On the death of David Bowie and Bob Dylan

Last night, for the first time, I saw Bob Dylan in an advert on either television or YoutTube, I don't remember which.  I searched and found it just now on YouTube.  It's an advert for some IBM product.  Here it is:

Poor fella. He must be broke. 

So anyway, this morning a friend of mine woke me with a text message to say "Bowie dead". Now I don't know if Bowie ever did tv or YouTube or any other kind of adverts but I certainly don't remember any. I gave up on Bowie in the mid-seventies when I found his image changes kind of crassly commercial. Dylan on the other hand seemed kind of deep for a time. It wasn't til the late seventies/early eighties I lost patience with him and then I think it was over politics or religion or maybe both.

In all the coverage I have seen today about David Bowie's career he did seem to come across as a man of considerable artistic integrity, except for one low point that he himself alluded to in an interview and that was his disco period. I wonder if Dylan has the same self-awareness.

UPDATE: I've changed the Bob Dylan/IBM video from the short version to the extended version. I had to download the extended and then upload it because it couldn't be embedded. Maybe it'll get snaffled soon enough in which case follow the links.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tony Greenstein has an interesting take on the passing of David Bowie with a bit of context explaining why he was/is such a hit with the media:

It is noticeable how, in his death, Bowie has been hailed as the ultimate rebel by the BBC and the corporate media.  It suggests that his rebellion was one of style not substance.

 The post is subtitled, Ziggy's flirtation with fascism.

US Medal of Freedom for neighbourhood bullies

See, it's right there in the USA Today headline:

Bob Dylan, John Glenn Among Medal of Freedom Winners

Hmm, that can't be right. I've never heard anything about John Glenn singing or being a neighbourhood bully.  But my headline says "bullies".  Now Bob Dylan wrote a nasty hasbara song called Neighbourhood Bully so he must be one of them.  


But what's this Medal of Freedom all about?

From civil rights to government service, from the author of Beloved to the composer of The Times They Are A-Changin', President Obama honored 13 individuals on Tuesday who have made singular contributions to national life.

And who else is on the list?

Some of recipients are well-known cultural icons. Nobel Prize-winning writer Toni Morrison, author of Beloved, Jazz, and Song of Solomon, has a new book on the best seller lists: Home, the story of a Korean War veteran who returns to his racially segregated town in Georgia.

So that's three so far and only one under the heading neighbourhood bully. So any more?

Other pioneers honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom included Madeleine Albright, the first female Secretary of State.....


Other recipients: John Paul Stevens, the third longest-serving justice on the Supreme Court, who wore his trademark bow tie of the ceremony; William Foege, a physician who led the charge to eradicate smallpox during the 1970s......


Attorney John Doar represented the government in some of the toughest civil rights cases of the 1960s, from murders in Mississippi to the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march in Alabama.....

Dolores Huerta helped organize migrant farm workers along with Cesar Chavez..... 

Three of this year's Medal of Freedom honorees are deceased.


Two of them defined heroism during World War II: Gordon Hirabayashi, who defied the U.S. internment of Japanese citizens, and took the government to court; and Jan Karski of Poland, who delivered one of the first eyewitness accounts of the Nazi Holocaust against Jews.


Obama also honored Juliette Gordon Low, who founded the Girl Scouts a century ago this year.

Ok, we're populating our list of 13. We even have some who could qualify as neighbourhood bully. How many have we now?  I make it eleven. So who else:

The sports world was also honored: Pat Summitt, the Tennessee women's basketball coach who retired this year after a diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease.

Well Madeleine Albright did a good bit of bullying in her time but not usually in her own neighbourhood and we still only have twelve recipients of this presidential award for "individuals .... who have made singular contributions to national life." So who is this neighbourhood bully, number 13 on the list? Who is this person who has made a "singular contribution to national life" worthy of a US Presidential Medal of Freedom?

Israeli President Shimon Peres, lauded for his efforts to find Middle East peace, is another recipient of the Medal of Freedom. Peres did not attend the ceremony because of obligations back home.

Or maybe the USA is flirting with universal jurisdiction. USA Today had more to say about the racist war criminal, Peres:

Israel President Shimon Peres -- An ardent advocate for Israel's security and for peace, Shimon Peres was elected the ninth President of Israel in 2007. First elected to the Knesset in 1959, he has served in a variety of positions throughout the Israeli government ... Peres served as Prime Minister from 1984-1986 and 1995-1996. Along with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then-PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Peres won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for his work as Foreign Minister during the Middle East peace talks that led to the Oslo Accords."

Ok, all very interesting but how does any of that count as a "singular contribution to national life" in the USA?