INSIDE DOPE: DRUG LAWS, DRUG WARS

              

Source: suburra.com/.../drug-freedom-works-in-portugal/

Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work?

Portugal has the most liberal drug laws in Europe. In 2001, it became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal of drugs including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. Has it worked. Yes!

Time/Maia Szalavitz/ 26 August 2009

Read or download the full report by the Cato Institute in the US: Drug Decriminalisation in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies by Glen Greenwald

Photo: Susana Vera, Reuters

Mexico quietly decriminalizes drug use

Now marijuana, cocaine, LSD, and heroin will be tolerated for personal use. It's part of a bid to free up resources and jail space so that authorities can focus efforts on big-time traffickers.

Christian Science Monitor/Sara Miller Lima/24 August 2009

              

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

Argentina and legalizing pot

Argentina follows Mexico toward decriminalizing marijuana. What does this mean for the war on drugs?

Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled that it’s unconstitutional to punish adults for private marijuana use, a big step toward decriminalizing the drug. The ruling is based on the “privacy clause” of Argentina’s constitution—private pot use doesn’t “offend public order or morality”—but it comes just days after Mexico eliminated criminal penalties for holding small amounts of drugs. And Brazil and Ecuador are close behind.

The Week/27 August 2009

See also: Latin America on Its Way to Legalizing Drugs, Experts Say [Latin American International Herald Tribune]

Colorado's Marijuana Economy: An Explosion of Ganjapreneurship

Medical marijuana has been technically legal in Colorado since 2000. Medical marijuana dispensaries in the state are expected to double to 60 by the end of 2009. Illegal Marijuana farmers are now selling legally to the dispensaries.

Pic: Kathleen Chippi who runs One Brown Mouse Cannadis Healing Arts Center

'Considering the prevalence of the underground market, legitimizing the business has the effect of tightening controls over it, regulating who can legally purchase, sell, or grow it, which puts unscrupulous drug dealers out of business, this reducing the availability of product through any but official channels. The controls that come with legalization effectively reduces its availability, rather than the contrary. '

Two part article. Part of a series 'Recession Road Trip' by Christina Davidson/ The Atlantic/ 26 august 2009

It's Time to Legalize Drugs

By Peter Moskos and Stanford "Neill" Franklin. Moskos is a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the author of "Cop in the Hood." Neill Franklin is a 32-year law enforcement veteran. Both served as Baltimore City police officers and are members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

Having fought the war on drugs, we know that ending the drug war is the right thing to do -- for all of us, especially taxpayers. While the financial benefits of drug legalization are not our main concern, they are substantial. In a July referendum, Oakland, Calif., voted to tax drug sales by a 4-to-1 margin. Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron estimates that ending the drug war would save $44 billion annually, with taxes bringing in an additional $33 billion.

Washintgon Post/August 17, 2009

 

Mark Leffingwell / Daily Camera / AP

The Great American Pot Smoke-Out  has been held on April 20th for many years. This gathering of  thousands of people  at the University of Colorado in Boulder in 2009. Photo was taken at 4:20 p.m., when the entire crowd exhaled at once. See full set of pics at Time/Photos.

DRUG WARS

       US Soldiers inspect Afghan poppy fields.

US puts Afghan drug lords on hitlist to disrupt Taliban finances

• 50 traffickers with links to insurgency targeted
• Move marks major shift in counter-narcotics strategy

The question of how to deal with the opium poppy harvest and drug trade in Afghanistan, the source of 90% of the world's heroin, has been a highly controversial issue for years.

Richard Norton-Taylor and Jon Boone in Kabul/The Guardian 10 August 2009

        Map showing operations of organised crime in Mexico. Source: Stratfor Global Intelligence   Read: On The Trail of the Traffickers about the Mexican drug war. More than 11,000 people have been killed since late 2006.

