Anarchy and Education in 1970s Britain
Idealistic British activists created a wave experimental schools in the 1970’s—places without rules, timetables or even compulsory lessons. So what became of the kids who attended these free-for-alls?
The Reykjavik Confessions
Why six people admitted to having roles in two murders they didn’t commit:
During the following days, there were long interviews, without a lawyer being present. Her interrogators were generally pleasant and helpful, saying they wanted to unlock her memories. She was “just desperate to get out of there and get back to my baby,” she says.
After one interview, which went on for more than 10 hours, the police prepared a statement which Erla signed, saying she had seen Saevar and three of his friends with a body wrapped in a bed sheet: the body of Gudmundur Einarsson.
Erla was convinced, wrongly it turned out, that the statement would be dismissed as nonsense.
Naming the Dead from the Desert
It’s the job of a forensics team in Arizona to identify the bodies of migrants found in the desert. Anthropologist Robin Reineke describes how she pieces together the sad jigsaw puzzle of personal attributes and belongings.
Some of the items have unspoken stories.
There was a young kid – he was probably only 15 or 16 years old – and the soles of his shoes were just completely worn off. He had been carrying one orange paper flower.
I remember a man who had a small dead hummingbird in his pocket. I know that for a lot of indigenous North American peoples hummingbirds hold a sacred significance – they represent hope and love and they’re a powerful protective symbol.
Gaddafi’s Point Guard
When US basketball player Alex Owumi signed a contract to play for a team in Benghazi, Libya, he had no idea that his employer was the the most feared man in the country. Nor did he guess the country was about to descend into war.
A lot of the players had scratches and banged-up bruises on their arms. One had a black eye he was trying to conceal. Gaddafi’s security goons would push them up against lockers, things like that – and some of these guys were not big athletes like me and Moustapha. During practice you could see some of them were just scared to make mistakes. But in any sport you’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to make bad plays. I can’t go into a game and trust people who are scared.
The next day, we travelled to a game in Tripoli on a private jet like we were a team playing in the NBA [the National Basketball Association in the US]. That’s how it was with Al-Nasr and the Gaddafi family – they got extra funding, extra millions of dollars. But the deal was we were supposed to win – and when we lost, it was a problem.
We’re All in the Same Boat—Aren’t We?
A brief history of the cruise ship industry—from its early idealism to its evolution into “funships” for “Huggets”:
“Arison found a Norwegian called Knut Kloster who had a suitable boat. Kloster also came from an old shipping family. They had made their fortune shipping ice to Europe from Norway, and they now ran a vast fleet of tankers. In 1966 Kloster and Arison set up a company called Norwegian Cruise Lines based in Miami.
“Kloster believed that the aim of capitalism was not just to make money but to use its power to improve society. He saw the world as divided between the rich, industrial west – and the ‘third world’ which was struggling to escape from the debilitating legacy of colonialism, and the still vastly unequal distribution of global power.
“So his cruise ships were going to remedy that.”
Transcript: The Julian Assange Interview
Q: Here you are facing, possibly facing, very, very serious charges indeed, double rape even, is a possibility—and you are saying: “I will not go back to the country where those offenses are alleged to have been carried out to face the music.” JA: No, I have never said that. Q: In that case you can catch the next plane back to Sweden. JA: No, I do things according to proper process. I stayed in Sweden for five weeks to enable that proper process to occur. Proper process did not occur.
How Kevin Bacon sparked a new branch of science
The theory that everyone in the world is six friendships away from everyone else is regarded by many as a myth. So what happens when the theory is put to the test?