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This surprise hit from the Coen Brothers' 2013 movie Inside Ilewyn Davis was nominated for a 2013 Golden Globe for Best Original Song.

This song was recorded by the three actors whose characters performed it in the film: Oscar Isaac, Justin Timberlake, and Adam Driver. Isaac and Driver went on to be casted as enemies in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with Isaac playing the heroic pilot Poe Dameron and Driver as the villainous Kylo Ren.

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An allusion to Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke’s (b.1554) poem Chorus Sacerdotum which begins:

O wearisome condition of humanity!
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity;
Created sick, commanded to be sound.

In his debate with former British PM Tony Blair about the role of religion in global affairs, journalist Christopher Hitchens cited the poem and the inherent tension it communicates:

Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects in a cruel experiment whereby we are created sick and commanded to be well.

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Samuel Shellabarger (1817-1896) was a Republican Congressman from Ohio. Shellabarger drafted the Civil Rights Act of 1871, which was later amended and codifed as 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (better known as “Section 1983”)

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This here is the crux of §1983. The idea isn’t that anybody who violates anybody else’s civil rights is liable under §1983. Rather, this grants a cause of action against civil-rights-infringers who are empowered by local or state law and acting under the color of that power.

So, by way of illustration:

  • local cops who torture an innocent Haitian immigrant leaving a nightclub = ready for § 1983 suit

  • a deranged man kidnaps and imprisons three women in Cleveland, Ohio for 10+ years = terrible, but not actionable under § 1983. (Castro would still be subject to state criminal prosecution and a state civil suit brought by his victims).

Section 1983 provides a right to sue state officers but not federal officers. However, in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), the Supreme Court found an implied right analogous to the rights under Section 1983; after Bivens, plaintiffs can bring suit against federal officers for violation of their federal rights.

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Possible allusion to Dylan’s classic Blowin' in the Wind

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In a 1972 interview, Lennon discussed the lyrics to “Dig a Pony”

I was just having fun with words. It was literally a nonsense song. You just take words and you stick them together, and you see if they have any meaning. Some of them do and some of them don’t.

In a 1980 interview, John was a little harder on himself, calling “Dig a Pony”

[a]nother piece of garbage

Despite John’s protestations, “Dig a Pony” does contain various sensical allusions and references.

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A not-so-subtle knock at The Rolling Stones. The Beatles and the Stones had a well-documented rivalry.

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While at the Liverpool College of Art, Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison are said to have billed themselves at least three times as “Johnny and the Moondogs.”

in 1960, Lennon’s LCA friend, Stuart Sutcliffe, suggested changing the band’s name to The Beatles as an homage to rockabilly giant Buddy Holly and the Crickets.

In November 2013, a previously-unseen recording of the Beatles performing Buddy Holly’s “Words of Love” was unearthed.

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