An Infinite Calling
*
"Was ever a situation so set up for a fall? Perhaps there will be just a gradual dawning followed by a 'what was that'? inquisition, but could there be rapid implosion? Once the blindfolds with which the twentieth century has left us are wrenched off, there should be a distinct feeling of liberation. Though the political Left will be rightly held responsible for the new PC totalitarianism, its collapse may herald the resumption of a genuine 'progressive project'; one based on a full acceptance of science, rather than a resort to Freudian Marxism, post-structuralism or other forms of discredited mumbo-jumbo."
Steve Moxon.
There was little likelihood the voices were human. And little doubt they came from another place outside of time. He was hesitant to embrace inter-dimensional jargon; but equally he could almost hear them, feel them, from a time long ago when this was a very different place. Asphalt, concrete, houses, crowded lives, negligence, insouciance, an arrogant lack of caring about their own lives, much less others, now coated this once magical spot. He could feel how much these other creatures had valued this place. How much it had meant to them, in the struggle to protect their families. How old, how wise, how protective the leader had been.
It was this leader who spoke to him now, as he went out to the back room of his house each evening after work to check on the pigeon's recovery. It wasn't flying yet, and still spent much of the day huddled in the corner of the old fish tank, avoiding its own excrement. But the injured bird was eating and drinking, and he now held more hope that it would recover. Most of the animals he had ever tried to rescue had died within hours. Perhaps it was his kindness that had brought on the attention of the ancient spirit he could hear so easily. Much would be changed. Much was at his beck and call, an awful moment. Surprised by the spirit's attention, he stood stock still in the back room, staring in astonished curiosity at the bird, listening, or trying to listen, to what was being said to him.
He knew this was an awful time; that humanity had been entirely hoodwinked. He knew that the fearsome excesses of communism were nothing compared to what had happened to his own culture; that under the banner of freedom the population had become more heavily controlled than at any other time in history. Just as he had missed his children even before they had left home, catastrophic control had swept through them like a tidal wave. The ancient voice seemed to find his dilemma incomprehensible; and indeed attempting to explain to a pre-computer intelligence the world as it was now was difficult. The ancient virtues, of courage, fortitude, protecting and providing for your offspring, these virtues no longer counted in a society where the government intervened in a child's life from the moment of birth; and even before that.
His telepathic abilities were leading to overload. He took on the toxic, brutal nature of the city. History told him it had always been a tough, scrambling place. The difference now was the level of control the implants had enabled. You have to find the core, confront your enemy. You have to fight in a way that ensured victory. There was no point being noble in defeat. All of it was gone, the hope he had once held. Brutal as it was; his own origins provided no answer as to how to battle an amorphous force, intelligences that slivered through cyberspace, a powerful controlling agent that had as much will to live as he had to escape. If there was some way to move beyond this, he wasn't sure what it was.
The next day at work appeared on the surface exactly the same as all the others; sheets of gray; artificial, fluorescent lights, gray carpeting, pale, off white walls. But under his skin, he knew there were fresh threats. His implant was malfunctioning, like a buzzing light bulb blinking in and out. One minute he could see everything he asked, the next minute nothing. In time perhaps... But the ancient spirit had no experience of this terrible world, no advice except to act with courage and decency, to protect the ones he loved. But with his kids at university; and most of the friends he grew up with long dead, there was only Julie; waiting at home for him. He suspected she was pregnant, but wasn't sure. She hadn't told him and he hadn't asked.
His sense of foreboding increased more by the minute than the hour; his stomach lurching at every sentence he recycled from the official press releases to the computer data base. He remained unconvinced that anyone read anything he wrote. Now and then, amongst the official pap about new health programs and the latest data showing the population was healthier and wealthier than it had ever been, he occasionally tried to slip in phrases suggesting doubt. The phrases never appeared in the printed news sheet which was the physical relic of a once proud newspaper. His regurgitation of the government press releases was itself closely monitored. Occasionally, particularly when rewriting the releases on the state of contemporary education, he tried to suggest that things might have been better in the past; but these suggestions never made it on to the page.
Occasionally he was even bold enough to suggest that the present state of things owed much to an amalgam of totalitarian and communist ideology; and that the chaos and disorder of the past was not all bad; that academics arguing for the triumph of the individual may have had a point. No one ever criticised him; his efforts, even though they were just phrases or the occasional random sentence, were simply deleted. How sad it all was. After being wiped ten times he really didn't have much to lose. He assumed his bosses put his irregularities down to the effects of the treatment and were more tolerant of his bolshiness than perhaps they should have been. But this day was different. He could tell the hierarchy was watching him; he just didn't know why. His behaviour, if anything, had been more moderate than ever before. He collapsed into defeat; keeping his head down as his fingers flickered across the keyboards. His suspicion that Julie was pregnant meant he made certain that for today, at least, not a word was out of place; not a phrase suggested he didn't believe a word of the crap he was keying on to the record.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/a-shambles-nelson-hazy-on-cheaper-fuel-pledge/2008/05/16/1210765174062.html
BRENDAN NELSON'S post-budget strategy began to unravel yesterday when his promise to cut petrol excise exposed a $750 million cost blowout and the Coalition squabbled over whether it had a policy to increase pensions.
