The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,
which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is hidden from its heat.
Psalm 19.
If there was no other cause, then he no longer belonged. He was astonished, disturbed, at once wondering pointless through the back streets weaving from the city to the beach, walking, walking; entirely disengaged. He looked with envy at the well formed lives of those around him. They could sneer, he knew that, there was no love or affection or sense of belonging. He had been betrayed on every level, by the place, by himself, by his own worse angels. Oh cruel, cruel, distance yourself, not just from the complicated plays of the crowded city around him, but from everything, the fabric of things, the wash of coloour that was the day. The song erupted in the cul de sac outside his bedroom window at around 5am: "One crowded hour... You were the only person in the room."
They were all drunk, spilling out from some party. He focussed on things. You can't feel guilty if you haven't done anything to feel guilty about. How short and sweet these evangelists were; the zealots. The sad tired eyes of those who watched his demise. And the group of the young singing in perfect tune with the record: "One crowded hour..." One crowded hour indeed. How strong it had been, the chaos; the marshalling of the forces in order to triumph, the indignity upon indignity heaped upon him by life itself. There were half formed stories. It had all the elements of a good journalistic story - controversy, topicality, narrative structure. The street light was hidden behind a veil of leaves. He kept expecting to see someone he knew, anyone he knew, but the city, chance, was simply not that kind. The poisonous dwarf would forever be.
There was a narrative structure but in the shape of a city, vast, little stories, like fireflies, darting here and there. So much of the public culture was an unadulterated lie; worse now that there were left wing governments at every tier of government, and anyone who dared to disagree, with global warming, with domestic violence propaganda, with the unadulterated virtues of multiculturalism and the terrible, crippling embarrassment of what had once been a proud history. Millionaire left wing media commentators ridiculed the genuine beliefs of the populace as old fashioned, out of date. What was out of date was honesty, truth. There were places in this city where lice and scabies and all form of known disease crawled in the black leather rooms and young men bared their arses to all and sundry, young and old. The vice crawled up across his skin. He was letting go of everything now.
There had to be another story. Everything was known and yet their past, evil, lackadaisical problems, came to dominate everything they did, their every waking moment. He was shocked by what he had seen. And shocked, no less, by the sudden absorption of his narrative back into the past, to be swallowed whole by the city. He wanted to belong to a village, where he could point to a hut and say: I built that. Where he could point to an old woman perched in the doorway, keeping a beagle eye on the children, and say: that is my grandmother, she is my aunt. Instead he could have been a ghost for all the impact he made; barely collecting dust as he moved from one path to another, past houses where he had lived, corners he had waited on.
The street people did not know him, nor did the young office workers spruiked and ready for work. He wanted to tell them a story, a cautionary tale. He wanted to say: these are the lessons to be learnt; be proud, be strong, be ready to fight. There were cul de sacs behind the Cross. There were apartments where he had been decades before. There were stories he had wanted to tell; but now they all merged together and meant nothing. Their import was gone. The Australian Open dominated the airwaves; but it wasn't easy, that was for sure. He could have sighed and been measured; but he knew the property owners banded together and betrayed him, he knew that they whispered behind his back, he knew that his own lack of power, property, prestige was enough to justify their killing him as a mere inconvenience, dismissing the tale he had to tell.
There, there, he felt like saying, pointing up at the bland concrete exterior of Withering Heights aka Gotham City, we used to live there; party there. We saw the future and embraced the past. We were a significant part of the city's destiny, our unique talents, striking personalities, our desire for strength and a future. They had always been about overthrowing the central ground, measuring pleasure and pain, telling stories to the sky. They wanted to be significant, loud and proud. The personal is political went the slogan of the era; minted by feminists at the beginning of their long career of male bashing lies; and all he wanted to do was stand up and tell the truth. To record what had happened here. Away from natural disasters, away from the telltale signs of a purposeful life, a strong gait, head held high, clear eyes; a sparkling smile and a clean wit. He missed them now, decades later, just as he had missed them then, all those years ago, the very events of their lives draped with the melancholy of altered lives.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/25/ethiopian-airlines-crash-lebanon
Investigators were tonight carrying out DNA tests on severely burned bodies recovered from the sea after an Ethiopian Airlines flight carrying 90 people caught fire during a lightning storm and crashed into the Mediterranean minutes after taking off from Beirut.
