Facing facts…why do we treat different races differently? Are Britain’s immigration laws too soft or too tough? come and join us inside…

It’s not easy being green if your a pop fan is it Greta!

As bands and performers better suited to the Eurovision Song Contest filled the dope and juniper air with plinky-plonky rubbish, the weekend hippies in posh wellies and camper vans discarded their empty water bottles, muesli and sausage wrappers, their roaches and dimps, copies of the Guardian, black oil, deckchairs, sleeping bags and blow-up mattresses.

Yep, the likes of Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lemar, the Black Dyke Band and the singing tortoise Paul McCartney stained the sonics of outdoor entertainment, while all the middle-class oiks in their holey shorts and muddy ‘baby bagos’ dumped their badges of a pretend feral life on the ground.

Yes, Greta that’s what the eco-aware weekend wild children did! But guess what! The rather middle-class Eavis family didn’t … this is what they do to countermand the lack of conscience of the new Wombles from Wimbledon Common.

Yes they are the types who get excited by saying … let’s go and glue our ears to a motorway or a work of art or ride a butchers bike with your crown jewels glistening in the sparkles from Diana Ross’s wobbly tiara, before we go back to real life in the call centre or McDonalds…

The elf-ish Eavis’s employ at least 800 litter-pickers to clear away  2,000 tonnes of waste – including thousands of abandoned tents, sleeping bags and gazebos. There are tonnes of cans and plastic bottles, cardboard, scrap metal, airbeds, and rolled mats .

What’s wrong with tidying up after yourself for Godsake? Didn’t mummy make you?

And Greta, let’s be honest, the crock-n-rollers who converge like scruffy half-naked right-on mountain folk in their diesel and petrol vans – booming out Brotherhood of Man and Will Young from their speakers made out of pasta – didn’t really listen, did they.

TWO days after they applauded you Greta for your eco-sermon they dumped these mountains of rubbish.

Greta rallied them with her speech… she said; “Do not let them drag us another inch closer to the edge. Right now is where we stand our ground!”

Well, there was no ground to be seen, let alone to stand up for

But Greta, why don’t you ask your acolytes to pick up their rubbish and take it home with them?

That would be easy wouldn’t it… and help the world rather than fill it with the heady smell of angry right-on breath.

#gretathunberg #eco #glastonbury #eavish #paulmcartney #dianaross

Last month LA musician and writer Andrew Brel sent The Society his thoughts on the background to this horrendous story of mindless racism hatred, lies, callousness and child murder.

His writing sparked memories of Emmett’s story and Bob Dylan’s ballad which rails against Emmett’s death, racism and the authorities. And of course Bobby Gentry.

Andrew’s and The Society’s writing highlighted this awful bigotted tragedy, the lies and the cruelty, the disregard for Emmett and his family.

So, what if he had whistled at you Carolyn?

Why in the minds of the little town of Money in the Mississippi think such a thing should warrant torture, terror, an ultimate death sentence?

Less than a month after we tried to remind people of this almost forgotten story – more a folk tale more than anything else after 60-odd years – then this news began to filter through to our newsdesk:

No one has been convicted of Emmett’s death…

But investigators sifting through records in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse have found an unserved warrant for the arrest of a third suspect — the woman who had accused Emmett of harassing her — for her involvement in his kidnapping.

That woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham, is still alive and Emmett’s relatives are demanding that the case be reopened and Ms Donham arrested. ‘Justice has to be served,’ said Deborah Watts, Emmett’s cousin.

Now in her 80s and living in North Carolina, Ms Donham has not said anything — she hasn’t done for decades.

‘She has been evading justice for over 66 years now,’ said Keith Beauchamp, a filmmaker who helped to find the document. ‘The only reason why Carolyn Bryant was never given that warrant was because of the protection of white womanhood.’

A police note on the back of the warrant says she wasn’t arrested because she was not in the county at the time. However, following the killing, a local sheriff told reporters he didn’t want to ‘bother’ the woman since she had two little boys to care for.

***

Leigh G Banks writes: The little hamlet of Money is notorious. Yet few have heard of this tiny Mississippi delta settlement.

Way back in the Fifties – when its reputation became forever linked with racism, bigotry and child murder – Money was said to be a ‘fine’ place to live…

...or die because of the colour of your skin.

It was a tin-roof town with a giant cotton gin and a church. And that was about it except for Bryant’s, a grocery store where locals, including the families of black share-croppers, would gather.

