The Withering Arch

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is as hectic and ragged a book as any Dick wrote, and is consequently much more dream-haunting and powerful than High Castle. It folds a muddle of different ideas together: a dystopic future-world from which people escape into childish games with dolls, illicitly enhanced by ; a programme to fastforward human evolution; a messiah figure returning from Proxima Centauri who might be a malign alien. But its loose ends tangle creatively with its core conceits... How exactly has Edritch managed to travel to and from Proxima Centurai so rapidly? Why do the Can-D users need the Barbie-and-Ken-esque "Perky Pat" and "Walt" dolls to orchestrate their fantasy? Dick had been inspired by watching his kids playing with such dolls, noticing how thoroughly absorbed in their play they became; but that was precisely play, and has no need of ; -addicts on the other hand have no need of toys to enable their highs; that's what the are for.

http://www.strangehorizons.com

You ask why I'll no longer date a human?
I have my reasons, among them this:
they lack commitment, fear eternal bliss.
You ask why I'll no longer date a human?
I offered more than just a charnel tryst
and received much less — a planck-sized kiss.
And you ask why? I'll no longer date a human.
I have my reasons, among them this.
Terrie Leigh Relf

In cold comfort, in a shout of joy, astonishing photographs decorate the front pages of a hundred thousand plus people, a sea of people, filling the long disused docklands at the bottom of Darling Harbour. We are all transported. The spirit moves and feeds us all, and the streets are transformed. We make it back and barely shut the door, breathless, frightened, the eternal torment of the trees thrashing outside the door. He was so afraid, so very afraid, not just of his own lurking despairs but the insane grasping of the animal's wicked breath, the thing out there.

He never understood it, this fear at the very essence of life, the fear of being wrong, when he had been so intellectually fluid in the past. Compromise? One had to live. Where was the point of ranting into the night? But it was that very night that frightened him the most, the crowds of power and the evil gloss, the days when the fabric of things was malignant, collapsing in on itself, malevolent spirits abroad. He could feel these things, see them in the aged stoop of the y old bar tender, her bitter conversation and harsh, weather worn skin, making it all too clear fate hadn't been kind in the dealing.

With an idiot son and the blast at the last, the nicotine battering her and the alcohol providing only temporary relief. What's wrong, someone asked. I'm old, I'm cold, she said, shivering deeper into her too thin jumper. All was lost, all was lost, we could feel it in the night outside, in the ling of the wood in the fire, in the off-yellow light that was transforming everything. His own internal horrors were always reflected in the area's constantly disturbed weather, and the open plains, the brief glimpses of beauty, were not enough to drive the dread away.

In the eastern march, in the shadow at the edge of the forest, in the sunlight and the open spaces where families tried to survive, in the flow of events, that was the trail where his soul had lain. How could God have got all the way from Jerusalem to Australia, way out here on the other side of the world? How could we flee to Jordon when thousands of miles of ocean intervened? How could the God of the Middle East relate to this harsh, magnificent landscape, subtle at all times, beyond beauty.

He was warmed by the darkness and intensity of the inspiration, the voices that clung in the walls, the fuzzy beauty of the gums. And he longed for years that had vanished before he had even realised what was happening. It'll all be over before you know it, he smiled, and waved. Good to be caught, out here, away.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world-youth-day/sorry-courage-praised/2008/07/16/1216162959930.html

Pope Benedict today praised the Australian Government's "courageous decision" to say sorry for injustices done to indigenous people in the past.

And he said World Youth Day filled him with confidence about the world's future.

The Pope arrived at Government House to be officially welcomed to Australia this morning.

He left St Mary's Cathedral house in his 17-car motorcade shortly before 9am and made the short journey along Macquarie Street to the official residence of the NSW Governor, where he was welcomed by Australia's Governor-General Michael Jeffery and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Apostle of peace

"Your Holiness, you are welcome as an apostle of peace, in an age when a voice for peace is a much needed voice for us all,'' Mr Rudd said. "You are also welcome as a voice for the world's poor.''

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/world/asia/17afghan.html?em&ex=1216353600&en=eb1568c82f865e9c&ei=5087%0A

KABUL, Afghanistan — American forces have abandoned the outpost in northeastern Afghanistan where nine American soldiers were killed Sunday in a heavy attack by insurgents, NATO officials said Wednesday.

The withdrawal handed a propaganda victory to the Taliban, and insurgents were quick to move into the village of Wanat beside the abandoned outpost, Afghan officials said. Insurgents nearly overran the barely built outpost in a dawn raid on Sunday, the most ly assault for United States forces in Afghanistan since 2005.

Those forces have fought some of their most difficult battles in Kunar and Nuristan Provinces, with their thickly forested mountainsides and steep ravines. Guerrillas mount ambushes and rocket attacks from the mountains and then easily escape.

Local people have been angered by civilian casualties caused by American airstrikes aimed at militants, and some now may be cooperating with the militants, Afghan officials said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/17/2306158.htm?section=australia

Opposition treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull has criticised the Federal Government's emissions trading green paper for being light on economic detail.

Treasury ling, which will provide further details of the scheme's economic implications and mid-term reduction targets, will not be released until October.

However, submissions in response to the green paper will only be taken until September.

Mr Turnbull told Samantha Hawley on ABC Radio's AM program that the timeline puts consumers and businesses in an unfair position, as they will have to respond without seeing the Treasury figures.

"This is a most extraordinary green paper," he said.

"It's asking households, individuals, businesses to make submissions to the Government about that scheme in total ignorance of what the Treasury thinks.

"This is all a consequence of Kevin Rudd's political vanity."