Hank Kalet

Here is a good post from The Opinion Mill on the proposal from Assemblyman Sean Kean (R-Monmouth) to allow New Jersey pharmacists the right to refuse to dispense Plan B contraceptives — “the morning-after pill” on moral or ethical grounds.

Supporters offer an interesting argument, though one that ultimately fails. They want us to believe that they are safeguarding the rights of pharmacists and other healthcare providers. It is, supporters say, similar to granting pacifists consciencious objector status.

Only it’s not. The decision to claim consciencious objector status does not deprive others of their rights; the decision by a pharmacist not to dispense a prescribed med, however, does. Imagine, as The Opinion Mill points out, if this were applied to other medications: “If a pharmacist knows one of his customers is a glutton, perhaps he should be able to deny him cholesterol-lowering medications,” thereby encouraging him to eat a healthier diet.

That’s absurd, of course, but it also is a logical extension of the argument made by those who support legislation like Assemblyman Kean’s.

Ultimately, this is not about health or protecting the delicate sensibilities of healthcare professionals. It is about imposing morality on others and has dangerous potential for society:

Kean’s proposal would undermine civil society by turning private medical decisions into an opportunity for moral grandstanding. A pharmacist’s license is not a license to play community moral arbiter, and if handling certain kinds of medicine offends him so badly, he should find another line of work.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

I’d been meaning to say something about Bob Dylan’s “Modern Times,” which hit the stores last week and which I’ve been listening to over and over again.

The third disc in what Sony has billed as a trilogy, it definitely sounds like an extension of “Love and Theft,” though a little softer and not quite as manically surreal and funny.

“Modern Times” is far more meditative, with Dylan considering the end. It is an album of adult songs, considered, almost sweet, but with a definite edge (listen to the lilting “Spirit on the Water”) — different than the biting vitriol that he has often used, subtle and refined.

Dylan riffs on paradise, Alicia Keys and the deep darkness, sweeping across American musical history like the wandering minstrel ghost he always has been. “Thunder on the Mountain” (where the Alicia Keys reference shows up) is a fitting, rocking opener, and “Rollin’ and Tumblin'” is spitfire blues.

Dylan makes use of the familiar — Merle Haggard makes an appearance on the weakest cut, a workmanlike but somewhat less-than-inspired rewrite of “Workingman’s Blues,” and Slim Harpo and Muddy Waters and … well, call it a pastiche.

“Those who think Dylan merely plagiarizes miss the point,” writes Thom Jurek on All Music.

Dylan is a folk musician; he uses American folk forms such as blues, rock, gospel, and R&B as well as lyrics, licks, and/or whatever else he can to get a song across. This tradition of borrowing and retelling goes back to the beginning of song and story. Even the title of Modern Times is a wink-eye reference to a film by Charlie Chaplin. It doesn’t make Dylan less; it makes him more, because he contains all of these songs within himself. By his use of them, he adds to their secret histories and labyrinthine legends. Besides, he’s been around long enough to do anything he damn well pleases and has been doing so since the beginning.

As with “Love and Theft,” Dylan’s worn voice seems to come from another time, ties all this together. Dylan has always been a synthesizer — back in the mid-1960s, his concoctions resulted in a shape-changing swirl that changed the direction of both rock and folk. In the ’70s, his best work fused an angry, biting wit with a sometimes softer musical streak (this may not be completely accurate; the mid-’70s music from “Blood on the Tracks” and “Desire” lacked the explosive quality of “Highway 61 Revisited,” but still burned with energy).

The new music, with its odd and ancient sounding references, both musical and lyrical, presents us with something equally unusual in popular music — a record about growing older, about regrets and the settling of scores.

Dylan is considering the end, but in doing so he is giving us something wholly new.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

My latest column from The Progressive Populist is available on line.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

I really can’t add much to this column by Dan Froomkin in The Washington Post today.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

John Barr, in an essay in the current edition of Poetry, pretty much sums up my own feelings about the insular nature of the “poetry industry” in the United States and the pathetic navel gazing of too many lyric poets.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick