Judge’s facts become work of blockbusting fiction

A district court judge who lectures on international art crime has found his work in the most unexpected place – the pages of Dan Brown’s latest blockbuster. Hamilton-based Judge Arthur Tompkins, who each New Zealand winter teaches a course on art crime during war in a small town north of Rome, was stunned to find The Da Vinci Code author had lifted a passage of his writing for use in his latest New York Times bestseller, Inferno.

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Album review: Victim of Love – Charles Bradley

VICTIM OF LOVE Charles Bradley (Shock) Arguably the toughest job for Brooklyn’s Daptones label and their crusade to record those now-ageing soul artists who slipped through the grooves of the sound’s 60s and 70s heyday is to back up their discoveries with solid second albums Once the glossy sheen of discovery has worn through then it takes an artist with the talents of a Sharon Jones or, in this case, Charles Bradley to harness the music and make it relevant again, not just an all-singing, all-dancing museum piece.

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Why Legalizing Marijuana Makes Sense

Correction Appended: April 16, 2009 For the past several years, I’ve been harboring a fantasy, a last political crusade for the baby-boom generation. We, who started on the path of righteousness, marching for civil rights and against the war in Vietnam, need to find an appropriately high-minded approach to life’s exit ramp

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