... and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?

Old songs keep being reinvented, yes?  As I read the NY Times this morning, St. Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" began to swirl through my consciousness again and again - especially that staggering chorus in which the Poet spits out an invective with such cold clarity and  contempt that it is palpable even 45 years later.  "And something is happening here and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?" 

+ The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to three African/Arab women - Tawakkul Karman of Yemen, Liberian President Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee - and we in the West are stunned. (See Karman's interview on Al-Jazeera @ http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/2011107113313247492.html#.TpMYF_a4MhA.blogger)

Sure their revolutions - and peace movements - are incomplete; but each woman has clearly defined a new way of wielding power in the world on behalf of the wounded and forgotten.  Each has defied misogyny and death threats, too.  God bless them!

+ Dr. Cornel West and TV host Tavis Smiley conduct an 11 state "Poverty Tour" that goes largely unnoticed by the main stream media - until the US Census Bureau releases figures that 1 in 6 Americans now live under the poverty live.  This is the highest percentage of US citizens living without adequate food, shelter, income and support in the bureaus history.  Smiley notes, "The new poor are the former middle class." (A new PBS series featuring the tour and a deep analysis will air over the next five days. Check it out @ http://www.tavistalks.com/)  No wonder the current Republican cabal in Washington wants to defund public broadcasting...

+ And what about the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations that spread to every major and minor city in the USA over the weekend?  Sure, they are wildass and unfocused.  Of course, there are some strange characters coming from the way fringe of the counter culture.  And without a doubt, they are easily denigrated.  But they also represent the anger, fear, frustration and hope of those who understand that our bottom-line obsession with possession and greed is strangling our country.  And that - albeit in the refined tones of polite culture - more and more of us agree upon:  the page one articles of the Sunday NY Times all agree that the time has come for America to rethink who we are because the old ways are not working.  (see http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/sunday-review/the-depression-if-only-things-were-that-good.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2)

The verses of Dylan's song practically leap into action in the truth behind these stories:

Now you see this one-eyed midget
Shouting the word "NOW"
And you say, "For what reason ?"
And he says, "How ?"
And you say, "What does this mean ?"
And he screams back, "You're a cow
Give me some milk or else go home".
Because something is happening
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones ?

I can't help of thinking about Brother Gil Scott-Heron's "The Revolution Will NOT Be Televised," either.  This was only a little bit tongue-in-cheek when he created it - and not at ALL tongue in cheek today.  (Rest in peace, dear brother...)

Apparently our friends at Judson Memorial Church in the heart of Greenwich Village had a sense of where the Spirit was blowing this weekend.  They joined the Occupy Wall Street crowd and brought along a "golden bull."  How wild that the suggested Old Testament text for this past Sunday involved the fears and greed and self-absorption of Israel during a time when Moses was at prayer?  The says that as their trusted but crusty leader prayed to the Lord in quiet, they lost focus and melted the gold taken out of Egypt into a golden calf - a fertility idol - and began to dance and drink and worship a fetish rather than the true God of hope and liberation.  God bless you, too, Judson Memorial.

I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
  and your sons and daughters shall prophesy,
  your old men and women shall dream dreams
And your children will see visions (about a better way?)
Even upon the male and female slaves (the poor? the unemployed? the underemployed? those without health care? all of the above?)
  I will pour out my spirit in those days... says the Lord.

 
Brings to mind another old song, don't you think?