Then it all went wrong … a black teenager smiled at a white man’s wife. The teenager was called Emmett Till.

Emmett was a 14-year-old African-American boy from Chicago, and was visiting his uncle Moses Wright.

It was August 1955 and black boys and girls weren’t allowed to flirt. But he tried it with Carolyn Bryant – who owned the store with her husband Roy.

She was supposedly scared. Emmett was tortured, hanged and thrown over the a bridge near the fabled Tallahatchie Bridge.

It was Roy and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, who did it.

Money, Money, Money – it was a white man’s world.

Bob Dylan took up the cudgel and wrote the Ballad of Emmett Till.

He wrote: “And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial

Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till

But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit thisawful crime

And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind

I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see

The smiling brothers walkin’ down the courthouse stairs

For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free

While Emmett’s body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea

If you can’t speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that’s so unjust

Your eyes are filled with dead men’s dirt, your mind is filled with dust

Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood it must refuse to flow

For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!”

And then there is the fiction: Bobbie Gentry’s Ode to Billie Joe.

Here, LA writer and musician Andrew Brel looks at the background to this horrendous story of mindless hatred, lies, callousness and child murder. Bobbie’s real name is Roberta Streeter.

Andrew writes: 56 years ago today.  Poor Billy Joe.  Jumped. Tragic.  So many lives ruined.  

Roberta Streeters story is far more compelling.  Raised by Grandparents on a farm after her parents split when she was one. Learned some guitar. Taught herself to write story songs. Moved at a young age to her mother Ruby’s latest marriage in California. 

Soon as old enough, 17, in 1960, moved to Los Angeles. Initially a secretary looking to sell her skills as a songwriter. Met a guy with a studio. Recorded her best songs, fast. Accompanying herself. 

One of those was a song she wrote after learning about the racist lynching of Emmett Till, the 14 year year old kid gruesomely beaten to death and tossed off a Bridge for looking at a white woman in a whites-only store in a racist town in a racist state in a brutally racist Country. (1955.) 

That passionate but subtle reaction, a conscious or even sub conscious musical interpretation of racial injustice shone so brightly through the dinner table narrative, Ode to Billy Joe got her a major record deal. 

On the writers demo Roberta, by now Billie, played the distincive repetitive guitar part herself – not in perfect tune and certainly not in constant time. 

She never had ambitions to be a professional recording guitar player. (Listen to her glide across some five bpm in the course of the almost five minutes it takes to tell her story.)

 Unable to embellish the demo into a release master with a section (like the wrecking crew, whose guitarist she later worked with to great commercial success) due to the irregular timing, the label hired legendary string arranger Jimmie Haskell, whose orchestration of the story is transcendent. Turning a acoustic demo into a work of musical art. Treating it like a film score rather than scraping on the saccharine string parts common for three minute pop tunes of the era. In my view, but for Haskell’s arrangement, you would never have heard of this song, or this artist.  That intelligent arrangement was the magic spark that awoke the giant talent of Bobbie Gentry.  

What you hear from Roberta in that song is a single take recording of voice and guitar. Simply astonishing capture of the moment in 1967 America – illuminated by that astonishing string arrangement. No wonder it rocked the entire world and lives on to this day as a magical moment of what makes America and music both magnificent.

Roberta Streeter will be 80 next month.  Almost certainly still married to the man from Memphis who took her from Vegas when she became an early pioneer of the Block function.

#tallahatchie

 #McAllister

#bobbygentry

#BOBDYLAN

#emmetttill

#billiejoe

#bryants

#racism

#klukluxclan

Biker Barger dies still claiming Stones caused Altamont death riot

The hippy ethos of love and peace was battered out of existence at Altamont in Canada as the Rolling Stone’s gave their free festival answer to Woodstock, in 1969.

Rock’n’roll had descended into drugged decadent anarchy – Morrison wasn’t there, he was about to slam The Doors shut on his band’s future, and Dylan had fallen off his bike and gone home to get somebody to lick his wounds.

Sonny Barger was there though.

And he and his henchmen were about to destroy a naive but potent way of being – the ethos of the hippy… dance, take acid, laugh, create shimmering fantasy. And make love. It was simple but unworkable.

But we must never forget, Barger was probably more responsible than any other for the destruction of that dream.

