The song “Walking the Dog” was popular during my youth. Until I looked it up on the internet, I didn’t know it had been written by Rufus Thomas in 1963, performed here in 1965. The Rolling Stones covered it on an album in 1964, and performed it live in this black-and-white classic. Jackie Shane also covered it in 1965, and so did The Sonics. PJ Proby sang it about the same time, and it was performed by Johnny Rivers, the Everly Brothers, and Davy Graham in in the mid 1960s.
The version I’m familiar with came later, and was quite different in style: It appeared on Aerosmith’s first album in 1973 (My school bus driver, Mr. Price, played it regularly), and Aerosmith still performs it in concert decades later. The 1970s also saw the song covered by Roger Daltry, Dr. Feelgood, and John Cale.
In the 1980s, Ratt added the song to their repertoire, performed here in 1991.
In the early 1990s, the band Green Day covered it (above) as a demo for their Dookie album. Listening to this performance, it’s hard to imagine this is the same band that more recently released the widely-praised album, American Idiot, but here it is for your consideration.
Walking the Dog has no deep meaning that I can discern. But it’s a fun song, and that seems to have kept it alive through multiple generations of rock and rollers.
Irises in bloom suggest that, after a winter that wouldn’t quit, spring may finally be here.
Siberian pea shrubs, one of the few shrubs we’ve had good luck with, also in bloom.
Another hackberry in bloom. The hackberries are a very hardy tree, the only one we’ve had 100% success with. Most others, including fruit trees, we’ve had 100% failure.
“Throughout Egyptian history, the king is seen to be a force keeping disorder at bay through his relationship with the gods and his strength and power.” (Cheryl Perry, Egypt: Land & Lives of the Pharaohs Revealed, p48)
That’s seemingly the great fear of all societies: disorder. The implied threat of bucking a string central government is that chaos would reign. And so it has been for thousands of years. As the Israelites told the prophet Samuel in the face of the threat of the Philistines:
“We are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.” (1 Samuel 8:19-20)
The United States is no different. We fear chaos and disorder, enemies from within and without, far more than we fear giving all our liberty to a strong central government.
The Israelites endured the abuses of Saul David, and Solomon before they rebelled (1 Kings 12), seceding from the House of Judah. But, still blinded by fear of chaos, they immediately chose a new king to reign over them, and the two kings warred with each other throughout their lifetimes. (1 Kings 14:30)
When Israel first asked Samuel for a king, Samuel went to the Lord, who observed,
“[T]hey have rejected me from being king over them.”
Choosing a strong central government is an act contrary to faith, for if we trust in God, why would we need a king, pharaoh, or powerful president to keep us safe?
In the video above, Max Blumenthal interviews tea partiers at the Washington gathering last September. As Blumenthal no doubt intended, many of the interviewees make nonsensical comments, contradict themselves, or take absurd positions.
Comments about the video from liberals suggest that they see the Tea Partiers as a force to be feared, irrational and potentially violent.
When I watch this video, I see people who are tired, who know they don’t like what they see, but who have no idea how to change it. They are people searching for an answer, a leader, a way out. They are low-hanging fruit, ripe for the picking.
The Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs of this country know that. They offer a simple answer, and people listen.
And they have no competition.
Watching this video, I find myself asking, where are all the would-be leftist organizers who talk of unifying the working class? I know aren’t going door to door, talking to these people, because some of these folks are my neighbors. The Left seems content to dismiss and ridicule them.
Having lived among liberals for many years, I understand that to them the things the tea partiers say and do may seem irrational.
In Sri Lanka, events often suggested the leaders of one party or another, or entire groups of people, were irrational. Much of the world’s media dismissed serious analysis of that war because it appeared incomprehensible. But by talking to the various stakeholders to learn where they are coming from, and analyzing that information sufficiently, I learned that few leaders or groups are truly irrational– just misunderstood.
Does the Left really believe that a third of our nation cannot be reasoned with? Do they suggest mass psychosis? Or do they hesitate because approaching rural America would require rethinking what American Liberalism is all about?
Anyone can guess that a stranger showing up with a “Ban Guns” t-shirt won’t get a warm reception outside the city. And in parts of the country where small businesses are the rule rather than the exception, unionization is worse than irrelevant– it’s threatening. Many of the key elements of the urban liberal platform simply don’t work in small towns. They require a different approach, which may be at odds with an urban agenda.
Would-be organizers may also realize that opening up to a person of a different background, experience, and perspective, in such a way that the other person will also open up, takes serious self-reflection, and risks almost certain change to ourselves and our firmly-held beliefs. And staying close to home is surely far easier than that.
