Bob Dylan Releases Traditional (Almost) Christmas Album

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I thought I entered the Twlight Zone the other day when I heard the first cut from the new and first Bob Dylan Christmas album. I grew up in the state next to where Dylan came from, in Iowa, and he became quite the legend for a lot of reasons. But traditional Christmas was not one of them.



It's true he drifted in and out of his Jewish faith and even got into Christianity at one point, including performing before Pope John Paul II. But Dylan is Dylan and one never knew what to expect next. When you hear him singing Latin on this album you will simply not believe it.



Typical Dylan, every cent in royalty goes to feeding the homeless of the world. So for Dylan fans and those who whould be Dylan fans, I have included an interesting review of the album and two music videos of the songs. If you double click on the music videos it will enlarge the video. You may not believe your eyes and ears.



Bob Dylan: Christmas in the Heart

Bob Dylan and carols is a cocktail that really shouldn't work – especially not in Latin. But Richard Williams finds himself seduced by a punk-Dickensian Santa

Richard Williams
Guardian.co.uk
Thursday 10 December 2009 15.08 GMT

Quirky or turkey? ... Dylan's first Christmas album represents yet another erratic departure



There used to be a civilised convention among reviewers – perhaps there still is, in some sectors of the arts – that performances given for the benefit of charity were exempt from the normal process of criticism. They could be reported, and admired when appropriate, but not dissected or evaluated in the usual way. Since the proceeds from the sales of Bob Dylan's Christmas album will be devoted to feeding homeless people in every territory in which it is released, the critic is clearly not entitled to consider beginning his review with the celebrated single-line exclamation employed by Greil Marcus to open his Rolling Stone review of Dylan's Self Portrait back in 1970: "What is this shit?"



A similar reaction might be the normal, unthinking reponse to the news that the author of A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall and The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll has chosen to offer for public enjoyment his versions of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, The First Noel, O Little Town of Bethlehem and Adeste Fideles/O Come, All Ye Faithful, its first verse sung in Latin, with characteristic inflections: "Ven-EE-tay ador-ay-MOOSE." Yet here they are, along with their secular equivalents such as The Little Drummer Boy, Winter Wonderland and Mel Torme's The Christmas Song ("Chestnuts roasting on an open fire/ Jack Frost nipping at your nose …"), in arrangements calculated not to disturb the seasonal family gathering.

Getting on for half a century ago, no one painstakingly learning the chords to the young troubadour's anti-establishment broadsides could have imagined such an outcome. But ever since the abrupt move back to a simpler method of musical presentation with John Wesley Harding in 1968, Dylan's erratic progress has invited his listeners to poke away behind the surfaces of his apparently enigmatic behaviour. Perhaps the clue here is that "Jack Frost" has been the alias used in the production credits of his studio albums for the past dozen years, since Time Out of Mind. Or perhaps not. This time, perhaps enigmas and clues are beside the point.


Using his own excellent band and a group of singers whose mellifluous responses to his own rheumy growl hark back to the sounds of the Andrews Sisters, Dylan finds an appropriate setting for each of these Christmas chestnuts, from the reverent to the jovial. The blend of idioms is familiar from Love and Theft and Modern Times, in which he brought together elements of country, bluegrass and a sort of genteel salon music to provide a background to his renewed fondness for old-fashioned crooning.


The result is polished without being glib, and a sympathetic listener may find it addictive. The musicians Dylan brought to Britain earlier this year, augmented by David Hildalgo of Los Lobos on accordion, mandolin, violin and guitar, and the great Chicago session guitarist Phil Upchurch, whose earliest successes predate Dylan's own, distinguish themselves on even the most unpromising material. According to Hildalgo, quoted in the current issue of Uncut magazine, the sessions were both impromptu and highly concentrated: Dylan and the musicians listened to various recordings of each of the selections, and then decided on the best approach. It seems safe to say, however, that no one has ever tackled O Come All Ye Faithful quite like this.