Let’s at least remember that Meredith Curly Hunter Jr, an African American stabbed and stomped to death to the thunder of music on the stage just above his head.

Hunter had approached the stage and was attacked by members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club who were under the impression they were The Stones’ security guards.

Sonny Barger, who died a few days ago aged 82, was the founder member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. Ans he always said the blame lay at the feet of The Stones.

But the truth is the band were horrified. Mick Jagger looked on at the dying man just a few feet away from him, you could see the shock in his face..

Nobody could claim that Barger was a good man.

But he was an anti-hero, good looking, wild, hard, a drinker and a smoker, a spirit of the road… a man not to be messed with.

He had the charisma of hell.

Journalist Hunter S. Thompson made his name by getting Barger to let him ride with them. Hunter wrote Hell’s Angels: The Strange And Terrible Saga Of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs after spending a year with Barger and his cronies.

But even he fled after he was stomped for asking a biker to stop hitting his girlfriend.

Women expected to be abused and way back then Barger called his girlfriends ‘Old ladies’, or ‘Babes. Chicks. Good-time broads. Can’t live without them, can’t use their bones for soup’.

He believed most women are ‘drawn to wild macho guys. That’s what turns them on.’

In 1982, he was diagnosed with throat cancer, after smoking 60 cigarettes a day since his teens.

He published several books and had a cameo role in Sons Of Anarchy, between 2010 and 2012, as Lenny ‘The Pimp’ Janowitz.

Barger died from cancer on Wednesday at his home. In a statement written to be released after his death, he wrote: ‘Know that in the end, I was surrounded by what really matters: my wife Zorana, as well as my loved ones.’

#hellsangels #sonnybarger #altamont #mickjagger #MeredithCurlyHunterJr

‘Vlad’s first-class, I’d take a bullet for him,’ says ex-F1 boss

Former Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone has said his friend Vlad Putin invaded the Ukraine ‘unintentionally’!

Really? Well, that’s alright then isn’t it!

Here’s what Putin did ‘unintentionally’ to the country of blue and yellow one fine day in late winter when he wasn’t, perhaps, focused… after all, he’s not been well has he:

Around 4 a.m. Minsk time on February 24, Ukrainians woke to the sounds of explosions.

Even though Vladimir Putin had predicted a military operation in Donbas, the attacks were carried out immediately in 10 regions of Ukraine, primarily in the east and south of the country.

‘Ooh, sorry’, I bet he said as his ‘mistake’ became clear.

Are you mad Bernie?

Oh, the 91 year old billionaire also he would “take a bullet” for Putin in a really very bizarre interview on Good Morning Britain.

Bernie seemed to me on fire as he said the war was not “intentional” and could have been avoided by actions taken by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

He said Zelensky should have spoken to Mr Putin, who he said is a “sensible” man.

Mr Ecclestone was asked if he still regards Mr Putin as a friend, and he replied: “I’d still take a bullet for him. I’d rather it didn’t hurt, but if it does I’d still take a bullet, because he’s a first-class person.

“What he’s doing is something that he believed was the right thing he was doing for Russia.

“Unfortunately, he’s like a lot of business people, certainly like me, we make mistakes from time to time. When you’ve made the mistake, you have to do the best you can to get out of it.

“I think if it had been conducted properly, I mean the other person in Ukraine (Mr Zelensky), I mean, his profession, I understand, he used to be a comedian.

“I think he seems as if he wants to continue that profession, because I think if he’d have thought about things, he would have definitely made a big enough effort to speak to Mr Putin, who is a sensible person and would have listened to him and could have probably done something about it.”

Presenter Kate Garraway said to Mr Ecclestone: “So just to understand you clearly, you think that President Zelensky should have done more to avert this war and it could have been avoided by Zelensky’s actions, not by a change in Putin’s actions?”

Mr Ecclestone replied: “Absolutely.”

It was put to Mr Ecclestone that he surely cannot justify the actions of Mr Putin and the deaths of thousands of people.

“I don’t. It wasn’t intentional,” he replied.

Mr Ecclestone again said the war in Ukraine was not “intentional”, adding: “I’m quite sure Ukraine, if they’d wanted to get out of it properly, could have done.”

Asked if he has had a chance to speak to Mr Putin about “what a mess” the situation is or urged him to rethink what he is doing, Mr Ecclestone said: “No. He’s probably thought about that himself. He probably doesn’t need reminding.

