Bob Dylan: Slow train coming

Dylan's "Slow train coming" is definitely one of my all time favorite songs. I love the monotony of the heavy rhythm and I love the lyrics.

There is something very powerful in the image of a slow mass coming towards you with unstoppable force. No matter what you do, it will appear from behind the bend and will reach you.

Slow train coming: The lyrics

Sometimes I feel so low-down and disgusted
Can't help but wonder what's happenin' to my companions,
Are they lost or are they found, have they counted the cost it'll take to bring down
All their earthly principles they're gonna have to abandon?
There's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend.

I had a woman down in Alabama,
She was a backwoods girl, but she sure was realistic,
She said, "Boy, without a doubt, have to quit your mess and straighten out,
You could die down here, be just another accident statistic."
There's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend.

All that foreign oil controlling American soil,
Look around you, it's just bound to make you embarrassed.
Sheiks walkin' around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings,
Deciding America's future from Amsterdam and to Paris
And there's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend.

Man's ego is inflated, his laws are outdated, they don't apply no more,
You can't rely no more to be standin' around waitin'
In the home of the brave, Jefferson turnin' over in his grave,
Fools glorifying themselves, trying to manipulate Satan
And there's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend.

Big-time negotiators, false healers and woman haters,
Masters of the bluff and masters of the proposition
But the enemy I see wears a cloak of decency,
All non-believers and men stealers talkin' in the name of religion
And there's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend.

People starving and thirsting, grain elevators are bursting
Oh, you know it costs more to store the food than it do to give it.
They say lose your inhibitions, follow your own ambitions,
They talk about a life of brotherly love, show me someone who knows how to
live it. There's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend.

Well, my baby went to Illinois with some bad-talkin' boy she could destroy
A real suicide case, but there was nothin' I could do to stop it,
I don't care about economy, I don't care about astronomy
But it sure do bother me to see my loved ones turning into puppets,
There's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend.

Putin delivering the Judo chop ... in socks

Ever noticed how Vladimir Putin (yes, the Russian president/prime minister) wears socks on this famous photo in a judo uniform? To be sure, the socks are white and match the judogi but Judo is one of those rare sports, like swimming, that is done without socks.

And on the second photo, he is not even wearing a uniform. Again, the blue socks match his all around blue clothes.

Identifying rats and mice

I am looking at this chart called "Field identification of domestic rodents" which is essentially a picture of different kinds of rats and a mouse. I never knew how they differed and, lo, here is a nice and clever visual aid to show what the difference between the various kinds is.

The only problem is that to me they pretty much look alike. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, who prepared this helpful aid, apparently used the same clipart picture to show the rats. They only resized them and, looking at them on the screen, I can only visualize sizes in comparison. So to identify a rat in real life, I would have to see at least two different kinds at the same time. Perhaps even more. I see the little scale at the left bottom corner but I am just not good at these abstract things.

So I started looking for differences. This is like one of those games where you have to spot seven differences between two images of Clint Eastwood or whoever. And I found that the Norway Rat has a slightly blunt nose and a smaller ear. You can really only see the differences when you read the text. Then you notice the length of the tail, etc.

Whale explodes in Taiwan

A dead whale exploded in the city of Tainan, located in southern Taiwan. The photo shows how internal organs are splattered all over the street. The explosion was due to putrefying internal organs which created gases and the mounting pressure eventually burst the dead whale open. People living and working in the neighborhood had to wear masks to cope with the overwhelming stench.

I know that a whale is not a fish but it might still smell like one. And the smell of rotting fish in a warm climate is definitely not a pleasant thing.

I guess this shows that whales are meant to rot on the streets of a large city, it is not their real habitat. I am sure Taiwanese bypassers will not want to eat whale meat for a while (even though this particular whale was intended to be not eaten but researched).

Oh, and before you get all excited about current events, this happened four years ago, in January of 2004. I am only posting what happened here because I like whales.

Slave trade in Yunnan

This description of the slave trade in Yunnan is over 130 years old.

Tali-foo, as well as Yunnan-foo, were also famous as slave markets to which dealers from Canton, Soo-chow, near Shanghai, and even Pekin itself, resorted for the purchase of female children, numbers of whom were brought for sale by the different tribes visiting the annual fairs, who in their wars look upon women and girls as valuable booty. Caravans, sometimes numbering several hundreds of girls purchased in the neighbourhood of these cities, started regularly every year for the different places I have mentioned, and so great became the traffic in girls, that the authorities in every large town along the routes from Tali-foo to Yunnan-foo appointed officers whose duty it was to inspect the caravans before they were allowed to enter the towns, so as to guard against the introduction of epidemics to which the human merchandise was too often expressed, as they were exposed in the journey to all kinds of privations, fatigue, and cruelty. Although the laws of China do not countenance slave dealing in the true sense of the word, the caravans of girls which left Yunnan were a source of too great wealth to the mandarins for them to enforce the strict letter of the law.

When a caravan was found to be infected with any contagious disease, admission into all towns and villages was forbidden them, and then, dragging along their weary journey by day in all weathers, ill-clad and ill-fed, the older girls might be seen carrying the smaller ones, who were either sick or too young to walk and keep up with the caravan ; and at nightfall, when encamped under the canopy of heaven, the poor creatures, after a scanty meal, would huddle together, the sick with the sound, and thus day by day the caravan would proceed, leaving behind it a long trail of dead and dying, who, by way of burial, became a prey to the packs of hungry wolves which always followed in the rear of the caravans.

(Geographical Journal, Vol. XV, 1870-71, p. 165).