Is he sincere? Does he mean it? Is this an ageing entertainer's Christmas gift to his grandchildren, or he is winding us up, knowing that at some time in the future he will repudiate it, as he did Self Portrait? When he sings with a perfectly straight face about the nativity ("Where meek souls will receive him/ Still the dear Christ enters in," for example), is it the product of a resurgence of his interest in Christianity, or simply intended to reflect a generic sense of holidaytime goodwill? You can only chuckle at his ability to keep us guessing when you turn past the conventional cover painting of a horse-drawn carriage speeding through snowdrifts to find a photograph of Bettie Page, the famous cheesecake model, dressed up in a Santa outfit complete with suspenders and bulging bra.



Sceptics should go to YouTube and watch the Must Be Santa video clip. This rollicking song, featuring a rattled-out list of US presidents, is set to a high-kicking shuffle rhythm, decorated by Hidalgo's exuberant Tex-Mex accordion, and delivered by Dylan as a sort of punk-Dickensian Father Christmas from amid the incipient mayhem of a slightly out-of-hand Christmas Eve party. More fun than Renaldo and Clara, for sure.

This is his Christmas, and he seems to want us to enjoy it. But when the grandchildren have left and the decorations have come down in the Dylan household, perhaps he can be persuaded to take a well-deserved break from recording and get on with the really important job of finishing Chronicles Vol 2.

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Sarah Palin Ends Tour on Tonight Show

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Sarah Palin completed her naitonal book tour with an appearance on the Tonight Show where Star Trek's William Shatner has been reading excerpts from Palin's book, Going Rogue. She returned the favor with a good natured reading from Shatner's biography to the delight of the crowd.



Then it was off to Alaska and two final stops at military bbases with the troops. Palin signed copies of her book during closed events at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage and Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks.



With well over one million copies sold and on her way to being the most successful political author of all time Palin finally gets to rest from the whirlwind tour and many national media stops.



This is what Sarah had to say on the Tonight Show as reported by Fox News.





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Obama Stuns Nobel Peace Audience - Becomes President at Last

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The Nobel Peace Prize committee in Oslo, Norway, the center of the universe for socialists, pacifists and USA bashers, took for granted that newly elected President Obama was in their back pocket when he was elected. Truth be told, his first 10 months in office saw a lot of reinforcement for their decision as Obama was constantly apologizing for America's past, blaming the Bush administration for everything, acting like he would meet whatever demands our enemies needed, and bemoaning the horrors of war.


So it was they gave him the Nobel Peace Prize. Yesterday he picked up the prize and stunned the international media with his address. In the process he took a giant leap forward in maturing as President of the United States, an evolution I have written about on a number of occasions. It was almost as if Obama finally realized he was the one who got elected, not his Chicago gang, not his army of special interests demanding favors and not the liberal elitists who thought they controlled him.


Yes, Barack Obama for the first time spoke as the representative of all the people of America and in the process he did the last thing the Nobels and nobles expected, he stood up for America. Obama turned a platform for world whiners into a proud and defining moment for America. There were no apologies, no defense of America, no bashing of Bush by this president.


He presented a sober and realistic overview of war, acknowledged that evil does exist in the world and it cannot be tolerated. Then he gave a ringing portrayal of America as the only nation who spent the last six decades carrying the burden of the world in providing security for everyone else, with our blood and our bullets. Combining his knowledge of theology and history with his constitutional background, for the first time he acted like, well, the leader of the free world and commander in chief of America.

The pacifists were stunned in Europe. So were the liberal Democrats and socialists back here at home. For a moment at least, Obama was the president for all the people of America and his ringing defense of the war in Afghanistan against world terrorism evoked memories of Reagan. All major Republicans and conservatives and even Sarah Palin acknowledged support and appreciation for what he said. Yes, there is such a thing as a "moral and just" war.


With a little luck Obama can come back and use the same independence and leadership to get control of Congress, get Wall Street regulated and punished, get meaningful health care reform instead of the Democratic nonsense being sold as reform, make green legislation beneficial to the public and not just the fat cat insiders, and maybe even get his Chicago gang to change their strong arm tactics and use a little conversation and compromise to govern our nation.

Much remains to be done and only he can take command from his underlings and congressional allies and make the deals necessary for our Republic to again dominate the world. People in America have shown they are disappointed with politicians and fed up with Wall Street. The only change we want right now is in the nasty rhetoric and senseless wheel spinning in Washington.


They should just shut up, let the nation heal itself, and then they can try and help. Fix the problems. We don't need new laws, radical new programs and a spiraling deficit. We have what we need. Just fix it! Until then, the record is clear. For the past year politicians, Wall Street and special interests have done everything possible to rip off America. They need to be put in their place.