“I’m absolutely sure he now wishes he hadn’t started this whole business, but didn’t start as a war.”

Mr Ecclestone was asked what he thinks of the Russian Grand Prix being removed from the Formula One calendar and the ban on Russian drivers.

He said: “I’m not in the position now to have done anything about that. I’m not sure I would have stopped that, and I certainly now wouldn’t, and I think it’s wrong, to stop Russian athletes, including obviously drivers, in taking part in their sport.

“They didn’t get involved in this in the first place. They shouldn’t be punished.”

#putin #ecclstone #formulaone #F1 #preperationH #putin #russia #ukraine #war

But will they finally close the book on us humans with one-from-the-heart?

By MICHAEL PILGRIM

Michael is a developmental editor with more than 12 years in the industry Michael Pilgrim – Developmental Editor

How will AI written books affect the publishing industry?

Here are some thoughts.

– Even when AI can write a perfect book, it’ll still take quite a few years before it’s a potential problem

– Some readers won’t mind and will happily read AI written books

– Other readers will not take to them, especially not at first. It’ll probably feel quite hollow reading an AI written book.

– But over time, they will get more popular

– But people will still want to read their favourite authors and series – why would you stop if you enjoy them?

– There’ll probbaly be some best seller from AI at some point – then more will follow

– Non-fiction authors will probably suffer more than fiction authors

– My guess is for at least say 10 years (and maybe forever), AI authors and normal authors will co-exist

– I also think comedy writing will be the hardest for AI to do well – easily formulated genres (e.g. romance) will be hardest hit

– And perhaps AI will just mean that books become much easier to write

– So good authors will get better

– And faster

– Editing and rewrites will be a breeze – no work for editors (or perhaps still work for dev editors and high-end editors – but nothing for proofreaders and copy editors)

– One thing that will likely happen is as books get easier to write, many more people will publish books

– But it’ll still come down to the best books/covers/brands/marketing – they will rise to the top, especially if you have a well established brand before it all happens

– Another thing that might happen is people will publish AI written books without saying they’re AI written – but this is just the same outcome as the previous point

– On the plus side, there are already 10 million books or something on Amazon so it’s not like there isn’t loads of competition already

– And when they invented photography, people said it would be the death of artists but that wasn’t the case.

Bill of Human Rights for machines has me quaking in my journalistic bots – The Leigh G Banks Preservation Society

Michael Pilgrim – Developmental Editor

#writers #selfpublish #artificialintelligence #AI #ai #publishing #romance #comedy

One of the best! Leigh and Rodney actually manage to fall out over the fact they are agreeing with each other, listen and watch below…

#Covid #Boris

Broadcasting survivor Tony Blackburn has reached his golden years, but he reckons his prime-time Golden Hour on Radio 2 has fallen victim to BBC’s rampant ageism.

He even described the decision to demote his show from a Friday to a Sunday as “strange”.

The 79-year-old DJ tweeted: “Doesn’t anyone value experience any more?

“I hate ageism and there’s a lot of it about.”

Even the ever youthful ex Corrie star Craig Charles – who’s 20 years younger than Tony – has had his popular House Party show axed.

And Liz Kershaw has claimed she was sacked from BBC 6 Music “because they don’t want women over 60”.

Liz said this to campaigners who want a Parliamentary debate on the way “women are being erased from public services and institutions”.

And what about Sue Barker? Remember her? Paddy McGuinness got his feet under the table while her ‘elderly’ seat was still warm.

The average BBC2 viewing age is 62 and over at BBC1 it’s 61. One in 20 viewers aged 18 to 30 watch BBC shows as they go out.

The channel is hosting new shows from RuPaul’s Drag Race UK judge Michelle Visage, Waterloo Road actress Angela Griffin and DJ Spoony. An insider said there were ‘a lot of unhappy DJs at the moment as a result’.

So, why is the jolly purple nosed and bleary old Beeb still insisting on putting out tawdry, middle-class pointless rubbish like The Archers, a show that lost its way the first time the cows lay down in the rain?

And why did they make such a big deal of Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen and Diane Ross at Glastonbury… between them they managed to be wrinkly and grinny, nostalgic and a bit sick-making (for me anyway).

But didn’t you notice Aunty? While you might be mistreating the elderly by changing their show ‘bedtimes’ – you are still extolling the virtues of the world’s worst soap by a country mile and promoting three singers with a combined age of well over 200!