 

 

 

WILCO TRIUMPH

                                                                                                                                  This is mainman Jeff Tweedie of Wilco holding his  wee birthday cake on stage at the Troxy in East London last night, surrounded by a shower of spangles, accepting the warm love and best wishes of the crowd.

It was a standout performance for band that quietly and steadily have become one of the great bands in America of today. To describe their music, they have their roots and feet in Americana, their heads in experimentalism, on a par with Radiohead.

With their three-guitar line-up, backed by keyboards, bass and drums, they create sonic symphonies, great swelling rousing swirls of beaty noise. Next they break it down to sweet and affecting highly crafted songs of the prairies, for those nights when the wind is howling outside your log cabin. The band as a unit are tight, drilled and honed by long roadwork,  expertly skilled and adept at negotiating the slides , breaks and seques a Wilco song requires, like experienced white-water rafters caught in a tricky current. They do this with a lot of heart and humour. They seem open, relaxed and were obviously enjoying themselves.

This was a stand-out performance and, for some reason, it made me feel that this is what it must have been like to see the Byrds in the Avalon Ballroom.

The Troxy, by the way, is a great old-fashioned art deco venue, with balconies and a great wide floor. We found a sweet spot where the sound was perfect and the bass moved right through your body.

Unable to take an SLR camera into the place, I was working with my small Sony digi, which I hadn't used for almost a year, and just experimenting with settings at random. I like the results. They seem to capture the moods and colours and energy of the music.

We - Emma, Kailash, Louis & I - were the only ones dancing, like loonies, in our corner of the arena. It was a joyous experience.

GLAD DAYS: Tom Paine & William Blake, The Dirty Strangers & John Sinclair

 

'Glad Day' or 'The Dance of Albion' by William Blake (c.1794)

Two beautiful glad days, with a large moon in the sky. Things are afoot.

Thursday night, torrential rains. I'm in the bar when friends arrive and tell me they're just off to the Lewes Little Theatre to see 'In Lambeth' by Jack Shepherd, there's tickets left, would I like to come. No question.

Some background. Jack Shepherd has always been one of my favourite British actors. He has produced a huge volume of work in his long career and is a man of great integrity and character. His play 'In Lambeth' is of special interest. I first saw it on the BBC years ago (happily this version is now available on YouTube).

'In Lambeth' is based around a meeting between Tom Paine and William Blake. The scene is Blake's back garden and the play begins with he and his wife sitting up an apple tree in the nude. Tom Paine turns up for supper (by arrangement or unexpectedly, I'm not sure).

The play, written and directed by Jack, who also plays Tom Paine in this production (the BBC film starred Bob Peck) is based on the story of a 'real' meeting between Paine and Blake when, legend has it, Blake warned Paine not to go back to his lodging and to escape to France before he was arrested. Paine takes Blake's advice and just escapes from Dover ahead of the clutches of the secret police of those days.

  Whether this incident happened is questionable. Blake and Paine certainly travelled in some of the same circles. Modern biographers of Paine and Blake ( and Peter Ackroyd respectively pay it little mind).

The first major biography of Paine was  the 2-volume 1892 edition of 'The Life of Thomas Paine' by Moncure Conway, he records that Paine gave a speech to the 'Friends of Liberty' of "inflammatory eloquence". The following night, at the house of friend called Johnson, a number of sympathisers to his cause were present, including the 'mystical William Blake.' Conway then quotes Gilchrist's account:

"On Paine's rising to leave, Blake laid his hand on the orator's shoulder, saying, 'You must not go home, or you are a dead man,' and hurried him off on his way to France, whither he was now in any case bound to take his seat as a legislator. By the time P:aine was at Dover, the officers were in his house... and, some twenty miniutes after the Custom House officials at Dover had turned over his slender baggage, narrowly escaped from the English Tories. These were hanging days! Blake on the occasion showed greater sagacity than Paine, whom, indeed, Fuseli affirmed to be more ignorant of the common affairs of life than himself even. spite of unworldliness and visionary faculty, Blake never wanted for prudence and sagacity in ordinary matters.'

