The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
George Bernard Shaw
'Oh Jesus,' Sollis said, and I guess she'd seen what I'd just seen; that the flasks contained human organs, floating in a green chemical solution, wired up with fine nutrient lines and electrical cables. I was no anatomist, but I still recognised hearts, lungs, kidneys, snakelike coils of intestine. And there were things anyone would have recognised: things like eyeballs, dozens of them, growing in a single vat, swaying on the long stalks of optic nerves like some weird species of all-seeing anemone; things like hands, or entire limbs, or genitals, or the skin and muscle masks of eyeless faces..."
Alastair Reynolds. The Nightingale.
As if we couldn't see properly; as if the frustration was everything and nothing we stood for, nothing we understood as being important, mattered anymore. In his soul he knew. The routine, he was sure now, was exactly the same as he had lived through before. Except this time, they were offering a way out. He could feel it, see it: visions of a simple, rustic, rather run down village, almost medieval it was so primitive. The woman he was so fascinated by had curled her feet up under her in the arm chairs. Outside, as always, was the expanse of green, flat, bowling green lawn; then the perimeter of pine trees. Then nothing.
They're offering us a way out, she said quietly, mirroring his own thoughts.
He nodded. I know, although I'm not sure how I know.
You're not coming back as easily this time, they're worried, she said.
How do you know?
I can hear them, she said, tapping the side of her head. They might have done their best to scramble everything in here, but I can still hear them.
Terrifying, he said, and shivered inappropriately. None of his reactions were as they should be today. Nothing made the slightest sense to him, nothing connected.
They couldn't have been a more difficult, more obnoxious pack of bastards.
We could be happy together, she said, curling her fingers inside his. We were once, very happy.
What happened? he asked.
The implants came, and then we were all programmed to be better human beings. It wasn't supposed to happen, but it did. We're the resistants, she said, Their potions don't work on us very well, the machines, the rewriting. They weren't supposed to be able to take us over. The intelligences weren't supposed to take on a life of their own; but they did. When there were millions on line, they had enough to feed on. We didn't just lose our individuality, we lost everything.
How do you know all this?
He wondered for a moment about a woman called Karen.
I wrote it all down; I hid the pieces of paper, I stored information in places not even they would think of to look.
How?
It's easy to fool them; you just have to think of several things at once and the insurrection gets confused. They don't know whether you're being disobedient or not.
He stared at her in amazement, then went back to watching the sunlight sneaking slowly across the carpet towards them. Watching the carpet change colour through the morning was about as intellectual as he got today.
How do you know all this? he asked, only realising after he had said it that he'd already asked the same question.
There is a creeping blankness across everything, she said, clearly trying to confuse the monitors by jumbling her own thoughts.
They will let us out, to a farm, where there's others like us, where the implants haven't worked.
What's stopping us, he asked. This was not a day for courage, bravado or even foolhardiness.
The same dark cloud shook them apart. Nothing was connected.
You can't change anything from the outside, she whispered now, drawing him closer. You can only change things from the inside. We have to go back in.
That's ridiculous, he said. Look at me. There's almost nothing left. I can't do it one more time, I simply can't.
He could feel his eyes wet from tears he didn't understand; but he repeated the statement: I can't do it anymore.
She looked at him, held his hand, concerned.
Let's see how you are tomorrow, she said quietly, patting him on the hand, and then disentangling herself from the lounge chair and moving away, leaving him to the scattered emptiness of his own random thoughts.
There used to be a home, he thought, a place where he could hide and feel secure. A place where his kids, now university students, would come to visit. Where a dog used to yap in the backyard. Where.... He started crying again, he had no idea why.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article3828536.ece
President Karzai narrowly escaped with his life yesterday after Taleban gunmen attacked an Independence Day ceremony in Kabul, sending ambassadors and generals diving for cover, and dealing a fresh blow to Afghanistan's fragile security.
Three people, including an Afghan MP and a child, were killed and eleven injured in the attack, when a group of gunmen opened fire on a military parade marking the sixteenth anniversary of the fall of the Soviet-backed communist Government in Kabul.
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British Ambassador to Kabul, described scenes of pandemonium as bullets flew, a rocket exploded and dignitaries and soldiers in ceremonial dress dived for cover or ran for their lives. “I was at the parade in the front row with the American Ambassador and a few feet away from General McNeill, the Nato commander,” he told The Times.
“We were about 15 rounds into the gun salute and Karzai was on the viewing stand when I saw to the left puffs of smoke and then the crackle of small-arms fire. Then the presidential ceremonial guard, who were unarmed, got to the ground to take cover. Then I heard another loud explosion in the centre of the parade ground.
“Captain Jim Develley, my Royal Military Police guard, then frog-marched me out. The American Ambassador was doing the same. It was chaos, like a rugby scrum. We came across the American Ambassador's car first. We were bundled in and drove away,” he said.
The attackers fired Kalashnikov rifles and launched at least one rocket before they were overwhelmed by security forces.
http://news.smh.com.au/plans-under-way-for-atsic-replacement/20080428-28xj.html
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has hired Aboriginal academic Mick Dodson to help create a model for a new peak body to replace ATSIC.
The Howard government abolished the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission four years ago amid claims it was ineffective and corrupt.
The Rudd government has said it will not re-establish ATSIC but will create a new body with elected members, but has provided no timetable for the creation of the body.
The Age newspaper on Monday reported that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma has commissioned research independently from the government to devise the new body's operation.
Researchers at the Australian National University's National Centre for Indigenous Studies, headed by Professor Dodson, are devising models for a body with possible legislative powers and examining how major indigenous bodies overseas work, The Age said.
Options will be presented to Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin by the end of May, the report said.
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