Keep it up Mr. President...

What and Where in the World is the Coltons Point Times?

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It is a question I get occasionally and since there are so many new readers I want to address it. We are the only newspaper in the oldest continuously lived in chartered settlement in the colonial United States. Yes, older than Jamestown, older than Plymouth and older than St. Mary's City, places most people think of as the oldest. If you are not familiar with US history, the three places I mentioned all ceased to exist by the 1690's. That means we existed 142 years before our Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and went to war with England.


St. Clements Island just offshore from Coltons Point was the landing site for 321 colonists on two tiny ships, the Ark and the Dove, in 1634 and the area has been lived in ever since. It is also the first place in the world with religious freedom as the first English charter guaranteed religious toleration. We are also the site of the first landing of Roman Catholics, first Mass performed in the colonies, first Jesuit priests and the first colony to live peacefully with the Native Americans. If that isn't enough we are the site where the first relic from the True Cross of Jesus came to America and miracles were performed with it.


We are a quiet village of about 250 people on the Potomac River just before it reaches the Chesapeake Bay where the Potomac is seven miles wide. Though we are only 60 miles from Washington, DC there are no governments, no police, no traffic lights, no street lights, no sidewalks, no water, no sewer, no gas lines, no churches, no city hall, no fire department, no sirens, no bureaucrats of any kind and not much of anything in the way of commercial development. We value freedom and independence above all else. This year we celebrated our 375th anniversary although there was no ceremony.


None of that has anything to do with the Coltons Point Times (CPT) except I happen to live here. Before I found myself in Coltons Point about eight years ago I had lived in Iowa, Arizona, Nebraska, California, Washington, DC, Virginia, New Jersey and Kentucky. In addition I had worked several years in New York City and Nashville.


I've done so many things my resume defies belief including newspaper reporting, NYC advertising, politics (32 federal, state and local campaigns), working for presidents, governors, senators, congressmen, mayors, inventing green energy products in the 1970's (or before Gore), working for Democrats, Republicans and Independents, in computer security, writing (newspaper, books and songs), recording music and cancer research to name a few things.


Perhaps that is why the CPT seems to cover a lot of national and international issues. It may also explain why an online newspaper in one of the smallest villages in the USA has had over 110,000 readers this year. The last time I checked we had readers from 96 different nations, all 50 states and Washington, DC.


In the United States after Maryland our top 25 states by rank include California, Texas, New York, Florida, Virginia, Louisiana, Washington, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Arizona, New Jersey, Ohio, Massachusetts, Georgia, Minnesota, Connecticut, Colorado, Oregon, Tennessee, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Indiana.


International CPT readers by rank are the USA, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, Italy, India, Spain, Netherlands, Philippines, Romania, Brazil, Sweden, Poland, Switzerland, New Zealand, Turkey, Norway, Israel, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, Malaysia and South Africa along with 71 other nations.


The top cities where we are read outside of Maryland include St. Catharine's, Ontario Canada #1, Mountain View, CA (Silicon Valley), Washington, DC, London, England, NYC, Alexandria, VA, Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Houston, Bridgeport, CT, Nashville, Chicago and Paris, France.


Our mission is to tell the truth, be an independent voice, share interesting material with our readers and help keep you informed with the inside information on government, politics, science, health, housing, music and a whole bunch of other stuff. When the world stage gets boring we offer a little history and local color that may be of interest. We want to keep the news makers from politicians to news media, Wall Street to the Middle East honest and that has been a lot of work lately.


You may have noticed we are about the last newspaper on the internet to NOT allow those frustrating ads, banners, pop ups, video ads and all the other things created to track and annoy you. We do not require you to register because you have enough people already spying on you. I encourage you to check through our online archives as many stories are updated over time such as the House of Rothschild, Goldman Sachs and personalities like Obama.


Our national and international news distribution service reports that CPT articles hold the top three spots for most popular political stories of the year, four of the top ten political stories, seven of the top 20 political stories, and one CPT article on the Rothschilds and international finance is the 14th most viewed article of all time in all categories. They distribute hundreds of articles a day.