Of course the BBC must move on and get down with the kids, yehhhh, — but why do they think talent flops like an empty colostomy bag after you reach your half century?

#tonyblackburn #craigcharles #bbc #glastonbury #paulbeatles #springsteen

Don’t take a fence though! But is no-spine Sneer really better than no-morals Boris?

Sitting on a fence is a bit like riding a bike without a seat. At least if you sit down you won’t fall off.

And that nice Lord Sneer is so impaled by his own indecision over strikes, whether to resign over Beergate (as he promised), over Rwanda …

And Brexit … and it is inevitable that a ‘picket’ fence will split his slimy indifference and expose his vacuous insides.

He simply does not have the balls to condemn — or support — the strikers who are paralysing our country.

Mere Starmer was of course the simpering poster boy for the second EU referendum – a referendum is a clear sign of somebody who refuses to jump either side of the fence.

And now he won’t even say that he thinks Brexit has been a failure.

Starmer is of course against sending illegal immigrants to Africa, but we have no idea if he believes in open borders.

To be honest if he was found in a lifeboat in the middle of the Channel it would only prove just how far he has drifted from the shore of good sense and decision making.

We really don’t know what Keir Starmer believes about any of the massive issues facing our country, and the world, today.

Because he won’t tell us.

Maybe Sneer just doesn’t know what he thinks either. A fence post up your a*rse can wipe your mind clean…

Boris bashers say we have a prime minister with a morals by-pass.

But would a lord who is so spineless he should be carried around in a bucket make us feel safer today?

#STARMER #DONKEYS #BEERGATE #FENCES #BORIS #STRIKERS

The fascinating little Minnesota town with different views of Bob

The people of Hibbing tell their own stories about their town and how it has changed over the decades since Bob took to the road more than sixty years ago. They talk plenty about Bob too. Fascinating insights into one of the world’s greatest performers and story-tellers.

They talk about the half-truths he told about Hibbing as he built his ethereal rock’n’roll bard persona.

They talk about his musical abilities and ask was his brother David actually better at it than him?

They talk about Bob’s friends, his humour, his strangeness, why he wasn’t liked by some …

The writers also discuss racism – remember what ‘postcards of the hanging’ alludes to. And what the attitude of the town now towards people from other lands.

And they talk about Bob and his time and antics at Hibbing High.

It’s fascinating.

I thank you all for taking the time to write.

The comments are un-edited and in the vernacular and style the writers chose ot express themselves.

On the whole, we don’t dislike Bob

Dawn Allison

It sounded like you genuinely wanted feedback from people in Hibbing. So here’s mine!

I don’t agree with your representation of the community as a whole disliking Bob Dylan.

That’s unfortunate, in my opinion.

The younger generations, and MOST of the generations the same age as Bob, do think he’s pretty awesome. I’m 38, and my mother always spoke so highly of him. She watched him perform in that talent show on the Hibbing High School auditorium stage. I think she said he was two grades ahead of her.

My mother always felt bad for how he was treated around here, and she always enjoyed his music.

I grew up listening to him.

My favorite teacher in high school just might be his #1 fan, even if it’s self proclaimed! Therefore, many, many students were repeatedly submitted to the magic that is Bob Dylan on school trips…since he was a swimming coach, key club advisor, and I believe also the Mathlete coach, he alone may be mostly responsible for the younger generations appreciating and experiencing Bob.

Yes, he still works at the high school. Too bad you didn’t speak to him.

So, truthfully, many born and raised as well as many relocated Hibbingites keep the magic of Bob Dylan alive in this small town. Creative license. Your process. Your story. Can I ask how long you spent in Hibbing?

I saw the camera on a tri-pod, so figured someone was doing an article! How many people did you speak to?

Did you already have an idea of what spin you wanted to take on this? Curiosity mostly. It reads pretty one sided.

I think we have a pretty co

Dawn ol community here, and we are always trying to improve. There are several new council members stepping up to make change for the good, and I am bummed to see you had to slap a political statement in there, that in my opinion is completely unrelated to the article.

It also puts a lot of negative weight on the community. Man, I think I want to move away now. We sound like a bunch of jerks!

Not jerks. Iron Rangers. Just tougher than most. It’s all the extra iron in the water supply I think!

The over generalization of a town, and the negative connotation implied simply by calling it Trumpian Racism instantly changed the direction of the article, and made the whole article drop in tone significantly.