Mounting a blitz to sell his petrol tax reduction of 5c a litre, DrNelson said the measure would be "fully budgeted and costed" and would cost $1.8 billion a year, or $7.2 billion over four years.
But he then agreed the four-year figure would increase by $750 million because of lost GST which is levied on the excise.
Dr Nelson was unsure whether the states, which receive all the GST revenue, would be compensated for the revenue shortfall.
"That is something we would obviously negotiate when we get to this particular point," he told 3AW radio in Victoria.
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200805/s2247472.htm?tab=latest
Many China watchers have been surprised at the nation's media coverage of this week's earthquake disaster.
Within minutes of Monday's 7.9 magnitude quake, and long before details of the devastation it caused began to emerge, the nation's leaders were informing the state-run media that a national disaster had occurred.
In the ensuing days, Chinese media have covered the search and rescue effort, and reporting damage and fatality estimates from the front line.
It is an illustration of how much China has changed since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, which killed nearly a quarter of a million people.
In 1979, Time Magazine said it had taken nearly three years for Chinese officials to share details of that disaster.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jhuSCSHf0_NnOvpd5kajS5SdNBdgD90N208O1
WASHINGTON (AP) — In President Bush's hint that Barack Obama wants to appease terrorists, Democrats heard troubling echoes of 2004, when Republicans portrayed John Kerry as irresolute and weak on national security.
Determined to end the similarities there, Obama and his allies counterattacked Friday with a multi-pronged response that was as fast and fierce as Kerry's response to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads was slow and uncertain.
And while the Democrats' first-day responses focused on Bush's speech this week in Israel, Friday's reactions mainly targeted John McCain, the GOP presidential candidate who seemed largely on the sidelines at first.
Obama, appearing unusually feisty and at times sarcastic, led the countercharge himself. Campaigning in South Dakota, he departed from planned remarks to rebuke Bush and McCain, and then called a news conference for a second dose.
"I was offended by what is a continuation of a strategy from this White House, now mimicked by Senator McCain, that replaces strategy and analysis and smart policy with bombast, exaggerations and fear-mongering," the Illinois senator said.
Bush's speech Thursday to the Israeli parliament, he said, wasn't about policy.
"It was about politics, about trying to scare the American people," Obama said. "And that's what will not work in this election because the American people can look back at the track record of George Bush, supported by John McCain," and conclude that the nation was misled about the Iraq war's justification, cost, length and benefit to America.
"Was ever a situation so set up for a fall? Perhaps there will be just a gradual dawning followed by a 'what was that'? inquisition, but could there be rapid implosion? Once the blindfolds with which the twentieth century has left us are wrenched off, there should be a distinct feeling of liberation. Though the political Left will be rightly held responsible for the new PC totalitarianism, its collapse may herald the resumption of a genuine 'progressive project'; one based on a full acceptance of science, rather than a resort to Freudian Marxism, post-structuralism or other forms of discredited mumbo-jumbo."
Steve Moxon.
There was little likelihood the voices were human. And little doubt they came from another place outside of time. He was hesitant to embrace inter-dimensional jargon; but equally he could almost hear them, feel them, from a time long ago when this was a very different place. Asphalt, concrete, houses, crowded lives, negligence, insouciance, an arrogant lack of caring about their own lives, much less others, now coated this once magical spot. He could feel how much these other creatures had valued this place. How much it had meant to them, in the struggle to protect their families. How old, how wise, how protective the leader had been.
It was this leader who spoke to him now, as he went out to the back room of his house each evening after work to check on the pigeon's recovery. It wasn't flying yet, and still spent much of the day huddled in the corner of the old fish tank, avoiding its own excrement. But the injured bird was eating and drinking, and he now held more hope that it would recover. Most of the animals he had ever tried to rescue had died within hours. Perhaps it was his kindness that had brought on the attention of the ancient spirit he could hear so easily. Much would be changed. Much was at his beck and call, an awful moment. Surprised by the spirit's attention, he stood stock still in the back room, staring in astonished curiosity at the bird, listening, or trying to listen, to what was being said to him.
He knew this was an awful time; that humanity had been entirely hoodwinked. He knew that the fearsome excesses of communism were nothing compared to what had happened to his own culture; that under the banner of freedom the population had become more heavily controlled than at any other time in history. Just as he had missed his children even before they had left home, catastrophic control had swept through them like a tidal wave. The ancient voice seemed to find his dilemma incomprehensible; and indeed attempting to explain to a pre-computer intelligence the world as it was now was difficult. The ancient virtues, of courage, fortitude, protecting and providing for your offspring, these virtues no longer counted in a society where the government intervened in a child's life from the moment of birth; and even before that.
His telepathic abilities were leading to overload. He took on the toxic, brutal nature of the city. History told him it had always been a tough, scrambling place. The difference now was the level of control the implants had enabled. You have to find the core, confront your enemy. You have to fight in a way that ensured victory. There was no point being noble in defeat. All of it was gone, the hope he had once held. Brutal as it was; his own origins provided no answer as to how to battle an amorphous force, intelligences that slivered through cyberspace, a powerful controlling agent that had as much will to live as he had to escape. If there was some way to move beyond this, he wasn't sure what it was.
