Merry Christmas Baby

 It's that time of the year again when THC posts the Otis Redding version.

 

Last Minute Shopping?

Too bad it's not 1954!

 

This 1950s child's toy came with 4 types of uranium ore and a Geiger counter. It wasn’t cheap either, selling off the shelf in 1950 for 49.50, around the 500 mark in today’s money. pic.twitter.com/Wyr98qw81n

— World of Engineering (@engineers_feed) December 16, 2025

The First Writing?

I've posted about Irving Finkel of the British Museum before.  Here he is expounding his theory that a discovery at Gobekli Tepe in Anatolia proves that writing was developed several thousand years before previously thought.  He also explains that significance that the ancient writing we do have from Mesopotamia provides a very narrow, and perhaps misleading, window onto that world.

Finkel is always entertaining and has a knack for explaining complex topics in an understandable way.  I have no idea if his theory is correct but you'll enjoy listening to him. 

I Meant To Say Cheerio

The final scene from Local Hero.  I've loved this movie since seeing it with Mrs THC more than 40 years ago.  The soundtrack by Mark Knopfler is an integral part in creating the unique feel of the film.  During the early 80s Scottish director Bill Forsythe made a magical trio of small budget offbeat films - Gregory's Girl, Local Hero, Comfort & Joy.

No Comment

 

Girls after one minor argument: “I’m never speaking to you again.”

Boys after calling each other fascist and jihadist: pic.twitter.com/wNzEH7Ac9E

— Faizan (@faizannriaz) November 22, 2025

Moonlight At Wharfedale

Another painting by an artist I discovered only a couple of years ago, John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-93).  Wharfedale is one of the Yorkshire Dales and is north of Leeds.  A master at capturing light in the evening.

 

He May Have A Point

 

Jerry Seinfeld captures humanity's greatest paradox in a single line. pic.twitter.com/gLDjptD1Sx

— The Cinéprism (@TheCineprism) November 26, 2025

Forever Young

Bob Dylan recorded Forever Young in December 1973 and it appeared the following month on the album Planet Waves.  One of his best known songs, he released another version in 2023 on the album Shadow Kingdom.  Dylan was 32 when he wrote and recorded the song.  He was 82 when he recorded it for the second time.  It hits differently.  I know it did for me listening to it at 72.  The original is a song of aspiration and hope for his young ones.  Fifty years later he knows how it turned out and it shows in his voice and informs how we react.

Dylan married Sarah Lownds in 1965 and four children were born between 1966 and 1969 (3 boys, one girl), while Bob also adopted his wife's daughter from a prior marriage.  He had last toured in 1966, using the excuse of his injuries from a motorcycle accident that fall to stop his hectic recording and touring schedule.  While releasing several albums in the following years he only played a couple of one-off concerts and become a mysterious, remote figure.

In his eccentric and revealing autobiography, Chronicles Vol. 1, Dylan describes the reasons for his withdrawal in two passages.  The first in a conversation with The Band's Robbie Robertson while driving around Woodstock:

He says to me, 'Where do you think you're gonna take it?"  I said, "Take what?".  "You know, the whole music scene."  The whole music scene! . . . No place was far enough away.  I don't know what everybody else was fantasizing about, but what I was fantasizing about was a nine-to-five existence, a house on a tree-lined block with a white picket fence, pink roses in the backyard.  That would have been nice.  That was my deepest dream.

The second in which he writes of moving several times to avoid the plague of reporters seeking him out: 

Even if these reporters had been allowed in the house, what would they find?  A whole lotta stuff - stacking toys, push and pull toys, child-sized tables and chairs - big empty cardboard boxes - science kits, puzzles and toy drums.

Whatever the counterculture was, I'd seen enough of it.  I was sick of the way my lyrics had been extrapolated, their meaning subverted into polemics and that I had been annointed as the Big Bubba of Rebellion, High Priest of Protest [etc] . . .  What the hell are we talking about?  Horrible titles any way you want to look at it . . .  What mattered to me most was getting breathing room for my family.(1)

The lyrics, written for his young children:

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young.