I have not read any of your work previously, so I have nothing to compare it to. Maybe this is the style you always go.

Overall, not a pleasant read for me at all. I would have enjoyed it a lot more had it covered a broader spectrum and better represented Hibbing as a whole. It kind of sounds like you just hung out at the local watering hole, and listened to all the retired old timers complain as they drank their happy hour brews!

Well written. I expected the tone to not be great due to the title. That’s my honest feedback. Next time you’re in town, look me up! I’ll make sure you don’t miss the magic again!

Renee, Bob and the ‘tired’ horses in the sun

John Pileckie

In the summer of 1974, after my first year of teaching, flush with cash from a car accident insurance settlement, I drove my first new car (a 1974 yellow VW Rabbi) on a cross country trip, and drove north in the Midwest on Highway 61 to visit Robert Zimmerman’s hometown, inspired by Toby Thompson’s “Positively Main Street” (first published in 1968, republished in 2008).

My aim was to walk the streets of what I knew to be a small town and perhaps talk to folks who knew Dylan back in the day.

Led by the instincts of a 24-year-old male, I stopped by the first tavern I could find, one called Shoes Instant Replay (ice hockey was huge in the region, and instant replay technology had been perfected during the prior decade).

There I met a gentleman who knew the Zimmerman family, Bob’s father Abe who owned an appliance store in town ( “Abe was a good man, you told him what you wanted and he gave you credit on the spot”) and drew a small street map on yellow paper that would lead me to 2425 7th Ave., a pleasant walk away. The barkeep told me that I should talk to Bob’s cousin, Renee Stone – described as a friendly, outgoing woman who “is in here all the time” and would be glad to talk to me.

She gave me Renee’s number, and, after a brief intro on the phone in the back of the bar, we had a nice conversation, confirming the bartender’s description. Renee told me that she had recently spent time with her cousin, on his farm, “…somewhere in Minnesota, Bobby would kill me if I told you where he lived.”

She said they rode horses together, and Bob was mostly quiet. I then walked down to Dylan’s homestead, took some pics, and talked to a person living in the neighboring house, who had been a classmate of Bob at Hibbing High.

I knew that Dylan had performed at a talent show in high school, and I asked his former classmate how the performance was received: “We pretty much laughed.”

He also said, the previous summer he saw a person “dressed the way you’d expect (Bob) to dress” climbing a tree in the backyard of his childhood home. I ended my walk tour with a return into town and stopped by another tavern. There, I found supporting evidence for the bibical quote (John: 4-44), “No prophet is accepted in his home town.”

I told the bartender in that joint my purpose for visiting Hibbing, he waved his finger in the air and exclaimed in disgust, “Bob Dillan, Bob Dielan, whatever his name, his brother David was twice the musician he was, that stuff about sniffing drainpipes …”

Another tavern patron told me that Roger Maris, the NY Yankee who broke (with an asterisk) Babe Ruth’s home run record of 60 in 1961, and who was born and spent his earliest years in Hibbing, was better known in town as a famous native of Hibbing than was Bob.

All of this was at a time when Dylan, while surely well known among rock fans and those familiar with pop culture, was not the universally known and widely revered personage that he would become in future decades.

Few, I guess, would have predicted that their hometown Bobby Zimmerman would one day be honored by the consecration of a wall in front of their community’s high school, two blocks down from his youthful home on 7th Street.

RE-READ THE OFFENDING ARTICLE:

• Gossips in a little Minnesota town – and the two sides of Dylan’s brick wall – The Leigh G Banks Preservation Society

Cheers Charlie Miller

Carol Anderson

I had Charlie Miller for a teacher too. I have always admired him, and I think he taught us a lot. I never saw any racism either. In fact in HJC as it was called when I went there, our freshmen class voted a person of color to be our class president.

My home from home on the range

Jim Burho

Thanks for asking Leigh. I don’t live in Hibbing any more, but do live seasonally south of there in Cotton, MN. I do get back to Hibbing every summer to visit friends and have so many mixed emotions.

My old neighborhood and home is a run down mess and I hear crime and drugs are a real problem not only in Hibbing but across the range. Howard street lacks any identity of its past, the boarded-up store fronts, and closed businesses abound.

That hurts to see since the Hibbing I grew up in is still in my heart and wonderful, innocent memories flood my mind on those return visits. Some towns’ grow and their character gets better with time and some don’t.

