Vis a vis the demise of Dan Rather (today he says sayonara) and the radical movement toward democracy that’s taking root in the Middle East, I’d like to advise some of my friends among the dead enders to consult the prophet of the 60s, Mr. Bob Dylan:
Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
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 line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.
When The Independent and the New York Times see what’s happening but you don’t, perhaps you need to open the Doors of Perception.
Just a thought.
Very appropriate application of the Dylan tune to Rather and the other lefty old-media dinosaurs. (tho Dylan, IMHO, can’t sing worth a damn and is vastly overrated)
Can’t sing, yes, but not at all over-rated. Allen Ginsberg and I once agreed that Dylan is one of the great poets of the 20th century, certain to be anthologized along with Eliot and Pound (and Ginsberg himself.) We may have been baked at the time, but it’s still a valid insight.
Right on, Richard.
BTW, have you read Dylan’s memoirs, “Chronicles, Volume One”? If you haven’t, it’s a great read. Check it out.