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong  (Chorus)

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
And may your song always be sung  (Chorus)

Bob and Sarah divorced in 1977 (she is now 86 and has never spoken publicly about the marriage).  I don't know anything about their children, but son Jacob said in a 2005 interview, "My father said it himself in an interview many years ago: 'Husband and wife failed, but mother and father didn't.' My ethics are high because my parents did a great job." (2)

Forever Young also reflects a different viewpoint than that expressed in some of his earliest recordings.  From 1962 through 1964 Dylan developed a reputation as a "protest singer", a label he bitterly resented and ultimately rebelled against.   Though he is still sometimes called the "voice of his generation", Dylan never spoke publicly about the Vietnam War, either in opposition or support, despite it being the rallying point of protest in the second half of the 60s into the early 70s.  

The song that marked that transition was My Back Pages from Another Side of Bob Dylan, released in August 1964, with lyrics acknowledging that issues and life were more complicated than he had previously portrayed.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
"Rip down all hate, " I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull, I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now

 

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My existence led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now

A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now 

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now

Bringing It All Back Home (March 1965) would be his first album containing no songs that could be classified as "protest". 

 

When Dylan sings "may you stay forever young" he circles back to the chorus of My Back Pages, "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now".   In Back Pages, he is saying that he is dropping the posed sophistication of someone pretending to be a wiser and older man in exchange for becoming the young man with still a lot to learn.  Ironically, Dylan is wise enough to know he needs to be younger, or perhaps, as young as he actually is, a lesson many of his compatriots failed to learn.

 

Eight years later, with four young children, when he sings "may you stay forever young" it means always being open to learning and gaining wisdom, not closing themselves off or thinking that they know it all.  What Dylan is driving it is revealed in this lyric, "May you have a strong foundation/ When the winds of changes shift".  He knows that things change (as does THC), in October 1963 having recorded The Times They Are-a-Changin'.  But that powerful anthem contains these lyrics: 

And you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'

 

Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'

The song was written at the time of a great moral crusade, the need to admit black Americans to the full panoply of rights afforded to other American citizens.  But moral crusades are few and far between, though many mistake other issues for crusades.  In Times They Are-a-Changin', Dylan warns everyone to support the change or be swept away.

 

Ten years later, a wiser Dylan sings of the importance of a "strong foundation" because all "winds of change" are not necessarily good, each requiring careful evaluation against a moral framework, recognizing it takes great internal moral strength to withstand those winds.  Lacking a strong foundation leaves one vulnerable to manipulative charismatic leaders, too easily swayed by peers, public opinion, or media, or blindly willing to follow the lead of credential wielding experts. 

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(1) While rereading some of Chronicles in preparation for writing this post I came across another passage which explained something else I've written about - how terrible Dylan was in concert with Tom Petty during the 80s, the only time I've ever seen him perform in person:

I'd been on an eighteen month tour with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers.  It would be my last.  I had no connection to any kind of inspiration. . . . Tom was at the top of his game and I was at the bottom of mine. . .  My own songs had become strangers to me.  I didn't have the skill to touch their raw nerves, couldn't penetrate the surfaces.  It wasn't my moment of history anymore.  There was a hollow singing in my heart and I couldn't wait to retire and fold the tent.  One more big payday with Petty and that would be it for me.  I was what they called over the hill.  If I wasn't careful I could end up ranting and raving in shouting matches with the wall.

I had written and recorded so many songs, but it wasn't like I was playing many of them.  I think I was only up to the task of about twenty or so.  The rest were too cryptic, too darkly driven, and I was no longer capable of doing anything radically creative with them.  It was like carrying a package of heavy rotten meat.  I couldn't understand where they came from.  The glow was gone and the match had burned right to the end.  I was going through the motions. 

(2) Dylan wrote at least two songs about his marriage; Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands from Blonde On Blonde (1966) and Sara from Desire (1977), the latter as his marriage was collapsing, and which includes the lyric "Staying up for days in the Chelsea Hotel/Writing "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' for you".  Sara is searing and emotionally wrenching.  On the other hand, Dylan makes a lot of stuff up, so did he really write Sad Eyed Lady for Sara, or did he make it up as part of his last ditch appeal to his wife?

The Bulge

The Battle of the Bulge, between December 16, 1944 and January 28, 1945 remains the most costly battle fought by the American military with over 80,000 casualties.  It was Hitler's last offensive, a desperate gamble to split the Allied front and shatter the British/American alliance with the Soviets, taking place in wooded, hilly terrain in Luxembourg and Belgium.