This is the third in a series written by D. J. Mitchell and Susan Cain.
Susan has over 100 Muslim and Arab friends on Facebook, from whom she is learning about their religion, their culture, and what it is like to be an average citizen in the countries in which they live.
One evening on Facebook, Susan saw the above video posted by Kareem Wagdi, one of her newer Arab friends. The video shows quotations, followed by photos of the Hollywood stars to whom the quotes are attributed. Although the text was written in Arabic, Susan could tell by Kareem’s comments in English that he was quite disgusted with its message. She told Kareem that although she was sure there were negative feelings in Hollywood, that there were others who had no ill feelings about Arabs and Muslims, and that many stars supported Arab causes. She also told him that (as is true with most Americans) she could not understand the Arabic that was written in this video.
Kareem responded that, according to the Arabic captions, some of the celebrities in the video made positive comments about Arabs, including Mel Gibson, Anthony Hopkins, George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Ralph Fiennes, and Sandra Bullock. But there were some very negative comments from others. We have located translations of the negative comments the video attributes to the following people:
Tom Cruise: “The Arabs are the source of terrorism because they haven’t left anyone that they haven’t attacked and I hope that Israel annihilates Hizballah.”
A representative of Mr. Cruise confirms that he never said that, and added, “Thanks for coming to us – what I just found on line is ridiculous.”
Richard Gere: “The Arabs are a parasite on the world and it’s necessary to exterminate them all.”
Gere is the founder of the humanitiarian Gere Foundation. In 2005, after several trips to Palestine in support of peace, Gere did a television spot on behalf of a Jewish peace group, encouraging Palestinians to vote.
Harrison Ford: “The Arabs are grotesque creatures and are less than animals and we the Jews are the natives of this world, so there’s no comparison.”
Here is what Ford has actually said, which was also carried on the English-language website Islam Online:
“I’m very disturbed about the direction American foreign policy is going. I think something needs to be done to help alleviate the conditions which have created a disenfranchised and angry faction in the Middle East. I don’t think military intervention is the correct solution. I regret what we as a country have done so far.”
It’s clear that the video seriously misrepresents the views of these Hollywood celebrities, presumably for the purpose of showing how bigoted and racist we Americans are. And it would be easy to dismiss such obvious propaganda– but we can’t afford to. The YouTube video above has been viewed almost 400,000 times in two years. That’s over 500 views per day, every day, on this one video.
The website from which we obtained translations indicates that this propaganda has been circulating in email format since at least 2006. And a search of, for example, “Harrison Ford Arab quotes” will turn up plenty of discussion in English about the fictional quotes.
In a post-modern world of electronic communication, how is it possible that such untruthful propaganda would be believed by Arabs throughout the world? And how are we so unaware of it? First, all of us want to believe that what we hear and see through the independent sources on the internet is true. We want to trust it as a reliable non-commercial source of information. It isn’t. There are many good sources of information, and also many sources that are not reliable. Only through experience do we begin to learn the difference.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, is the language barrier. Arabic is the common language of the Islamic world, yet few Americans speak it. College enrollment in the study of Arabic language was only 1.5% of all college language study in 2006, up from just 0.7% in 2002. With no common language, we have no means to fact check what is being said on either side.
Taking advantage of these limitations, extremists use YouTube and other electronic media to spread the seeds of hate every day. Susan’s friend Kareem had no reason not to believe them. And until Kareem and Susan met on FaceBook, we didn’t know this was happening.
The internet in general, and YouTube in particular, is like an untended garden: truth can be found alongside misinformation. We must take care to nurture truth, to question our sources, or the weeds that sprout from the seeds of hatred will overpower it.
If your train’s on time, You can get to work by nine
And start your slaving job to get your pay
If you ever get annoyed, Look at me I’m self-employed
I love to work at nothing all day… (Bachman Turner Overdrive, performed here by the Guess Who)
“An upcoming wave of new workers in our society will never work for an established company if they can help it. To them, having a traditional job is one of the biggest career failures they can imagine.”
So wrote Michael S. Malone for The Wall Street Journal two years ago. And he had stunning statistics to back it up:
“Half of all new college graduates now believe that self-employment is more secure than a full-time job. Today, 80% of the colleges and universities in the U.S. now offer courses on entrepreneurship; 60% of Gen Y business owners consider themselves to be serial entrepreneurs, according to Inc. magazine. Tellingly, 18 to 24-year-olds are starting companies at a faster rate than 35 to 44-year-olds. And 70% of today’s high schoolers intend to start their own companies…”
And that’s a good thing, right? Entrepreneurship is the backbone of the American economy. According to Census data, more than 90% of all U.S. businesses have 4 or fewer employees, compared with 0.4% that have 100 employees or more.
