The Malignant Tides
*
"Ex-prisoners... offer similar and consistent accounts of the Dark Prison: They describe a darkness so thick that they could not see their own hands; Eminem's Slim Shady album and other abrasive music and sounds were blasted twenty-four hours a day, interrogations were held under strobe lights; and prisoners were strapped to the ceiling. Bisher Al Rawi, who was held in the Dark Prison beginning in December of 2002, described "some sort of satanic worship music" in constant rotation, impenetrable darkness, and the unsettling sight of masked guards periodically moving through the corridors with dim flashlights."
Torture Taxi
Go forth and be happy, the voice said, and all the while the malignant tide crept across the asphalt. He had spent years in hiding, frightened of what was out there. It couldn't be as difficult as this. There had to be other solutions. He was frightened of a complex spiritual world, so many different personalities, so many different kingdoms. How did you really know where you were safe? The spheres of evil had to be avoided. Messy people, why would you bother, I just avoid them, why would you want to take it on, the giggly little 20-something in the lift said.
While outside in the street he watched eight police surround a single man. Greek extraction, perhaps. "It's not like that, you've got it wrong," he heard the man say. A young boy, maybe 14, walks in front of him, spitting deliberately on the ground, barely missing his shoes, threatening, open ended. You want something? And if you don't I'm gonna thump you.
A friend greets him at the front of the station and his attention goes elsewhere. They probably all knew his place had been robbed, they probably all knew who did it. Maybe they've checked it out again? Outside in the back lane the brothers are arguing, always. "Come here you f'n c...," one of them shouts. "I'm only trying to help you." He hears the drunken shouts further off, down through the network of back lanes, amidst the patchwork of derelict houses.
He didn't mind admitting it could be a vast and lonely exercise, a Mongolia of the soul, the creeping influence of the years distorting even the threat of those whirlpools of evil and discontent. They were like distorting physical fields so strong was the toxicity and social chaos surrounding certain individuals. Once creative chaos had been celebrated, now it was just a disorder. The city had become so difficult to live in that few embraced it any more, in a land where money mattered for everything. The chaos of our hearts was nothing but an inconvenience.
"You're my boss," the sharp woman's voice said. He was enthralled. He had thought of nothing but lost opportunities for years. There was a random chaos creeping into his physical frame. He was being called into another realm. He shouldn't have given up so easily. He shouldn't have put his own comfort first. He shouldn't have shut the door and let the whole world go away. In these realms, in these drifting times, when there really was magic in the fabric of things, when towering buildings and the crunch of shoe on ground, all seemed destined.
The streets glistened now with the rain. The crowd of malcontents was building slowly through the wet morning. They were all wearing jackets, concealing God knows what. Across the city shadows moved, the malignant pool darkening the streets and moving on, a dark pool of shadow that settled into houses, into the fabric of the buildings, the lightning storms around an individual, the Devil present in the extreme chaos, the spirits who fed on the dark side. He had make the decision to stay away, to consciously live in the sun. Nothing could take him back. Not now, not after all that had happened.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/05/2265460.htm
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has called on Asian and Pacific nations to form a regional alliance similar to the European Union.
Mr Rudd says a strong multilateral body is needed to help the region maintain security, foster trade and respond to natural disasters and terrorism.
He said Asia needs to react quickly to cope with changes brought about by rapid economic growth in the region.
"The European Union does not represent an identikit model of what we would seek to develop in the Asia-Pacific, but what we can learn from Europe is this - it is necessary to take the first step," he said.
But he concedes getting Asian nations together will be much tougher than the task faced by the architects of the European Union last century.
"Our special challenge is that we face a region with a greater diversity in political systems and economic structures, levels of development religious beliefs, languages and cultures than our counterparts in Europe," he said.
"But that should not stop us from thinking big."
http://business.theage.com.au/pm-stop-running-and-start-leading-20080601-2khz.html
IF YOU want to stop yourself thinking about where you're going and whether it's a place worth getting to, the way to do it is to keep frantically busy.
Kevin Rudd is running too hard. He's so busy you'd think he had only six months to live. He's trying to get too much done too soon, and micro-manage the lot of it.
He's working absurdly long hours and obliging everyone around him — ministers, staff and senior bureaucrats — to work the same early-morning-to-late-evening hours.
He seems to regard this as a virtue, somehow believing he has a mandate to be Workaholic-in-Chief. In reality it's a vice, though one he and his people won't be able to sustain.
Paradoxically, it's a sign of indiscipline, an inability to set priorities and focus on a single issue. Maybe he's our first PM with attention deficit disorder.
I think it's starting to show in the quality of the Government's decisions. The budget would have been a lot better had it had more prime ministerial attention.
And the Government wouldn't have wasted all of last week wrestling in the gutter with its populist opponents had it been thinking more clearly.
http://baghdadbureau.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/leaving-baghdad/#more-104
I’m going to be away for a long time, and I don’t know if I’m going to see my city again. I wanted to see it all before I went, every street and building, every tree and every corner, to say goodbye to everyone living in it, to my fellow Iraqis, the people I loved and was loved by.
Before, in Iraq, you could not get hungry. You could knock on any door and ask for food. Before, you could not feel lonely, because everyone was friendly. Just smile to them and they would smile back to you.
And in Iraq, there is the magic of the Tigris, the immortal river. You can sit on its bank and feel the great history of Iraq, see it sparkling on the water, passing in front of your eyes with glory and pride.
I wish that the war didn’t happen. I wish that Baghdad was still the same city where I opened my eyes for the first time.
I was driving and seeing all the destruction that happened, and I can say that the war never brought freedom or happiness. Seeing it like this broke my heart.