What most Americans know about the Bulge (including me until recently) focuses on the siege at Bastogne and the valiant actions of the 101st Airborne, most recently celebrated in the fine Band of Brothers series.  However, there was much more to the battle as I learned in 2023 by listening to We Have Ways of Making You Talk, the top notch WW2 podcast hosted by two British military historians, James Holland and Al Murray, when they hosted John McManus, an American historian, who'd written Alamo in the Ardennes, about the 28th Infantry Division and its battle against the Germans in the opening days of the offensive, prompting me to read and write about the book (see Alamo in the Ardennes). 

Last December, Holland and Murray, along with McManus, did a 9-part podcast on the battle, focused on its opening days and on American units outside Bastogne, the siege of which is not mentioned until the seventh episode.  They provide an illuminating discussion of the strategic and logistical folly of the German plan, while shining a spotlight on the actions of outgunned and outnumbered American units who managed to completely disrupt the German timetable in the first four days, making the failure of the offensive inevitable.  These small actions, involving companies and regiments at obscure crossroads in the woods are given the attention and recognition they deserve and it completely changed my perception of the battle.  The series is a fitting tribute to those brave American soldiers.

I highly recommend giving it a listen.  You can find it here and searching on The Battle of the Bulge or use the podcast app on your phone.  Make sure to have a map in hand to follow the action! 

And now planning a trip next fall to the area. 

All Those Moments Lost In Time

The title of an essay by David Polansky, a favorite of mine, in praise of 80s movies, a decade in which Mr and Mrs THC went to the movies a lot, back when that was a thing.  According to the author, 80s cinema has a branding problem compared to the 70s and 90s;

But if there is one thing that does define ‘80s cinema even as it defies attempts to neatly characterize it, it is sheer variety. Indeed, the decade can be broken down into several categories, which in the aggregate resulted in an impressive volume of cinema of lasting if underappreciated value. 

He goes on to break down The Old Masters; Around The World; Independent Americana; Peak Genre; and The Late, Great Middlebrow Movie.

That last category, which no longer exists, encompasses twenty films, of which we saw 15 or 16 in the theater during that decade.  In light of last night's news I note that three were directed by Rob Reiner; Stand By Me, When Harry Met Sally, and The Princess Bride, all of which we saw and greatly enjoyed, the last being a classic that I've watched many times. And let's not forget another Reiner classic, 1984's This Is Spinal Tap.

We were very upset to hear about Reiner's death along with that of his wife and of the family tragedy behind it; one child a murderer and another child left to find the bodies of her parents.  We thank Rob for the enjoyment he gave us and hope that he and Michelle may rest in peace. 

The title of Polansky's essay is from another classic 80s film. 

End Of A City

Ephesus, located on the Aegean coast of Turkey, was one of the great cities of the Greek and Roman world, along with being significant in the history of early Christianity. Today it is a ruin.  This video explains why and how it happened.  It is particularly good explaining the geophysical reasons for its decline and how spoliation works when it came to disassembling much of the city's monumental architecture.  It's also a reminder of the fragility of civilization.  During Roman times the governmental structure, finances, and technology allowed for the dredging to keep the harbor of Ephesus open, but once the empire became poorer and technical knowledge declined, so did the ability of the city to thrive. 

Hanukkah

We've lit the candles for the first night, while thinking of those murdered and wounded while celebrating the holiday at Australia's Bondi Beach.  Hanukkah celebrates the Jewish victory over those who would oppress and deny us religious freedom.

A word on the situation outside the United States (I'll have more to say on the U.S. soon) and Israel. Between 80 and 85% of the world's Jews live in the United States or Israel.  Another 8% live in three countries (about 400,000 in each); the UK, France, and Canada.  Two of those countries, the UK and Canada, have governments hostile to Jews, while France is more neutral, though Jews constitute the overwhelming majority of hate crime targets (including assaults, rapes, and murders) and, more recently, cancelled the traditional national Christmas and New Years celebrations on the Champs-Élysées in Paris because of fear of terrorist acts by its Muslim population.(1)  In all three countries the toxic combination of leftist politics and a growing Muslim population has left Jewish populations at risk.  Absent a dramatic change in political culture, the future is not good for the Jewish communities of these countries.

