Friday, 3 December 2010

WikiLeaks - The Musical

[A playground, Australia, mid-1980s. Two girls are gossiping.]

SALLY
You know who I love?
That band Men at Work.
Did you hear the scandal
With Annie and Dirk?
They were caught making out
By a school clerk

LISA
Someone told me. I think it was Lou.
They were over by the football ground
They were naked; she was making a sound
Like a hot and bothered kangaroo.

SALLY
I also heard that Mr. Nantz
Was driving his car without any pants

LISA
He's the one
With the red Impala?
He has tufts of hair
Just like a koala

[JULIAN ASSANGE approaches.]

SALLY
Uh oh, it's Julian
He's a little bit strange
Let's lower our voices
As he comes into range

LISA
I agree with you
This is not for his ears
We can start talking normal
When he disappears

[SALLY and LISA start to whisper.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
What are you guys
Talking about?

LISA
It's none of your business
Don't stick in your snout

JULIAN ASSANGE
But whispering is impolite
It's cliquish, mean, and just not right.
Your secrecy is a kind of slap.

LISA
You should tell someone who gives a crap

JULIAN ASSANGE
I don't like how this is going
My curiosity is growing
Come on, tell me. Really, tell!
To not know is a kind of hell

[SALLY and LISA whisper more and then leave, giggling.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
I'll get you!
I'll get you!
Don't believe me?
I'll bet you!
There will be retribution!
There will be tit for tat!
There will be revolution
I will see to that!

[Enraged and frustrated, JULIAN ASSANGE becomes a hacker. He devotes himself to the unchecked distribution of all information.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
I'll dub myself Mendax
It means "noble liar."
I'll remake myself as a
High-tech town crier
When people attempt
To hide information
I will be the one
To compel revelation

[After two decades moving between the hacking subculture and academia, JULIAN ASSANGE founds WikiLeaks, a website devoted to challenging secrecy regulations by releasing documents.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
To radically shift regime behavior
We must accept a new kind of savior
How can any authority control what we see
When all information wants to be free?

[At first, JULIAN ASSANGE uses WikiLeaks for good, exposing assassinations in Kenya.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
Witness how I used my network
To interfere with Kenyan wetwork.
It's hard to grasp this type of power
I liken it to Bentham's tower
He called it the panopticon
It acted as a check upon
All who thought they were being observed
This is what we have long deserved.

[One day JULIAN ASSANGE is contacted by BRADLEY MANNING.]

BRADLEY MANNING
Hello, I am Bradley Manning
I work in intelligence
I know you by your reputation
And frankly, sir, I have the sense
That my position in the army
Grants me special access to
Secret information that I
Think that I might leak to you.

JULIAN ASSANGE
What's your name, now? Manning? Bradley?
Tell me more; I'll listen, gladly...

TIME's Julian Assange Interview

Full Transcript

Audio

Download

WikiLeaks cables: Berlusconi 'profited from secret deals' with Putin

Jeremy Scahill: WikiLeaks Cables Confirm Secret U.S. War Ops in Pakistan

HERE

Abuse of libel laws and a sacking: The gagging of public health experts in France

Waking Up From the Pill

Hallucinogens as Medicine

Sandy Lundahl, a 50-year-old health educator, reported to the behavioral biology research center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine one spring morning in 2004. She had volunteered to become a subject in one of the first studies of hallucinogenic drugs in the U.S. in more than three decades. She completed questionnaires, chatted with the two monitors who would be with her throughout the eight hours ahead, and settled herself in the comfortable, living-room-like space where the session would take place. She then swallowed two blue capsules and reclined on a couch. To help her relax and focus inward, she donned eyeshades and headphones, through which a program of specially selected classical music played.

The capsules contained a high dose of psilocybin, the principal constituent of “magic” mushrooms, which, like LSD and mescaline, produces changes in mood and perception yet only very rarely actual hallucinations. At the end of the session, when the psilocybin effects had dissipated, Lundahl, who had never before taken a hallucinogen, completed more questionnaires. Her responses indicated that during the time spent in the session room she had gone through a profound mystical-like experience similar to those reported by spiritual seekers in many cultures and across the ages—one characterized by a sense of interconnectedness with all people and things, accompanied by the feeling of transcending time and space, and of sacredness and joy.

@'Scientific American'

DOH!

Patti Smith and Jonathan Lethem in Conversation

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has few places to hide

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange had a reputation for being suspicious and paranoid even before everyone was out to get him.

Everyone, in this case, is the US - where government lawyers are hoping to prosecute on espionage charges - and the European Union, where he is wanted for questioning about an allegation of rape.

As of Tuesday, Mr Assange has also been liable to arrest in any of the 188 member countries of Interpol - from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe - in connection with the Swedish case.

Last seen in London, he is widely assumed to be in the UK now, though remaining continuously on the move.

If he appeared in public, British police would be obliged to arrest him under a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Swedish authorities - though it's not clear that anyone is going to go out of their way to find him.

"If there is no indication that the accused is in a particular region, you won't expect a police force to investigate," said a spokesman for the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).

So, supposing Mr Assange is still in the UK, and he lies low, he may be able to avoid arrest. In spring, however, his six-month visa will run out, creating additional problems for him...