Category Archives: Freedom of Speech

It’s Still 1984

Posted on June 10, 2017 by
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It’s Always 1984 Somewhere

Posted on June 9, 2017 by

This week marks the 68th anniversary of the publication of George Orwell’s iconic dystopian novel 1984. In the extraordinary political environment that we now find ourselves, with Orwellian Newspeak the policy of the U.S. government and “alternative facts” flouted by an illegitimate regime, the … Continue reading →

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Celebrate May Day

Posted on May 1, 2017 by
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A Travel Guru To Follow

Posted on April 23, 2017 by

For more than three decades North American travelers have been getting advice on European tourism from a folksy, easy-going travel writer named Rick Steves. Over the years, Rick’s best-selling guidebooks and popular Public Television travelogues have encouraged millions of Americans … Continue reading →

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Words Have Power

Posted on April 13, 2017 by

Each year, the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom calculates the Top Ten Most Challenged Books. Here’s the just released list for 2016: This One Summer written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki This young adult graphic novel, … Continue reading →

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Do Not Obey In Advance

Posted on April 6, 2017 by

It may be just a marketing ploy by Penguin Random House, but the publisher has printed the text of Timothy Synders’ chilling book On Tyranny onto a series of large posters and put them up  in east London. The powerful posters, which … Continue reading →

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Manufacturing Consent

Posted on March 9, 2017 by

Published in 1988, Manufacturing Consent is a frighteningly relevant book in this time of media collusion in the take over of democractic governments and institutions by kleptocrats and neo-fascists. The book challenges the idea that the mainstream media acts as a check … Continue reading →

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the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men

Posted on March 1, 2017 by

Eighty years ago this month, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men was first published. Based on Steinbeck’s own experiences as a bindlestiff – an impoverished migratory worker – in California during the 1920s, Of Mice and Men tells the story of George Milton and … Continue reading →

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’60s Redux

Posted on February 27, 2017 by

Inspired by the ongoing national crisis triggered by the election of a neo-Fascist national government, Chicago-based illustrators Clay Hickson and Liana Jegers have launched The Smudge . With its bubbled typeface masthead and old school feel, the new monthly paper aims to … Continue reading →

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Hands Off Our Revolution

Posted on February 18, 2017 by

Hands Off Our Revolution is a new organization of artists, writers and musicians who have come together for a series of art exhibitions and actions to confront head-on the rise of reactionary right-wing populism in Europe, the U.S., and around the … Continue reading →

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