In the next tier are two countries each with about 100,000 Jews (together, about 1.4% of the global population); Australia and Argentina.  Australia can be placed in the same category as the UK and Canada, with a government hostile to Jews and a rapidly growing Muslim population.(2)  Argentina has an antisemitic history but its current government is led by a man who identifies as Jewish so, at least for now, it has the brightest prospects of all.

As Hussein Aboubakr Mansour wrote in the wake of Bondi Beach:

Any sober observer must be honest. Outside the United States, there is no Western political establishment with either the will or the capability to address this problem, let alone reverse its growth. The future of Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand is likely to be increasingly Jew-free and increasingly dysfunctional.  

One of the prayers we say when lighting the Hanukkah candles is "Blessed are you Lord our God, ruler of the universe, who performed wondrous deeds for our ancestors in those ancient days at this season."  May that happen again. 

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(1)  France has deployed 7,000 soldiers across the country to protect “places of worship and sensitive sites.” The deployment, originally meant to be short term, has become open ended. The French Ministry of Defense states “our commitment is long-term, for as long as this situation requires.” Minister of the Armed Forces Catherine Vautrin echoed the message, “the terrorist threat is permanent.” President Macron has already admitted this is a war with no end in sight.

Interior Minister Nunez: “We’ve dealt with terrorism, we’ve dealt with separatism, now we’re tackling infiltration" and looking into “the links between representatives of political movements and organizations and networks supporting terrorist activity or propagating Islamist ideology”.

In May, Macron received a government investigative report that Islamists are infiltrating France's republican institutions and are a threat to national cohesion.  The report (leaked to Le Figaro), drawn up by two senior civil servants, found evidence for a policy of "entryism" by the Muslim Brotherhood into public bodies like schools and local government.  According to the report, "entryism means getting involved in republican infrastructure… in order to change it from the inside. It requires dissimulation… and it works from the bottom up."

The report goes on to say that the Muslim Brotherhood was losing influence in the Middle East and North Africa, and so was targeting Europe, backed by money from Turkey and Qatar.  This is not an effort limited to France.

"Having given a Western look to the ideology in order to implant themselves in Europe, (the Muslim Brotherhood) tries to lay down the roots of a Middle Eastern tradition while concealing a subversive fundamentalism."  The "Western look" the authors refer to is dressing Islamism in the robe of the fashionable academic jargon of settler-colonialism and the oppressor-oppressed framing.

The report states unequivocally that “Hatred of Jews,” is a core ideological element, often laundered through anti-Zionist slogans.  Just like American college campuses and every university Middle East Studies Program. 

According to The Free Press, "The report details a wave of online influencers—trained in Brotherhood institutions, fluent in grievance politics, and calibrated for younger audiences. Some present as activists fighting “Islamophobia”; others cloak Islamist ideology in therapeutic or entrepreneurial language." 

Interestingly, in response to the report, French intelligence agencies recommended the government get tougher on Israel in order to placate its growing and unruly Muslim population.  Macron took the advice, recognizing a Palestinian state in September.  It's not going to work.  The Muslim Brotherhood target is Western Europe, not Israel.  All that recognition does is show weakness.  

(2)  In 2000 the current Australian Prime Minister led demonstrations in Sydney in support of Yassir Arafat after he walked away from accepting a Palestinian state at the Camp David talks and prepared to launch a series of suicide bombings against Jews. After decades of Australian support for Israel by all governing parties, the current PM withdrew Australia's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.  No surprise, since his man Arafat shocked President Clinton and others at Camp David when he denied there was ever a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount! And, to this day, that is what Palestinian children learn in school.  Since Oct 7, 2023, the PM has demonstrated on numerous occasions that his animus extends to the entire Jewish people.  

For more on the lies about the Temple Mount read this THC post which provides some background, along with an account of the 2015 New York Times article propagating this fake news.  For more than a decade the Times has viewed its role as creating a permission structure to allow progressives to become anti-semites. 

Never Forget

 

Induction

I was recently privileged to be inducted as an associate member of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, joining the Picacho Peak Camp in the Department of the Southwest of the SUVCW.  The SUVCW, with over 6,000 members, is the successor organization to the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), the organization of Civil War veterans formed at the conclusion of that conflict.

The SUVCW is a Congressionally chartered non-profit corporation with three missions; Patriotic Education; Honoring Union Veterans and Veterans of all U.S. conflicts; and Preserving and Perpetuating the Grand Army of the Republic. 