This goes to heart of the great interest of the play. Here are two men living in revolutionary times - the birth of a New World. Paine  believes in political and social action, changing the world through practical efforts, repealing bad laws, extending the social franchise. Blake is more concerned with changjng the individual from within. Both speak with great eloquence and the dialogue and interchange between them is fascinating, moving and very contemporary.

This production was first- rate. Luke Shaw was brilliant as Blake and Lisa Bealby as his wife Catherine was equally excellent. Shepherd as Paine was expertly done. We were captivated and held by their wonderful performances.

It was a night of torrential rain. In the interval I was out having a fag in my hoodie (how sad is that, in the rain!) when a big guy with a leather jacket came out for a smoke. This was Vinnie. We fell into conversation. He said things in this country have got to change. He's been reading Marx and was studying Rousseau and related thinkers. He spoke in a heavy Scots accent and was full of righteous anger about the state of our country.That night I was full of thoughts.

The Friday night - a most beautiful evening, balmy weather, beautiful skies darkening to stars and bright moon.

I'm putting on a gig: The Dirty Strangers (fantastic band) and the legendary beat poet, writer, activist John Sinclair, former manager of the MC5 and founder of the White Panther Party.

In person, John is immediately delightful. A man at peace with himself, open and courteous and with an enthusiasm that is contagious. Laughing at being considered a legend. He says "I am a Bodhitsattva". He has no fixed home, has being taken in by two young people in Amsterdam, financially supported by well-wishers. He has an internet radio show and does live appearances. At these he improvises free verse/raps/blues songs and delivers them with spirit and gusto - as we discovered. His book, 'It's All Good', available from Head Press, is an excellent collection of well-written essays on various aspects of his busy and eventful life. He also gave me his CD of 'Detroit Life' by John Sinclair and His Motor City Blues Scholars. He tells me he is writing poems to every single Thelonious Monk track. Some of these are on the album.

Alan Clayton of the Dirty Strangers is a  powerhouse, a man of banter, with a Fred Perry and a porkpie hat. His songs are warm and joyous rock 'n 'roll tunes that make you smile and want to dance. The band as a whole are superb. George Butler on drums,  John Proctor on bass and Scottie Mulvey on keyboards just have a real natural groove with Alan as a full-on frontman pumping it up with a big smile on his face.  Their set with John Sinclair, in which they set up some great blues rhythms while John improvised his beat poems was a stonker. They'd never played together before, had 10 minutes soundcheck time, yet it all melded beautifully and received huge rounds of applause. Catch them if you can at the 100 Club in Oxford Street on August 19th.

 

 

MOON REVISITED

Scant days after the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, I'm in the Duke Of York's cinema with sons Alex and Louis watching 'Moon', the first feature by David Bowie's son  Duncan Jones. Ground control to first-born son.

Its is rare these days to see a space movie of substance. Set on the dark side of the moon, at a remote mining camp operated by just one man, this is a film with a lot of psychological edge, drenched in the feel and resonance of many previous space epics (principally 2001, Solaris and Alien) but which manages the difficult feat of being original, creating its own ground.

Co-scripted by Jones and Nathan Parker, the action centres on actor Sam Rockwell who dominates the entire film. This is his greatest role since 'Confessions of A Dangerous Man'. Its also got a great score by Clint Mansell.

One of the things that is most interesting in the film is the blend of retro modelling techniques and digital effects. This strikes just the right blend; 40 years on from the excitement of Apollo, this is space with a used look, with a cynical air.

When watching the film I was constantly reminded of an exhibition in 1999 with my sons called 'Full Moon: Apollo Mission Photographs of the Lunar Landscape'', put together by the aptly named Michael Light. We had just been to see the first of the new Star Wars trilogy, which was a huge disappointment, and then there we were in the Hayward Gallery getting excited over a photo exhibition.

