Showing posts with label Dylan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dylan. Show all posts

Thursday, December 17, 2009

A Bob Dylan Christmas


I've been listening to Bob Dylan's new Christmas album tonight.

Without fear of contradiction, I think I can safely say what young Bobby Zimmerman and his folk-god alter ego Mr. Dylan have been getting for Hanukkah and Christmas since about 1957.


Either that . . . or Santa just put Tom Waits under the tree.

Monday, January 28, 2008

With Science on Our Side




The trouble with reporters comes when they don't know what they don't know.

COME TO THINK of it, that's the same trouble Pope Benedict XVI is trying to warn people about when it comes to putting undue faith in "science." Basically, the pope is trying to say that science is a grand thing when it's limited to its areas of competence.

The human heart and soul are not among these.

And it's when the pope starts to speak of such things -- and of the limitations of scientific competence -- that it really becomes obvious that, also, there are limits to the competence of journalists. Well, obvious to lots of people but, sadly, not to one Reuters reporter, who just doesn't get it at all:

Pope Benedict warned on Monday of the "seductive" powers of science that relegate man's spirituality, reviving the science-versus-religion debate which recently forced him to cancel a speech after student protests.

"In an age when scientific developments attract and seduce with the possibilities they offer, it's more important than ever to educate our contemporaries' consciences so that science does not become the criteria for goodness," he told scientists.

Scientific investigation should be accompanied by "research into anthropology, philosophy and theology" to give insight into "man's own mystery, because no science can say who man is, where he comes from or where he is going," the Pope said.


(snip)


The Pope reiterated a plea, made in many speeches since he was elected in 2005, for mankind to be "respected as the centre of creation" and not relegated by more short-term interests.

But the conservative German-born Pope's public stand on issues such as abortion and embryonic stem-cell research lead critics to accuse him of holding antiquated views on science.

WHAT SCIENCE vs. religion debate? Saying that science is not well suited to diagnose the longings of the human heart and the troubles of the human soul isn't exactly a reprise of the Scopes "monkey trial." It's just stating the obvious -- some things belong to the realms of philosophy and theology.

And anyone who has a problem with that just doesn't know what he doesn't know.

Of course, the Reuters guy isn't the first member of the Fourth Estate to epitomize the Peter Principle. Last night, I was watching the last half of "No Direction Home," Martin Scorsese's public-TV biopic of Bob Dylan. Trust me, there's not much funnier than the press putting its utter cluelessness on display (above) before the world -- and Mr. Dylan -- in 1965.

Google "Dylan" "press conference" and "1965" and watch the whole thing. You won't be sorry you did.