Reader comments are encouraged and responses will be given if needed. You can even ask me to email you privately in your comment and I will not post your email for the world to see. I have responded in numerous languages although the translations might be a little rough.


Since we do not accept advertising or do our own advertising people find us through searches for issues and images as we often have pretty entertaining photos and cartoons with our stories. You can set up an RSS news feed to your home page to get the latest headlines on articles I post.


Word of mouth is our strongest means of exposure and we would greatly appreciate it if you would tell your friends, family and associates about us and give them the site. Most search engines like Google can easily locate us by searching for the Coltons Point Times or you can click on: http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/ to directly connect.


We appreciate having you in our family and hope you check in for the latest news often. Thank you.

Jim Putnam, Publisher

Al Gore versus Sarah Palin - The Great Hot Air Debate

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America's most prominent conservationists squared off this week over Climategate and the future of global warming as Sarah Palin wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post, yes that same paper who made it a goal of wrecking her career, about the flaws with global warming and in particular the new disclosures that key scientists were making up statistics to prove humans cause global warming.

Of course Al Gore is the celebrated former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner who has continued to fool the news media as even today Andrea Mitchell, the NBC reporter who seems to think Gore can do no wrong and Palin no right, admiringly referred to Gore in an interview as former vice president and current environmentalist.



Has Andrea even read the flurry of articles about how Gore hijacked the global warming movement along with Goldman Sachs and turned it into a cash cow for lining his own pockets? Just this week Gore was booed out of a meeting in Ohio when he began pontificating about the cap and trade bill that will make him a billionaire. He's already a multi-millionaire as he made $100 million since losing the presidential race a couple of elections ago.

Fact is Mr. Gore may be the biggest loser ever for president as he converted his loss into being the $100 million environmental king to the liberals of the world. Did he tell the environmentalists and conservationists out on the front lines that he created a couple of investment funds that control the stock of most emerging green companies and stands to make billions of dollars if Obama can get the cap and trade bill through congress?



Seems the Jolly Green Giant didn't like Sarah Palin taking aim at his cherished movement and the lying scientists who made him rich so thanks to Andrea Mitchell who never misses a chance to make Palin look bad, she reported Gore blasted back calling Palin a "Denier" and claiming evidence over the past 20 years proves the Earth is warming.



The new Sarah Palin has a grasp of issues heretofore unknown to leftist liberals like Mr. Gore, she actually stands up for what she believes and has no intention of taking it from opportunists like Big Al. Politico's Andy Barr reported her response this morning.

From Politico

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin hit back at former Vice President Al Gore on Wednesday for calling her a global warming “denier.”

Speaking to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday, Gore criticized an op-ed Palin wrote for the Washington Post calling on President Barack Obama to boycott the global climate change conference in Copenhagen.

“The deniers are persisting in an era of unreality. The entire North Polar ice cap is disappearing before our eyes,” Gore said. “What do they think is happening?”

“It's a principle in physics,” Gore said of climate change. “It's like gravity, it exists.”



Palin took to her Facebook page late Wednesday to respond to Gore.

“Perhaps he’s right. Climate change is like gravity – a naturally occurring phenomenon that existed long before, and will exist long after, any governmental attempts to affect it,” Palin wrote. “However, he’s wrong in calling me a ‘denier.’ As I noted in my op-ed above and in my original Facebook post on Climategate, I have never denied the existence of climate change. I just don’t think we can primarily blame man’s activities for the earth’s cyclical weather changes.”

Palin then turned her response to the so-called “Climategate” story as evidence that scientific findings are “flawed, falsified, or inconclusive.”



“Former Vice President Gore also claimed today that the scientific community has worked on this issue for 20 years, and therefore it is settled science,” Palin wrote. “Well, the Climategate scandal involves the leading experts in this field, and if Climategate is proof of the larger method used over the past 20 years, then Vice President Gore seriously needs to consider that their findings are flawed, falsified, or inconclusive.”

“Vice President Gore, the Climategate scandal exists,” she added. “You might even say that it’s sort of like gravity: you simply can’t deny it.”

End of Politico article.



Since when did Al Gore find it necessary to attack Sarah Palin. Well, did you know Andrea Mitchell's environmentalist also owns his own television network? Did you know he also flies a private jet wherever he goes? A private jet, some environmentalist.