Most stunning were the rooms containing huge panoramic photos, which are still the best sense of the lunar landscape I have ever experienced. The moon is a black and white world, and in this landscape, there is a tiny bit of colour - the astronaut and his craft.

Light had spent four years delving into the NASA archive of 30,000 images from the Apollo moon flights. He digitally scanned originals to film-grain resolution and created the panoramas by combining individual Hasseblad medium-format images.

In the Hayward exhibition programme notes, Suzanne Cotter writes: 'Before the Apollo astronauts landed on the moon, the lunar surface had been pristine for over four billion years, still and silent, marked only by the impact of countless meteorites and blown only by the solar wind. Yet several of the astronauts have talked about how, at times, the moonscapes seem strangely familiar...This is the 'patient moon' of timeless proportions, of sweeping relief and smooth hills.'

Jones acknowledges the book's impact on the visual look of' 'Moon'. The idea of creating a shake-and-bake Helium-3 mining facility on the moon to extract fuel for fusion-powered generators on the earth came from 'Entering Space' by the astronautical engineer Robert Zubrin.

In the film's press notes, Jones says the film is about 'the paranoia that strikes you when you are in a long distance relationship; and it’s about learning to accept yourself.  A lot to take on for a little indie film, but maybe that was the best place to try.'

Check it out.

ROBERTO BOLAŇO: 2666

 

"What is sought and achieved here is the Total Novel, placing the author of 2666 on the same team as Cervantes, Sterne, Melville, Proust, Musil, and Pynchon." - Rodrigo Fresa

This is my second post about Roberto Bolaño , having finished his mighty and extensive saga '2666' which is a true literary experience.

Composed of five parts which Bolaño intended to be published in five separate volumes, his wishes were overridden by his executors after his death in 2003 at the age of 50, and was produced in this giant 900pp form, first in Spain in 2004 and then, in translation, in the US in 2008 and the UK in 2009.

The book's central focus is the pseudonymous Mexican border town of Santa Teresa (based on  the real town of Cuidad Juarez) and the mysterious and ongoing real-life series of brutal murders of women that continue to this day. More than 400 women have been killed or 'disappeared' since 1993.

The book's five sections are as follows:

1) 'The Part about The Critics', in which four literary critics join forces to try and discover the mysteries and whereabouts of a famous German writer named  Benno von Archimboldi, which leads them on a twisting trail to Mexico.  

2) 'The Part About Amalfitano' takes us deeper into the lives of the people of Santa Teresa through the experiences of a philosophy professor who is having a mental breakdown.

3) 'The Part About Fate' concerns a black American literary journalist named Oscar Fate who is, by chance, assigned to cover a boxing match in Santa Teresa and ends up getting drawn into the mystery of the killings.

3 'The Part About The Crimes' is the largest section which documents in extensive detail the many murders and the attempts made by various detectives and policemen to discover who is responsible.

4) 'The Part About Archimboldi'  tells the author's  lifestory in Europe during world War II and beyond, and links us back to the book's beginning.

As in his earlier novel 'The Savage Detectives' (see Previous Post: ROBERTO BOLAÑO), which I would heartily recommend reading first, the narrative structure is unorthodox, containing a cast of hundreds of characters whose interlocking stories constantly overlap and intersect in unexpected ways.

Bolaño's unique writing style blends the magical and the realistic, the humorous and the grotesque. He spares us nothing of the gruesome details of the murders and delights in talking graphically about sexual matters. Death hangs over the whole book and this is definitely not a work for the squeamish. Bolano was dying while he wrote it and the smell of the grave lies heavily upon it.

It is rightly considered one of the great works of literature of the 21st century, which also serves the purpose of drawing world attention to the mass murder of the Mexican women. It is a remarkable feat of imagination which envelops you in its grasp and will permeate your thoughts and dreams. Its countless stories within stories take us to the depths of humanity and the heights of poetry. Its a true wonder.

