May
24
2026

May He Stay Forever Young

[Mr. Dylan]

Bob Dylan turns 85 today. Can anything new be said about the guy? Maybe, and maybe someone out there has done so, but that would be beyond my talents.

So I won't even try, but instead recycle a Mark Steyn article originally written in 2001. Yes, math wizards, a quarter of a century ago: How Does It Feeeeeeeelllll?.

He has, of course, looked famously unhealthy for years, even by the impressive standards of Sixties survivors. He was at the Vatican not so long ago and, although we do not know for certain what the Pope said as the leathery, wizened, stooped figure with gnarled hands and worn garb was ushered into the holy presence, it was probably something along the lines of, "Mother Teresa! But they told me you were dead!" "No, no, your Holiness," an aide would have hastily explained. "This is Bob Dylan, the voice of a disaffected generation."

It is not for me to join the vast army of Dylanologists who've been poring over his songs for 30 years. As Bob himself once said, "They are whatever they are to whoever's listening to them." End of story. But it does seem to me that, while most rock stars pursue eternal youth, Dylan has always sought premature geezerdom. The traditional elderly rocker look is best exemplified by Gram'pa Rod Stewart: peroxide hair with that toss-a-space-heater-in-the-bathtub look, tight gold lamé pants with extravagant codpiece, pneumatic supermodel on your arm. By contrast, Bob, barely out of his teens, consciously adopted an aged singing voice and the experience it implied, a quintessentially Dylanesque jest on pop's Peter Pan ethos.

Mr. Dylan has scheduled a New Hampshire concert on July 18. I've never seen him live. Tempting!

Also of note:

  • Maria, I suggest careful study of Matthew 7:3-5. The College Fix reports on a Nobel prizewinner who is not Bob Dylan: Nobel laureate who compared Israel to Nazi Germany: State of free expression in U.S. is ‘horrific’.

    The Filipino 2021 Nobel Peace Prize recipient who once compared Israel to Nazi Germany told the Dartmouth College student paper this past week the state of free expression in the U.S. is “horrific.”

    Maria Ressa, who was in town to give the keynote speech at Dartmouth’s Division of Institutional Diversity and Equity Social Justice Awards, told The Dartmouth “I think we are living through the Filipinization of America. America has long been the beacon of freedom and democracy that you aspire to.

    “It’s horrific to see that change and to see the country that anchored the post-World War II world begin to destroy it. I’m shocked to see Americans afraid to speak out.”

    Jonathan Turley, like Jesus did, points out Maria's hypocritical bullshit: Ressa at Dartmouth : Anti-Free Speech Figure Calls the State of Free Speech in the U.S. “Horrific”.

    In the global anti-free speech movement, Maria Ressa stands apart. The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner and Columbia professor has used her celebrated position to call for censorship in the name of tolerance and diversity. She is showered with accolades as she calls for curtailing speech with a highly sophisticated, though at times Orwellian, pitch. In the cause of tolerance, she calls for viewpoint intolerance, particularly in the regulation of speech on the Internet.

    That was evident this week as she spoke at Dartmouth’s Division of Institutional Diversity and Equity Social Justice Awards. The most insidious aspect of this campaign is how academic and other groups regularly portray Ressa as a free speech advocate.

    A couple of years ago, I spoke at the World Forum in Berlin on free speech. It would be my first in-person exposure to Maria Ressa, the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who also spoke about free speech. However, as I wrote at the time, rather than an ally on free speech, I found a diehard advocate for censorship. Ressa has been embraced by Europeans as a champion of speech regulations, using her status to call for limiting speech around the world.

    And, of course, it's shocking that Dartmouth still hands out something called the "Division of Institutional Diversity and Equity Social Justice Awards".

  • Speaking of hypocritical bullshit… Eric Boehm says J.D. Vance might need to brush up on those Jesus words. Trump's corruption is brazen, obvious, and costly. Will enough Republicans try to stop him?

    While addressing a crowd of manufacturing workers in Missouri this week, Vice President J.D. Vance detailed how his staff is tirelessly working to root out fraud in the federal government.

    "There is a simple principle that I have, which is: If you are committing fraud against the American people, you should go to prison," Vance said.

    After waiting for the cheers to die down, he continued, "If you are a public official, and you are not fighting against fraud, you ought to have your money taken away, because [officials] should not be able to steal from all of you."

    Eric details how the $1.776 Billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" "should be one of the biggest scandals in presidential history" and is "brazenly corrupt". And he doesn't even mention the IRS audit immunity that went along with it.

    So, if you need reminding about that, check it out. And we'll skip to the bottom line:

    Outright public corruption is a problem on its own terms, of course. It means fewer tax dollars are available for public services, and causes capital investments to be misallocated because of cronyist considerations.

    It also undermines the norms and institutions that are supposed to prevent corruption—and, thus, encourages more of it. Sure, roll your eyes at the "norms" all you want, but there doesn't appear to be any law or rules that prevent a president from suing his own Justice Department and then settling the lawsuit and pocketing a ton of taxpayers' money. Dozens of other men have held the presidency without doing that. Now that one has, it becomes easier for the next to do it too.

    This is a slide that must be stopped before it gets worse. Conservatives who hand-wave Trump's corruption with whataboutism, focused on Biden or Hillary Clinton or anyone else, are doing the opposite of that. Ignoring Trump's corruption will invite more and worse from him and others.

    And the next time Vance talks about how this administration is focused on reducing fraud in government, he should be booed and laughed off stage.