Bob Dylan on His Mystical Rebirth

In a startling stretch of his interview with Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan assigns a special spiritual significance to the death of Robert Zimmerman, the president of the San Fernando chapter of the Hells Angels, in the Sixties.

"Have you heard of transfiguration?" Dylan asks Rolling Stone Contributing Editor Mikal Gilmore, referring to the New Testament account of Jesus Christ's transformation from physical to spiritual form. "Well, you're looking at someone that's been [transfigured]."

Bob Dylan first learned about the death of Zimmerman in the book Hell's Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hells Angels. Dylan even brought the book to his interview, and he asked Gilmore to read a passage aloud. Dylan was struck by the fact he and the Hells Angel had identical names and both had motorcycle accidents a few years apart. "I didn't know who I was before I read the Barger book," says Dylan.

The biker Bobby Zimmerman died during a Hells Angels' run to Bass Lake in California when a muffler fell off his motorcycle. When he turned around to retrieve it, he was accidentally run over by another biker.

Later in the interview, Gilmore presses Dylan for more details on his ideas.  "You can go and learn about it from the Catholic Church," Dylan says. "You can learn about it in some old mystical books, but it's a real concept . . . So when you ask your questions you're asking them to a person who's long dead. You're asking them to a person that doesn't exist."

http://www.elboomeran.com/upload/ficheros/noticias/dylan.pdf

Greenpeace: From hippies to lobbyists

Where did it all begin?

In 1971, it took just a handful of individuals who were strongly opposed to nuclear testing to give birth to this worldwide organisation.
The Greenpeace story started in late 1960s Vancouver, where - as in many other North American cities at the time - a protest movement was in full bloom. With the US embroiled in the Vietnam war, many deserters and conscientious objectors had sought refuge in neighbouring Canada.
And it was against this backdrop that a new idea began to win adherents.  "Stopping the war in Vietnam was important to me and we wanted to ... we were peace activists," explains author and photographer Rex Weyler. "But we knew that there was something else brewing and this was the environmental movement, this was ecology; we kept saying ecology is the next big thing."

Quantum optics

Serge Haroche and David Wineland have won the Nobel prize in physics for their work on quantum optics.

Latino influence and power in the U.S.

According to the 2010 census, the number of American of Latino descent grew 43% in the last decade to over 50 million.  By 2050, Latinos are projected to number 132 million and represent 30% of the population.  As that population evolves, so does their political power.  A new report shows that since 2008, US’s Latino voting population has grown 22% since 2008.  But what are the cultural and political implications of these now well-understood statistics?

Dr. Gabor Mate -When the body says no

Emotions are deeply implicated in both the development of illness and in the restoration of health.  Dr. Gabor Mate makes the case that there are important links between the mind and the immune system.  He found that stress and individual emotional makeup play critical roles in an array of diseases.

Bill Maher on Larry King Now - Part II

On religious extremism, Republican policy and racism in the United States.

Bill Maher on Larry King Now - Part I

discussing President Obama, Governor Rommey and undecided voters.