The SBA categorizes a small business as having fewer than 500 employees– which kind of tells you where our government’s head is at. Still, SBA says that small businesses account for more than half of all U.S. employees at 60.2 million, paid 44% of U.S. payroll, and 64% of new job creation. That’s not including some 23 million non-employee business owners who make their living in small business.
So if small business makes such a great contribution to the economy, why does our government seem to hate small business so much? It has some very practical reasons.
First, consider the political challenges faced by elected officials and those aspiring to public office. In order to garner votes, they must raise cash quickly and efficiently. Some, like Howard Dean, have done so using the internet to reach out to individuals. But a far more efficient means is to appeal to a few small, wealthy businesses. Consider: the same census data cited above shows that those small businesses that make up 90% of American business, bring in less than 1% of the gross receipts. But businesses having 100 employees or more brings in 70% of the gross receipts. The divergence gets even more striking: 50% of gross receipts are earned by companies with 2,500 employees or more, a mere 3,500 of America’s more than 25 million businesses. As a politician, would you rather approach 3,500 wealthy businesses for a contribution, or try to chase down 25 million small business owners?
Now consider the all-important function of taxation and revenue. Half the gross receipts are earned by businesses with fewer than 2,500 employees (25 million), and half are earned by those businesses with 2,500 employees or more (3,500). When the IRS sends auditors into the field to ensure that everyone is paying their fair share, their budgeters are concerned about how much return they’ll get for their efforts. They know that many small businesses cheat on their taxes– but they don’t have enough auditors to check up on everyone, and when they do, the returns aren’t worth the effort. There’s a much bigger bang for the buck auditing large firms. Says Kiplinger’s Tax Letter, “Audits of Schedule C filers yielded 43% less revenue per hour than exams conducted on other types of entities.” Wage earners, too, are far simpler than small businesses– in fact the new IRS tax preparer regulation program will require preparers to pass a specific test to qualify to prepare small business returns.
I’ve seen this focus on return on investment in action at the IRS. During a heated discussion with an audit subject, the auditor acknowledged that the IRS intended to make an example of the client in order to discourage other similar businesses. Said the auditor, “We don’t think businesses like this should exist. You’re too small.” (I’m betting he wasn’t supposed to say that.)
There’s one more reason our government prefers you to work for a large corporation rather than be self-employed: it keeps you off the streets. Consider this quote from a report from on a recent tea party event in the Boston area:
“Most of the people at the Tea Party rally said they were either unemployed or self-employed, and so were able to come to Boston in the middle of the day on a Wednesday.”
Corporate employees who are punching the clock are a lot less likely to skip work for a march or protest. And when everyone, left and right, is angry at the government, you don’t want them out on the streets.
Put it all together, and it’s no wonder our government would prefer to stem the tide of entrepreneurship. Life would be so much easier for them if we all clocked in every day.
Since its inception, AL has been hosted on GoDaddy.com using their QuickBlog (now Quickblogcast) software. I was never very happy with it, and over the years it’s gotten slower, less reliable, and more cumbersome to work with. Meanwhile, I worked on two other blogs that used WordPress. There really is no comparison.
Now that my renewal date is approaching, it’s time to make the move. Starting June 1, I will have moved completely into the WordPress universe.
The most obvious change will be in the appearance– WordPress allows far more customization. Almost as obvious will be the lack of older posts. There’s no utility that I’m aware of to move posts from QuickBlogCast to WordPress. I’m saving the text of all the posts to disk. The most popular posts I’ll duplicate immediately. Others I’ll reproduce when they become relevant.
One other change: Although your bookmarks to my home page will still work, links to individual blog posts will no longer function. That’s because I’ve switched hosting to WordPress as well, and all the URLs will change.
For most readers, the changes will be in appearance only. (Although with a faster and less cumbersome program, I may be inspired to write more posts.) For other bloggers and webmasters who have linked here, I apologize for the inconvenience.
An asymptote is a curve that approaches a line but never gets there. In the same way, life is a journey in which continual
progress is possible, but never perfection: in spirituality, environmentalism, and the quest for peace. These are reflections on the journey, as well as comments and photos from my home in rural
Southern Utah. Guest posts appear occasionally.
Constructive commentary is welcome. Comments may be moderated by the author.
All photos by the author unless otherwise indicated by caption or link.
Recent Comments