To become a full member of the SUVCW, one must be a direct descendant of someone who served in the U.S. military during the Civil War, and such ancestry goes through a rigorous vetting process before a membership application is accepted. 

Because all of my ancestors arrived after the Civil War, I am eligible to become an associate member of the organization.  Several members of the SUVCW are members of our Roundtable and having spoken to two of the three camps in Arizona, I was very honored to be asked to join as an associate.

I know my parents and my grandparents would all be very pleased with my membership in the SUVCW, given how proud they were to be Americans, and how they honored those who established and sought to preserve the Union. The posts that I've done on my paternal and maternal grandfathers make that clear. 

24 Hours Back From Tulsa

Have a friend here in Phoenix who is a fellow music lover and also a fan of Bob Dylan.  We'd talked about visiting the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa (Dylan's archives are in Tulsa because that's where Woody Guthrie's archive and museum is).  Earlier this year he found out that Billy Strings (another mutual favorite) was playing a Tulsa concert on December 10 so we decided to make a road trip.

Fortunately, Southwest Airlines has direct flight to Tulsa, so on the afternoon of the 10th we flew there and attended Billy's concert that night.  I'd seen him once before and have watched endless live videos on YouTube.  Billy and his band don't have a warm up act.  They start at 8 and end around 11, with a 20 minute break in the middle.  One of the things I like best about his music is though I only recognized about a 1/3 of the songs, everything they played was incredible.  The rest of the group; mandolin, bass, banjo, and fiddle are as talented as Billy. We, like most of the audience, spent most of the concert on our feet.  

We were in the 12th row of seats but in front of us was an area without seats where fans can stand for the entire concert.  At the end of the show, Billy slid off the stage and hung out with the folks in that area.

His shows are a magical experience.  Will see him again.  Upon returning to AZ realized the concert marked exactly 4 years since I first heard Billy Strings (read Away From The Mire).

One of the last songs Billy played was Don't Think Twice, It's Allright.  Appropriate since we visited the Dylan Center the next morning.

The exhibits at the Dylan Center take you through Bob's career and are set up in an entertaining fashion.  It includes previously unavailable photos, recording takes, letters, and drafts of lyrics, along with videos from Dylan interviews.

The special exhibit was Dylan Goes Electric, sparked by the movie A Complete Unknown and Elijah Wald's excellent book Dylan Goes Electric!, by itself worth visiting.  The highlight was a film about the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, the first part of which consists of interviews with some of the surviving key players (and their conflicting memories) and culminates with Dylan's entire performance that night which consisted of three electric tunes (Maggie's Farm, Like A Rolling Stone, It Takes a Lot To Laugh It Takes a Train to Cry) and the two acoustic tunes he came back out to play to calm the audience down, It's All Over Now Baby Blue, and Mr Tambourine Man.

All the interviewees recount that the Newport sound system was awful and Dylan's vocals were inaudible during the electric set. However, in the film the sound has been remastered so you can clearly hear the vocals and, it turns out, Dylan was in fine form.

Listening to Baby Blue when Dylan returned to the stage, it's unmistakeably meant as a warning to the hardcore folkie contingent who disdained his turn to electric that The Times They Are a-Changin'.   

Leave your steppingstones behind there
Something calls for you
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, Baby Blue 

We had enough time before our flight to make a brief visit to the Guthrie Center which is next door to Dylan.

Billy plays most of his solos with eyes closed.

Lyrics from Mr Tambourine Man with Dylan's handwritten changes inserting "in the jingle-jangle morning).  Below is the Cash Box Top 100 for the week in September 1965 when Like A Rolling Stone displaced The Beatles Help! at Numero Uno.  The Top Ten also includes another Dylan song, It Ain't Me Babe by The Turtles at 7.

Below: Pete Seeger is often portrayed as strongly objecting to Dylan's turn to electric.  Pete's contention is that his objection to Dylan at Newport was that the electric music was so loud it drowned out Dylan's lyrics.  This is a 1968 letter from Pete to his father about the recent release of Dylan's album John Wesley Harding.  I really like the last paragraph: "Maybe Bob Dylan will be like Picasso, surprising us every few years with a new period.  I hope he lives as long."  He has done so.  If you are in any doubt listen to Oh Mercy (1989), Time Out Of Mind (1997), Love and Theft (2001), and Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020).

 

24 Hours From Tulsa

 Exactly.