THE PLACES FLED IV

Courtesy Cloud Appreciation Society

And then came the day. Let it go, let it go, the demons cried, and he just wanted to be somewhere else. He didn't know why he had let his guard down. Why you handed your will and your life over to a pack of low lifes  on a distant soi. Why he had been fascinated by things he should have ignored. Why everything came crashing down, and he was as instantly depressed as he had ever been. Hold your head high. He would rather hide. These things were made for lust, and envy, and ruin. Short lives. Futures destroyed. Paths not taken. These things that would never be. He continued to pine for places that were gone. Through stupidity, rank stupidity. And loneliness. If nothing else, that.

An unblinking gaze, he had written, but there was nothing unblinking about the way he felt. About the way things lingered, things that should never have been. About impossible things. He could still hear them, and wished he couldn't. Compound sentences, of love and lust. And brittle, frail people, and the mewling warmth. And smiles that came across a chasm. And lives that were lived too fast. 

He wasn't holding his head up high. He wasn't doing anythng but trying to hide. As if there could be a retreat back into nothing. As if oblivion was a safe place to be. As if depression, with its curling damp fingers, was a comfort; and the world would turn to glue again. But nothing was hospitable, nothing was a comfort. He slept more than usual, normally a sign he was depressed; and everything and nothing, and statements gone. These things couldn't provide the slightest bit of warmth. The coast was pretty. And cold. And empty. Traces of other things, of other lives, weren't traces for him. They rounded on him and were gone, a toss into the sky. He should have done something but didn't, just curled away into another place. Where he did not want to be.

THE BIGGER STORY

An Egyptian court ordered deposed President Hosni Mubarak released from prison on Wednesday, further deepening the sense of crisis one week after the country’s military-backed interim government carried out what human rights advocates say was the worst single episode of extrajudicial killing in the country’s modern history.

Leaving Cairo’s Tora Prison, where Mubarak was held and the court also convened, Mubarak’s lawyer, Farid Al-Deeb, told Reuters news agency that his client could go free as soon as Thursday. State prosecutor Ahmed el-Bahrawi told the agency Mubarak’s corruption case could not be appealed.

At one time, Mubarak’s release would have triggered massive protests from the revolutionary forces that ended his 30-year rule during the winter 2011 uprising. A June 2012 ruling in a separate court case over the killing of demonstrators in 2011 set off days of protests in Cairo and other cities after the court convicted Mubarak, but failed to convict senior security officials blamed for a deadly crackdown on demonstrators.

But today, Egypt’s politics operates in a different paradigm after the military removed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi from power on July 3 following another popular uprising on June 30. The military-backed interim government that replaced Morsi enjoys the support of many secular nationalists as it carries out a full-scale crackdown on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups. A week ago, government forces moved in to crush protest camps set up by those calling for Morsi’s reinstatement, which led to the deaths of hundreds. The government blames Islamists for the current crisis and says it is carrying out a campaign against “terrorism.”

Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/08/21/egypts-revolution-comes-full-circle-court-orders-mubaraks-release/#ixzz2cdmR1OaC

Kevin Rudd has used the second Leaders' debate to breathe life into his flagging election campaign, attacking Tony Abbott's record as health minister and depicting the Liberal's proposed paid parental leave scheme as unaffordable.

Openly admitting that Mr Abbott was ''way ahead in the polls,'' Mr Rudd paced before the Brisbane crowd and repeatedly accused The issue prompted one of the most spirited exchanges of the night as Mr Abbott appeared to lose his composure briefly, as he interjected, ''Does this guy ever shut up?''

Mr Rudd responded that such statements were the standard response to losing an argument.

In an early sign that the Labor leader needed a punchier performance than he had put in at the first debate nearly a fortnight ago, Mr Rudd capitalised first on the more flexible format of the people's forum in Brisbane's Broncos Leagues Club to accuse Mr Abbott of having ''ripped'' $1 billion from hospital budgets and of planning further cuts. It was a charge Mr Abbott flatly denied after using his opening remarks to remind voters of Labor's record in office.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/kevin-rudd-breathes-fire-and-brimstone-into-campaign-20130821-2sbsz.html#ixzz2cdn6MwdHMr Abbott of hiding future cuts from voters.