The next day at work appeared on the surface exactly the same as all the others; sheets of gray; artificial, fluorescent lights, gray carpeting, pale, off white walls. But under his skin, he knew there were fresh threats. His implant was malfunctioning, like a buzzing light bulb blinking in and out. One minute he could see everything he asked, the next minute nothing. In time perhaps... But the ancient spirit had no experience of this terrible world, no advice except to act with courage and decency, to protect the ones he loved. But with his kids at university; and most of the friends he grew up with long dead, there was only Julie; waiting at home for him. He suspected she was pregnant, but wasn't sure. She hadn't told him and he hadn't asked.
His sense of foreboding increased more by the minute than the hour; his stomach lurching at every sentence he recycled from the official press releases to the computer data base. He remained unconvinced that anyone read anything he wrote. Now and then, amongst the official pap about new health programs and the latest data showing the population was healthier and wealthier than it had ever been, he occasionally tried to slip in phrases suggesting doubt. The phrases never appeared in the printed news sheet which was the physical relic of a once proud newspaper. His regurgitation of the government press releases was itself closely monitored. Occasionally, particularly when rewriting the releases on the state of contemporary education, he tried to suggest that things might have been better in the past; but these suggestions never made it on to the page.
Occasionally he was even bold enough to suggest that the present state of things owed much to an amalgam of totalitarian and communist ideology; and that the chaos and disorder of the past was not all bad; that academics arguing for the triumph of the individual may have had a point. No one ever criticised him; his efforts, even though they were just phrases or the occasional random sentence, were simply deleted. How sad it all was. After being wiped ten times he really didn't have much to lose. He assumed his bosses put his irregularities down to the effects of the treatment and were more tolerant of his bolshiness than perhaps they should have been. But this day was different. He could tell the hierarchy was watching him; he just didn't know why. His behaviour, if anything, had been more moderate than ever before. He collapsed into defeat; keeping his head down as his fingers flickered across the keyboards. His suspicion that Julie was pregnant meant he made certain that for today, at least, not a word was out of place; not a phrase suggested he didn't believe a word of the crap he was keying on to the record.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/a-shambles-nelson-hazy-on-cheaper-fuel-pledge/2008/05/16/1210765174062.html
BRENDAN NELSON'S post-budget strategy began to unravel yesterday when his promise to cut petrol excise exposed a $750 million cost blowout and the Coalition squabbled over whether it had a policy to increase pensions.
Mounting a blitz to sell his petrol tax reduction of 5c a litre, DrNelson said the measure would be "fully budgeted and costed" and would cost $1.8 billion a year, or $7.2 billion over four years.
But he then agreed the four-year figure would increase by $750 million because of lost GST which is levied on the excise.
Dr Nelson was unsure whether the states, which receive all the GST revenue, would be compensated for the revenue shortfall.
"That is something we would obviously negotiate when we get to this particular point," he told 3AW radio in Victoria.
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200805/s2247472.htm?tab=latest
Many China watchers have been surprised at the nation's media coverage of this week's earthquake disaster.
Within minutes of Monday's 7.9 magnitude quake, and long before details of the devastation it caused began to emerge, the nation's leaders were informing the state-run media that a national disaster had occurred.
In the ensuing days, Chinese media have covered the search and rescue effort, and reporting damage and fatality estimates from the front line.
It is an illustration of how much China has changed since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, which killed nearly a quarter of a million people.
In 1979, Time Magazine said it had taken nearly three years for Chinese officials to share details of that disaster.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jhuSCSHf0_NnOvpd5kajS5SdNBdgD90N208O1
WASHINGTON (AP) — In President Bush's hint that Barack Obama wants to appease terrorists, Democrats heard troubling echoes of 2004, when Republicans portrayed John Kerry as irresolute and weak on national security.
Determined to end the similarities there, Obama and his allies counterattacked Friday with a multi-pronged response that was as fast and fierce as Kerry's response to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads was slow and uncertain.
And while the Democrats' first-day responses focused on Bush's speech this week in Israel, Friday's reactions mainly targeted John McCain, the GOP presidential candidate who seemed largely on the sidelines at first.
Obama, appearing unusually feisty and at times sarcastic, led the countercharge himself. Campaigning in South Dakota, he departed from planned remarks to rebuke Bush and McCain, and then called a news conference for a second dose.
"I was offended by what is a continuation of a strategy from this White House, now mimicked by Senator McCain, that replaces strategy and analysis and smart policy with bombast, exaggerations and fear-mongering," the Illinois senator said.
Bush's speech Thursday to the Israeli parliament, he said, wasn't about policy.
"It was about politics, about trying to scare the American people," Obama said. "And that's what will not work in this election because the American people can look back at the track record of George Bush, supported by John McCain," and conclude that the nation was misled about the Iraq war's justification, cost, length and benefit to America.
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