Timothy Leary's papers purchased by New York Public Library

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The New York Times reports that the New York Public Library have purchased 335 boxes of papers, videotapes, photographs and more from Timothy Leary's estate.

"Robert Greenfield, who combed through the archive when it was kept in California, for his 2007 biography of Leary, said: “It is a unique firsthand archive of the 1960s. Leary was at the epicenter of what was going on back then, and some of the stuff in there is extraordinary.”

My Reaction to Osama bin Laden's Death by Noam Chomsky - required reading

"We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic."

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Acclaimed social activist and professor of linguistics Noam Chomsky gives a rational and thought-provoking reaction to the recent highly-publicised assassination of Osama bin Laden in this Guernica magazine article.

How many police officers does it take to arrest an anti-Royal Wedding pensioner? Around 20 it would seem...



In a staggeringly heavy-handed and over-the-top operation (funded, of course, by the taxpayer), three police cars and two police vans turned up yesterday at the home of Professor Chris Knight and his partner Camilla Power and arrested them and fellow street-performer Patrick Macroida. Their "crime" was organising the Zombie Wedding, an anti-Royal Wedding street theatre event planned for today. I think it's probably fair to say that the police hadn't expected to find a Channel 4 film crew there (they were filming for their show The Unofficial Royal Wedding to be shown on Monday), but hey, life is full of surprises!

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said “This evening, 28 April, officers arrested three people – two males aged 68 and 45, and a 60-year-old woman – in Wickham Road, SE4 on suspicion of conspiracy to cause public nuisance and breach of the peace."

You can read more at The Guardian and Dangerous Minds, and keep up to date with the latest developments on the Right Royal Orgy Facebook page.

Johann Hari on George Osborne's Big Lie

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"As a proportion of GDP, Britain’s national debt has been higher than it is now for 200 of the past 250 years. Read that sentence again. Check it on any graph by any historian. Since 1750, there have only been two brief 30-year periods when our debt has been lower than it is now. If we are “bust” today, as George Osborne has claimed, then we have almost always been bust. We were bust when we pioneered the Industrial Revolution. We were bust when we ruled a quarter of the world. We were bust when we beat the Nazis. We were bust when we built the NHS. Or is it George Osborne’s economics that are bust?"

Read the full article here.

 

Some good events coming up at The Idler Academy

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These are my own particular favourites, but you can find the full programme of events here.

30 March 2011 - Gavin Pretor-Pinney: The Art of Cloud Collecting
6 April 2011 - Will Self: Philosophers’ Forum
20 April  2011 - John Nicholson on John Michell
30 April 2011 - How to Escape the Nine to Five with Tom Hodgkinson and Graham Burnett
11 May 2011 - Louis Theroux
14 May 2011 - Edible London: Learn to Forage and Feast in the City with Robin Harford
18 May 2011 - Bill Drummond: IMAJINE
7 June 2011- A Symposium with Oliver James: What Is Sanity?
8 June 2011 - Prof Ronald Hutton: The Battle for Merry England
29 June 2011 - Anarchist Question Time with Penny Rimbaud, Ian Bone and Peter Good
 

Adam Curtis traces the rise of Humanitarian Intervention: from Biafra to Libya via Iraq...

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"Blair's arrival and his speech at a Kosovan refugee camp on the Macedonian border is an extraordinary scene. It is also a very important moment in recent history. Watch Blair's face closely as he walks through the adoring crowd chanting "Tony, Tony, Tony" and you understand some of why he would take Britain to war in Iraq four years later."

Read the full article Goodies and Baddies.

A Lockerbie reality-check

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With David Cameron rushing to make as much political capital as possible out of the recently published Cabinet Secretary's review of papers relating to the release of Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi (see below), Michael Meacher gives us a timely reminder of why Al-Megrahi should never have been in jail in the first place.  For more background on the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing, check out William C Chasey's book Pan Am 103: Lockerbie Cover-up.

Click here to download:
20110207-megrahi-review-report.pdf (1.02 MB)
(download)

Michael Meacher article via Pete Grubb