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"Then, as if to match this anachronistic sound, their lyrics were written from the perspective of various characters in distant-past American settings..."

September 25, 2019

"... Dust Bowl farmers ('King Harvest [Has Surely Come]'), Civil War soldiers ('The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down'), Manifest Destiny fulfillers ('Across the Great Divide').... ... The Band is an album about America as written by a Canadian band (with the notable exception of Helm, who was from Arkansas). And it’s within the complications of that dynamic that perhaps The Band’s best song, 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,' lives, wrought with a particular type of humanity and heartbreak that’s increasingly hard to reckon with, given that its foundation lies within the perspective of a Confederate.... These stories weren’t really theirs to begin with -- they were just there to be plucked. And part of what makes it such a compelling, enduring, and difficult artifact of popular music to grapple with is this feeling that it’s a document of the country’s thorny past without being a strict endorsement of it." From "Fifty Years of 'The...

Who are these festive soldiers, pictured at Drudge to represent Iran's preparation for war?

September 22, 2019

The linked article is "Iran's president warns America to 'stay away' as it unveils long range missiles that could strike US bases" (Yahoo News), and that photo is there, with the caption, "Iranian Turkmen Basij militia members marching during the annual." The annual what, I don't know. But who are the Turkmen in Iran? I look it up. Wikipedia says: Turkmen rulers, successively of the Black Sheep Turkomans and White Sheep Turkomans, ruled much of Persia and surrounding countries before Shah Ismail I defeated them to begin the Safavid dynasty in 1501. Tabriz was their usual capital. There remains a relatively small population identifying as Turkmen in modern Iran. So it makes zero sense for Yahoo to use that photograph for the article, which has nothing about the Turkmen other than that caption. Jesus said "You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed." In fact, I was not alarmed. My reaction was to look u...

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