There is a great deal about Bolaño and this book on the net, from which I have selected the following links:

'Latin America's Literary Outlaw' By William Skidelsky [The Observer 11 Jan 2009]

'2006' Review by Richard Gwyn [The Independent 9 Jan 2009]

'The Many Deaths of Roberto Bolano' by Michael Saler [Times Literary Supplement 7 Jan 2009]

'Bolaño's 2666: The Best Book of 2008' by Lev Grossman [Time 10 Nov 2008]

'Bolaño  in Mexico' by Carmen Boullosa [The Nation 5 April 2007]

'Vagabonds: Roberto Bolaño and his fractured masterpiece' by Danie Zalewski [New Yorker 26 March 2007]

'A Writer Whose Posthumous Novel Crowns an Illustrious Career' by Larry Rohter [New York Times 9 Aug 2005]

'2666' Review by Scott Esposito  [The Quarterly Conversation. Issue 14]

2666: A Novel

Robert Bolano

Female homicides in Ciudad Juárez

I'VE BEEN SPOTIFY'D

http://www.wearesuperfamous.com/tag/spotify/#ixzz0LHjFIji6&D

WHILE YOUR LISTENING, HAVE A LOOK AT JAMES JEANS AMAZING SKETCHBOOK WHICH  I JUST DISCOVERED ON THE ABOVE SITE.

The Generalist has joined and has been enjoying his first day on Spotify - a free music site (with some ads/ premium service without ads £9 a month). You have to register. The rest is pure fun. You can't download but you can listen not only to a massive amount of fresh music on Radio mode but also a mammoth number of previously released albums.

Read interview with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek

Here are some of the great tracks and artists I discovered, to suit a wide variety of tastes:

John Butler Trio

New World Son

Burton Greene

Nicola Conte: The Dharma Bums

Maserati: Kalinchta

The Cranberies: Waltzing Back

The Raconteurs: Level

Bonnie Leigh: Forked Deer

Arid Anderson: Electra Song

Donald Byrd: Wind Parade

Sia: I Go To Sleep

Moscow Composer's Orchestra: Brief Meditation

The Waifs: Up all Night

At this point Spotify crashed and I lost all my History links. No worries. There's always tomorrow. Enjoy.

THE DESERTEC INDUSTRIAL INITIATIVE

Sources: www.trec-uk.org.uk/                                             http://www.vai-risparmio.it/nasce-desertec-un-nuovo-progetto-fotovoltaico_24.html                         www.ilpannellofotovoltaico.com/.../

Things are getting futuristic. Today was the official launch in Munich of the Desertec Industrial Intiative (DII):

The twelve Desertec Industrial Initiative founding members are ABB, Abengoa Solar, Cevital, Deutsche Bank, EON, HSH Nordbank, Muenchener Rueca, M+W Zander, RWE, Schott Solar, Siemens and Solar Millennium/MSM.

The estimated cost of the project, according to William Ickes of AFP is estimated at 400 billion Euros (560 billion Dollars) and is scheduled for completion in 2050. 'The massive project would cover 6,000 square kilometres (2,300 square miles), including 2,500 for power plants and 3,500 for the distribution grid.' He reports that the project has 'won support from firms in Algeria and Spain and from officials in Egypt and Jordan.'

'A study by Desertec, Greenpeace and the Wuppertal environmental research institute said the project could create two million jobs. Desertec spokesman Tim Hufermann said 80 percent of the electricity would power producer countries.  The remainder should satisfy 15 percent of Europe's needs, he added.'

According to Energy Current: 'The initiative will analyze and develop the technical, economic, political, social and ecological framework for carbon-free power generation in the deserts of North Africa.

'The Desertec concept, developed by think tank the Club of Rome, envisions a sustainable power supply for all regions of the world with access to the energy potential of deserts. It aims to provide 15 percent of Europe's energy needs, along with part of the energy demand in North Africa and the Middle East by 2050, by developing renewable energy projects in the desert regions of North Africa and the Middle East.'