I think Hibbing falls into the latter category as it somehow lost that unique character of it’s immigrant population of high moral standards that protected our innocence.

Leo (sic!) is a lazy journalist!

Erin McCabe Ningen

One of the laziest examples of journalism I’ve ever seen.

Leo (oops! Lazy! – Editor) G Banks clearly did not do his research.

A blogger who cared to put in even a minimal amount of effort, would have discovered that the story of Hibbing is remarkable, even in a country full of remarkable achievements.
He mentions the “castle in the wilderness” and expresses condescending dismissal and confusion as to why people seem so proud of it.
A minimal amount of research would have revealed to Mr. Banks the incredible story of immigrants from 43 countries who, in spite of the underhanded efforts of the mine barons to divide us, stood our ground and achieved not only concessions on workplace safety and pay, but also forced the mining companies to put some of their profits back into the community including building the high school and the state’s first pool.
That High School, in the span of about 30 years, graduated Governor Rudy Perpich, baseball player Roger Maris, basketball player Kevin McHale, Manson prosecutor Vince Bugliosi, Palucci, Dylan and hundreds of others whose achievements would be considered notable if they were from a town without so many remarkably accomplished people.

For instance, did you know that Hibbing was home to a lady who went on to become one of Macy’s head buyers? Did you know that Hibbing produced a Broadway performer who went on to become one of the producers of the Vagina Monologues? Pp did you know that the journalists who uncovered the Enron scandal was a graduate of Hibbing?

Did you know about the little bus company that grew up to become Greyhound? Did you know that the ore from these mines became the steel with which we won World War II and built the greatest industrialized country the world has ever known?
It seems like Banks was content to try and find in Hibbing a town deserving of Dylan … early dismissive comments without considering that those may have been the sentiments of a young man freshly freed from small-town life and eager to experience a much bigger world.
Again, with just a minimum amount of effort, Banks could have uncovered Dylan recent comments where he explains that his recent successful career as a sculptor of iron gates is an homage to his hometown and the hard-working people who lived there.

Bob was laughed at – as well as admired!

Rhonda Wiiliainen

Mr. Banks, Understanding everyone has an unique lense the look through, I accept your view of Hibbing.

Being a life long resident, my lense is different. Our town’s history has molded us here. We are a melting pot of many religions, races, and cultures. I encourage you to listen to the Podcast “Power in the Wilderness” and read the book of the same name, which will come out this year.

It tells much about how we grew out being a mining camp who’s residents lived under a form of indentured servitude, fought the biggest company in the world to become the “richest village in the world”. I believe history provides insight.
My early years in Hibbing were good.

Our diversity was not colorful but cultures from what we called the old country were strong and, from saunas to poticia, we still share and celebrate them.
My education was exceptional. Our teachers were great. I was prepared for college. We were an inclusive bunch. One teacher said “this is the first school I’ve worked in where I can’t tell the rich kids from the poor.” I was taught by my parents that skin color, gender or any “differences ” are hard to live with, not because of the differences, because of how some people react to those differences.
Politically we were strong DFL – socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Things have changed but, the changes are not unique to us.

Our politics are leaning more conservative, mostly because the DFL is not the DFL anymore and has basically Stopped listening to the people and become part of the machine.

Our country is changing and has been for years.
If you compare my time and Robert Zimmerman’s time to now, we had it good and Hibbing was different then.

He was laughed at, he was also admired. His experience wasn’t much different than most other American middle class kid. I think we romanticize our idols experiences. As for Hibbing now, our education system is not what it was.

We don’t have the finances or the population we had before. Our diversity in color is growing but still low.

We are good people here no better no worse than anywhere else. I’m glad I grew up here and that I am still here. That is my view.

An uninformed, disjointed curmudgeon

Gina Forti

Not “very nice”. It’s his blog and his opinion, as negative, uninformed and disjointed it may be, so I’ll just file this one under “badly written free speech”. Call me “judgmental”, but I would prefer to have read something more positive about the wall itself versus of a curmudgeon’s opinion of the community.

I didn’t quite understand this one …

Plinkin

“Leaders in Hibbing have joined a Police Department task force to sort out any hints of Trumpian racism left in the community”…
So now it’s totally acceptable to admit to a systematic process of taking out people you disagree with politically? Who exactly are these “racists”?
“At midnight, all the agents and the superhuman crew, come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do”