers willing to take the job

    ny times: Trump Grows Discontented With Attorney General Jeff Sessions

    Few Republicans were quicker to embrace President Trump’s campaign last year than Jeff Sessions, and his reward was one of the most prestigious jobs in America. But more than four months into his presidency, Mr. Trump has grown sour on Mr. Sessions, now his attorney general, blaming him for various troubles that have plagued the White House.

    [….]

    In private, the president’s exasperation has been even sharper. He has intermittently fumed for months over Mr. Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election, according to people close to Mr. Trump who insisted on anonymity to describe internal conversations. In Mr. Trump’s view, they said, it was that recusal that eventually led to the appointment of a special counsel who took over the investigation.

    [….]
    The frustration over the travel ban might be a momentary episode were it not for the deeper resentment Mr. Trump feels toward Mr. Sessions, according to people close to the president. When Mr. Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, Mr. Trump learned about it only when he was in the middle of another event, and he publicly questioned the decision.
    A senior administration official said Mr. Trump has not stopped burning about the decision, in occasional spurts, toward Mr. Sessions. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who was selected by Mr. Sessions and filled in when it came to the Russia investigation, ultimately appointed Robert S. Mueller III, a former F.B.I. director, as special counsel to lead the probe.
    In fact, much of the past two months of discomfort and self-inflicted pain for Mr. Trump can be tied in some way back to that recusal. Mr. Trump felt blindsided by Mr. Sessions’s decision and unleashed his fury at aides in the Oval Office the next day, according to four people familiar with the event.

  18. abc news: Leaked NSA document is proof of Russian election hacking, top Dem says

    While condemning the leak of classified information, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee today said that because a secret NSA document was posted online yesterday “we now have verified information” showing that Russian intelligence services were in fact behind last year’s cyber-assault on the U.S. election.

    “In any other circumstances this would be an earthquake,” but because of “everything” going on in Washington it is a matter that has not received the attention it deserves, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, said at the start of a committee hearing. “This was Russia … this was an international attempt to impact the elections of the United States of America.”

    [….]

    At the Senate hearing today, McCaskill said the NSA document allegedly leaked by Winner now offers such evidence, and she pressed the hearing’s witness, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, to make sure his department takes appropriate steps to protect voting-related systems in the future.

    Kelly said he couldn’t confirm or deny any specific information “about what actually took place” last year, particularly because the intelligence behind it is so highly classified.

  19. White House bullshiterama (Press Conference) about to start – day before Comey testimony, after intelligence leak and Wall Street Journal spanking of the Prez today.  Should be interesting.

  21. Wow….49 years to the day R Kennedey was shot.  Maybe that and the 100th anniversary of JFKs birth was why it was so crowded at the JFK museum in Hyannis today.  Still, it made Rick and I sad to think about the Peace Corp and the beginnings of the National Endowment For the Arts as compared to the SFB of today.  How this nation has fallen.

    Will be visiting on Martha’s Vineyard on Thursday.  I count on all of you to let me know how Comey did.

  23. patd – Until someone runs some heavy statistics software, also called analytic software, against the districts it will be difficult to determine if anything was affected.  The serious issue is if they reached the computers running the count.  Again, heavy analysis is needed to see if the russians affected the outcome.

    The leak to the Intercept is the talk of the town, and again the infrastructure surge (code word for this week) has been submerged to talk about Russia.  Something I find interesting is the question of “how did someone so young get a high level clearance?”.  She is twenty-five, that is about a quarter of a twenty year enlistment.

    I think the reason for this question is so few have been in the military.  You enlist or go through a military academy and you are in the military.  You have been vetted, you have had your clearance paperwork run through and investigated.  At the least you have a Confidential level clearance.  You are expected to keep things you are told to yourself if it is marked Confidential.  Many jobs require higher level clearances, Secret or Top Secret.  In my case I was investigated for TS but used a Secret as that was the highest level material I handled.  My lab mates only had Confidential level clearances so I got stuck with the stuff.

    You are trained to kill, you can be trained to handle classified material too.  You might be eighteen or twenty, but you are trained for many skills.  In private enterprise it may be never that a nineteen year old will be in charge of millions of dollars of equipment and the lives of many many soldiers or Marines or airmen.  You have the training and clearance to sit and record conversations of enemy using tools that are highly classified too.

    So, age is not a filter for a clearance.

    What we have to keep in mind is that of the thousands of employees of military, contractors and federal civil service employees it is very rare for one to turn.  Yes, the damage can be extreme, there will be fixes put in place.  But like finding a spy it can be very difficult unless a clue pops out that someone sees.

  25. The contractors I worked with on cutting-edge projects were dedicated professionals. It was not unusual seeing them asleep on the floor beside their workstations as the mainframe chugged away on the thousands upon thousands of lines of code that they had tweaked in the preceding days.

    I felt absolutely no compunctions about going to the four-star level when I believed matters of importance were not receiving the attention they deserved. I had travel orders allowing me to go anywhere for any reason I deemed necessary. I took advantage of them. And, when I retired, I invited the chief master sgt from Europe to take my place; he accepted.

    That young people do foolish disclosures is the result of a lack of mentoring by seasoned people who can explain the whys and wherefores behind unremitting security.

  26. We have the snowdens and winners, because two generations of Congresses and Presidents have been too cheap to pay for full time permanent Civil Service techs to do the IT and Intel work :

    After all, Mr Speaker, these expensive employees, and this pricey stuff is likely to be obsolete when Je$u$! comes. Let some contractor, like the Majority Leader’s son-in-law, hire a bunch of temps, so we can save America’s preciou$ B!LL!ONA!RE$ a dollar each, per day.

  27. Security, Mr Speaker, is not made real by throwing money at the problem, unless that money is tossed at big complex weapons systems. 

    After all, Mr Speaker, security is only things that go BOOM.

  30. So drumpf’s selection to replace Comey was recommended by the guv who ate NJ?  How could that possibly be a bad pick?

  31.  

    Trump, furious and frustrated, gears up to punch back at Comey testimony
    Drumpf, the lawyer’s nightmare client.  Doesn’t care what the law is, won’t listen to advice, won’t do anything he’s told he should do, and can’t keep his mouth shut (or in this case his tiny thumbs still) so he can’t raise privilege in response to questions when he finds himself under oath because he’s waived any privilege he might have asserted.  Watch this play out tomorrow. As soon as Comey relates what drumpf said to him AND drumpf responds by denying or giving a different version, executive privilege will be waived to the subject matter of his tweets – and he’s just dumb enough to do that.

  32. Poobah, not to bump Bob from the masthead, but if you want it …. I sent a thread starter for today.

  33. Leave Bob alone!!

    haha………Bob had his day and quite made mine……moving on is good

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