According to The Economist: 'The Start of Something Big'

'The power stations in question will be “solar thermal”,  rather than the better known sort relying on photovoltaic solar cells. In other words, instead of converting the sun’s rays directly into electricity using expensive semiconductor-grade silicon, they will use cheap metal mirrors to focus those rays either onto boilers that make steam to drive turbines, or onto containers of special low-melting-point salts that will store heat overnight, so that it is available to drive turbines during the hours of darkness.'

US ANTI-COAL MOVEMENT

On July 8th, this crew of Greenpeace activists climbed Mt Rushmore and unfurled their banner calling for the G8 to act on climate change. See full report, videos, photos on Greenpeace USA site.

Were you aware the biggest environmental movement in the US at present is the campaign against the coal industry and the financial institutions that bankroll them? This is certainly a story that is under-reported in the UK and maybe in your country too. Here, in a brief summary form, is some of what is going on.

This week the Sierra Club, a leading US conservation group, made an astonishing announcement: that since they started their 'Beyond Coal Campaign' six years ago, they and their allies have defeated plans to build 100 new coal-fired power stations in the US - the 100th being the coal plant proposed by Intermountain Power in Delta, Utah.

The coal rush began in 2001 when plans were set in train to build 150 new coal-fired plants in the US. The extraordinary effectiveness of the campaigners have had a devastating impact on these plans.

According to a piece by Ruedigar Matthes on Planetsave: 'The Sierra Club doesn’t just want to stop the coal kingdom from expanding, but wants to ignite a renewable energy revolution, helping states fill the void left by abandoned or prevented coal plants. In place of coal, the Sierra Club is pushing for the development of wind, solar and geothermal plants as well as promoting energy efficiency.'

Another important focus for the anti-coal movement is Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining which is devastating the natural environment of Appalachia. According to Mountain Action:

'Mining companies literally explode the tops off of mountains with ammonium nitrate oil fuel to expose seams of coal, which they then scrape out with giant machines. While the environmental devastation caused by this practice is obvious, families and communities near these mining sites are forced to contend with continual blasting from mining operations that can take place up to 300 feet from their homes and operate 24 hours a day. Families and communities near mining sites also suffer from airborne dust and debris, floods that have left hundreds dead and thousands homeless, and contamination of their drinking water supplies. Furthermore, mountaintop removal is a mining technique designed, from the very start, to take the labor force out of the mining operation. Once a power base for the U.S. labor movement, unions in Appalachia have been devastated by the transition from deep ground mining to surface mining techniques like mountaintop removal. According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, in the early 1950’s there were between 125,000 and 145,000 miners employed in West Virginia; in 2004 there were just over 16,000. During that time, coal production has increased!

Source: The Alleghenny Front

In a passionate article published in the Washington Post (July 3rd), entitled 'A President Breaks Hearts in Appalachia', Robert F. Kennedy Jr calls upon Obama to stop what he calls an 'Appalachian apocalypse.' With good reason.

According to RFK Jr, who works as a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council: 'Mining syndicates are detonating 2,500 tons of explosives each day -- the equivalent of a Hiroshima bomb weekly -- to blow up Appalachia's mountains and extract sub-surface coal seams. They have demolished 500 mountains -- encompassing about a million acres -- buried hundreds of valley streams under tons of rubble, poisoned and uprooted countless communities, and caused widespread contamination to the region's air and water.'

One month ago:17 Arrests In Mountain Top Removal actions

Mountaintop Removal Video from iLoveMountains

Mining Mountains graphic from the New York Times

UPDATE: The Guardian picks up the story:

Obama's green credentials tested by battle against mountaintop mining by Suzanne Goldenberg, which profiles Larry Gibson's 25-year battle against mountaintop mining. The article concludes:

'Like other opponents of mountaintop removal, Gibson had been counting on Obama, with his election promises of a clean energy economy, to shift the power balance away from coal.