Gore's TV network has been viciously attacking Sarah Palin since going on the air recently as it seems she stands as a threat to expose his secret Wall Street partnerships and his Fat Cat status. They even have a cartoon about Palin called "The Stupid Virus".

In the Al Gore cartoon about Palin they call Sarah a Twilf, to demonstrate how Gore has a grasp of the Urban Dictionary texting age. What does it mean you might ask? Well probably not what you might expect from our former vice president and presidential hopeful.

According to the Urban Dictionary, Twift mean "one who farts in the bathtub and bites the bubbles." Other Internet sources claim it means a "disgraceful, sexually-charged epithet". That is the mindset of our former VP and nation's environmentalist.

When the liberal media complains about the hostile and downright nasty political environment in current politics they must be talking about the Al Gore's of the world and their juvenile, even mean spirited attacks on people like Sarah Palin who are just trying to defend the people with no voice in Washington.

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Liberals Choke on Own Words as Sarah Palin Catches Obama in Polls

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For well over a year the liberal media has been trying to complete the destruction of Sarah Palin in the eyes of the public with one of the meanest, most vicious attempts at political assassination ever undertaken in America. In spite of this, Sarah has steadily moved up to a 46% national approval rating while Obama has collapsed from 68% to 46-48% national approval in various polls this week.



It seems every couple of months they believe they have finally put her to rest for good. First it was after the Kate Couric interview, then when her daughter became pregnant, and once more when McCain lost the election. To make sure she was finished they had a bunch of ethics charges brought against her in Alaska even after the election.



Then they smeared her through Levi Johnston, the father of her grandchild. When Palin resigned as governor the media thought she was finally six feet under. But this gun toting mother from the back woods of Alaska has more lives than Felix, Garfield, Sylvester and Morris combined.



Sarah needed money to fight back, or reload as her father described it, and reload she did as her recent book tour once again established her as the pre-eminent people's choice to oppose the liberal or socialist agenda of Barack Obama.



This time, when the media turned on the book, the public sent a message loud and clear to the citadels of elitist journalism by making Sarah the runaway best selling political writer in history with over 1 million book sales the first week and a remarkable climb in the national approval polls.



Today one of the most amazing resurrection acts in centuries was completed when Sarah caught up in the favorable polls with the President of the United States, the poster boy for the extreme liberals, The Chosen One for the elitist media, Barack Obama.



As Obama continues his 22 point collapse in the polls Palin continues her 8 point rise in the polls and waves as she watches him pass by. Every day Palin wipes out more of the memories of the media pasting she took during the campaign, a slaughter that could have been prevented if McCain aides would have come to her rescue and let her lead the defense.



Instead they silenced her, kept her away from the media, and refused to let her appear on national shows except for the highly rated appearance on Saturday Night Live where she was a solid hit. Now Palin does not have a campaign gagging her and fight back she is demonstrating once and for all that she is a viable representative and spokesperson for a huge number of Americans.



Contrary to what the elitist media would have you believe, she is smart on the issues, charming with the press and tuned into the hearts of America. If anyone had a right to run against the media it was Palin but she forgave them. Being a journalism graduate and journalist herself, she knows the importance of being able to reach people through the media.



Sarah embraced the very people who expended every ounce of energy in their being to destroy her career. She appeared on Oprah, with Barbara Walters, and gave numerous interviews to people she had not been allowed to speak with during the campaign. This past weekend she even went into the "belly of the beast" according to the Los Angeles Times and gave a hilarious speech before the Gridiron Club in Washington, DC, the more than century old club of the most influential journalists in America. An op-ed piece by Palin appeared in the Washington Post this week. Even MSNBC has defended her lately.



Slowly but surely, as her poll numbers continue to move up the stories about Palin have become increasingly fair and unbiased. Only an industry insider would understand how to bring about such a radical change in the highly charged political atmosphere that exists. Make no mistake, she is a media pro and with three years to go before the next election, she stands once again as a monumental problem for the Obama gang whose propensity for demeaning, distorting and destroying opponents seems to have backfired with Sarah.



The Chicago thugs seem to have met their match with the gun toting, corruption fighting, people's pick from Alaska who never wavers from her core beliefs of religion, life, liberty, family values and populism, and does not run from the fight of her life, taking on the old boys network and establishment in our nation's capitol and on Wall Street.