As darkness fell no survivors had been found in the stormy waters off Lebanon, despite search and rescue efforts by the country's military, UN naval peacekeepers and units from nearby Cyprus who were tonight joined by British and French helicopter teams.
The plane's 83 passengers included 56 Lebanese – two with dual British nationality – 22 Ethiopians and individuals from Canada, Syria, Iraq and Russia, as well as the American-born wife of the French ambassador to Lebanon. By tonight at least 34 bodies had been recovered.
Lebanon's National News Agency tonight confirmed that 57-year-old Afif Karshat was one of two Lebanese with dual British nationality among the casualties.
Lebanon's president, Michel Suleiman, said terrorism was not suspected in the crash of the Boeing 737-800, which was headed for the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. "Sabotage is ruled out as of now," he said. Lebanon's defence minister, Elias Murr, blamed bad weather for the crash. An official investigation has been launched, but the plane's black box has yet to be recovered.
Several eyewitnesses reported hearing an explosion and seeing a ball of flame in the sky just after 2.30am today, during a fierce winter thunderstorm.
"There was huge thunder and it was raining like crazy. The lightning was coming down from the clouds. The electricity had gone out, but I couldn't sleep. Then I heard an explosion," said Hassan Ramadan, a 39-year-old engineering contractor from Khalde, just a few miles from where the plane went down.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/26/2801101.htm?section=world
One of Saddam Hussein's most hated offsiders has been executed for ordering the deaths of thousands of Iraqi Kurds more than 20 years ago.
Ali Hassan al Majid was better known as Chemical Ali for his role in the gassing of at least 5,000 Kurds during the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. Most of those killed were women and children.
His execution was announced shortly after suicide bombers struck the Iraqi capital in a coordinated attack, staging three car bombings aimed at well-known hotels in the city that killed more than 30 people and injured at least 70 more.
Majid had been sentenced to death three times before, but each time his lawyers managed to delay his execution. Now, a week after his fourth sentence, he has been hanged.
Majid was a close cousin of Saddam Hussein.
He had also been previously sentenced to death for war crimes committed during a Shiite uprising in southern Iraq in 1991, and the murders of dozens more Shiites in Baghdad and Najaf in 1999.
Bomb blasts
On the same day, at least 36 people have been killed and 71 wounded in three massive car bombings that targeted hotels in Baghdad, in an apparently co-ordinated attack less than six weeks from a general election.
Iraqi and US forces have warned of rising violence in the lead up to the March 7 vote, the second parliamentary ballot since the 2003 US-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein but ushered in a deadly and long-lasting insurgency.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/26/2801092.htm
At least 36 people have been killed and 71 wounded in three massive car bombings that targeted hotels in Baghdad, in an apparently co-ordinated attack less than six weeks from a general election.
Iraqi and US forces have warned of rising violence in the lead up to the March 7 vote, the second parliamentary ballot since the 2003 US-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein but ushered in a deadly and long-lasting insurgency.
The first bomb struck near the Palestine and Sheraton hotels in Abu Nawaz, close to where a giant statue of Saddam was symbolically toppled almost seven years ago, at around 3:30 pm (local time), an interior ministry official said.
The second and third blasts just minutes later targeted the Babylon Hotel in the central district of Karrada and the Hamra hotel in Jadriyah, in the south of the capital, he added.
Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad Major General Qassim Atta said all three car bombs were suicide attacks.
An interior ministry official said that 36 people had been killed and 71 were wounded.
The first explosion which shook ground miles away from the site of the blast sent plumes of smoke rising hundreds of metres into the air.
Monday's attacks differed from recent high-profile bombings that have become increasingly common in Baghdad in that they targeted hotels rather than government buildings.
The most recent deadly bombings in August, October and December last year occurred at government buildings, including the ministries of finance, foreign affairs, and justice. Those attacks killed nearly 400 people.
US and Iraqi politicians have warned that the election could be a focus for violence.
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