But those hopes evaporated in May when the EPA signed 42 permits for mountaintop removal while turning down only six — a higher ratio even than during the latter part of the George Bush presidency. Some 170 more permits are pending, according to the Sierra Club.

In June, the White House announced it would strengthen oversight of mining operations, but it refused to endorse a ban on the dumping of debris into mountain streams.

That stand has infuriated Obama's natural allies. Gibson sees it as pure betrayal. "I think Obama's going to fall into line like the last president we had," he said. "He has developed into a coccoon that is going to end up not being a butterfly but a corporate president."

TOM PAINE FESTIVAL: THE SHOE NAIL DANCE

Lewes High Street was blocked off to traffic this afternoon for four performances of a dance extravaganza. Entitled 'The Shoe Nail Dance' it was inspired as follows:

'In 1793, Thomas Paine was tried in absentia for sedition, before a government-selected jury at London’s Guildhall. The sentence was exile, or, if he choose to set foot on English soil again, immediate imprisonment and death by hanging. Following the trial, commemorative medallions were sold in the streets celebrating the “End of Pain”, and aristocrats wore custom-designed shoe nails inscribed with “TP", allowing them to literally trample on Paine and his revolutionary ideas. '

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TOM PAINE FESTIVAL: PAINE PRESS

One of the most interesting aspects of Lewes' Tom Paine Festival has been to see Peter Chasseaud's Tom Paine Press - a beautiful specially-built replica of an original press from Paine's time, which would have been used to produce Paine's original pamphlets. The history of the whole project is documented in Peter's own site, which shows the press being made.

Here we see Peter printing two pages of the pamphlet that Paine wrote when he was in Lewes, arguing the case for a wage rise for the Excise Men.  Peter is shown here inking the metal type.

Here he is attaching a dampened piece of paper which is then brought over to make contact with the type.

 

 

Peter then explains that he is going to print the left hand page first.

 

 

 

It slides under the press and a good pull makes the print.

 

 

 

 

Similar procedure for the second page.

 

 

 

Here is the finished page, fresh off the press.

 

 

 

Peter is printing a larger size for demonstration purposes. Here he shows the original size that such a pamphlet would be.

 

Peter's partner Carolyn Trant has produced an excellent bound book of prints, produced in the town by a group called the Paddock Printmakers,  showing the places in Lewes with which Tom Paine is associated.  

Below is one of her own beautiful prints from the book which shows the ante-room off Westgate Chapel, next door to Bull House where Tom Paine lived. Carolyn says: "Paine would have probably used the chapel - in fact he and Elizabeth Ollive took their wedding vows there before going through the legal ceremony in St Michaels church over the road. I think this little room is one of the nicest in Lewes, still smelling of the dust of the eighteenth century.'

As chance would have it, I came across a 1989 review by Richard Bernstein in the New York Times of 'Revolution in Print: The Press in France 1775-1800', edited by Robert Darnton and Daniel Roche., which read in part:

'Mr. Darnton and Mr. Roche open the curtain with chapters on the world of publishing and censorship in the last years of the ancien regime, showing how the system of control, built on a proto-totalitarian thought police, was already teetering on the brink of collapse. In the 1750's, 40 percent of those sentenced to the Bastille (136 of 339 prisoners) were connected with the book trade. Smugglers of illicit publications often concluded their lives as galley slaves. And yet censorship failed to strangle the circulation of what the entire publishing industry called ''philosophical'' books, a code word for all materials, whether political or pornographic, that were banned by the thought police. These ''philosophical'' works were printed in Switzerland and brought into France by a host of clandestine methods. A market existed for both ideas and illicit entertainment, and risk-taking entrepreneurs found ways to satisfy it.'

This bears interesting comparison with the current situation in Iran. See recent story by Brian Stelter in the New York Times     See also Previous Post: IRAN: TECHNOLOGICAL DEJA VU