"Ex-prisoners... offer similar and consistent accounts of the Dark Prison: They describe a darkness so thick that they could not see their own hands; Eminem's Slim Shady album and other abrasive music and sounds were blasted twenty-four hours a day, interrogations were held under strobe lights; and prisoners were strapped to the ceiling. Bisher Al Rawi, who was held in the Dark Prison beginning in December of 2002, described "some sort of satanic worship music" in constant rotation, impenetrable darkness, and the unsettling sight of masked guards periodically moving through the corridors with dim flashlights."
Torture Taxi
Go forth and be happy, the voice said, and all the while the malignant tide crept across the asphalt. He had spent years in hiding, frightened of what was out there. It couldn't be as difficult as this. There had to be other solutions. He was frightened of a complex spiritual world, so many different personalities, so many different kingdoms. How did you really know where you were safe? The spheres of evil had to be avoided. Messy people, why would you bother, I just avoid them, why would you want to take it on, the giggly little 20-something in the lift said.
While outside in the street he watched eight police surround a single man. Greek extraction, perhaps. "It's not like that, you've got it wrong," he heard the man say. A young boy, maybe 14, walks in front of him, spitting deliberately on the ground, barely missing his shoes, threatening, open ended. You want something? And if you don't I'm gonna thump you.
A friend greets him at the front of the station and his attention goes elsewhere. They probably all knew his place had been robbed, they probably all knew who did it. Maybe they've checked it out again? Outside in the back lane the brothers are arguing, always. "Come here you f'n c...," one of them shouts. "I'm only trying to help you." He hears the drunken shouts further off, down through the network of back lanes, amidst the patchwork of derelict houses.
He didn't mind admitting it could be a vast and lonely exercise, a Mongolia of the soul, the creeping influence of the years distorting even the threat of those whirlpools of evil and discontent. They were like distorting physical fields so strong was the toxicity and social chaos surrounding certain individuals. Once creative chaos had been celebrated, now it was just a disorder. The city had become so difficult to live in that few embraced it any more, in a land where money mattered for everything. The chaos of our hearts was nothing but an inconvenience.
"You're my boss," the sharp woman's voice said. He was enthralled. He had thought of nothing but lost opportunities for years. There was a random chaos creeping into his physical frame. He was being called into another realm. He shouldn't have given up so easily. He shouldn't have put his own comfort first. He shouldn't have shut the door and let the whole world go away. In these realms, in these drifting times, when there really was magic in the fabric of things, when towering buildings and the crunch of shoe on ground, all seemed destined.
The streets glistened now with the rain. The crowd of malcontents was building slowly through the wet morning. They were all wearing jackets, concealing God knows what. Across the city shadows moved, the malignant pool darkening the streets and moving on, a dark pool of shadow that settled into houses, into the fabric of the buildings, the lightning storms around an individual, the Devil present in the extreme chaos, the spirits who fed on the dark side. He had make the decision to stay away, to consciously live in the sun. Nothing could take him back. Not now, not after all that had happened.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/05/2265460.htm
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has called on Asian and Pacific nations to form a regional alliance similar to the European Union.
Mr Rudd says a strong multilateral body is needed to help the region maintain security, foster trade and respond to natural disasters and terrorism.
He said Asia needs to react quickly to cope with changes brought about by rapid economic growth in the region.
"The European Union does not represent an identikit model of what we would seek to develop in the Asia-Pacific, but what we can learn from Europe is this - it is necessary to take the first step," he said.
But he concedes getting Asian nations together will be much tougher than the task faced by the architects of the European Union last century.
"Our special challenge is that we face a region with a greater diversity in political systems and economic structures, levels of development religious beliefs, languages and cultures than our counterparts in Europe," he said.
"But that should not stop us from thinking big."
http://business.theage.com.au/pm-stop-running-and-start-leading-20080601-2khz.html
IF YOU want to stop yourself thinking about where you're going and whether it's a place worth getting to, the way to do it is to keep frantically busy.
Kevin Rudd is running too hard. He's so busy you'd think he had only six months to live. He's trying to get too much done too soon, and micro-manage the lot of it.
He's working absurdly long hours and obliging everyone around him — ministers, staff and senior bureaucrats — to work the same early-morning-to-late-evening hours.
He seems to regard this as a virtue, somehow believing he has a mandate to be Workaholic-in-Chief. In reality it's a vice, though one he and his people won't be able to sustain.
Paradoxically, it's a sign of indiscipline, an inability to set priorities and focus on a single issue. Maybe he's our first PM with attention deficit disorder.
I think it's starting to show in the quality of the Government's decisions. The budget would have been a lot better had it had more prime ministerial attention.
And the Government wouldn't have wasted all of last week wrestling in the gutter with its populist opponents had it been thinking more clearly.
http://baghdadbureau.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/leaving-baghdad/#more-104
I’m going to be away for a long time, and I don’t know if I’m going to see my city again. I wanted to see it all before I went, every street and building, every tree and every corner, to say goodbye to everyone living in it, to my fellow Iraqis, the people I loved and was loved by.
Before, in Iraq, you could not get hungry. You could knock on any door and ask for food. Before, you could not feel lonely, because everyone was friendly. Just smile to them and they would smile back to you.
And in Iraq, there is the magic of the Tigris, the immortal river. You can sit on its bank and feel the great history of Iraq, see it sparkling on the water, passing in front of your eyes with glory and pride.
I wish that the war didn’t happen. I wish that Baghdad was still the same city where I opened my eyes for the first time.
I was driving and seeing all the destruction that happened, and I can say that the war never brought freedom or happiness. Seeing it like this broke my heart.
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