Born Aloft: Oh Rapturous Day
Your Day Is Done. They were born full sheaved, armed and ready as they did their air roll onto Earth, into the unfamiliar atmosphere. They were invisible across the normal human range of senses and cognition, faltering into space, born aloft. Nothing could touch them. These familiars, these gliding flying wings that surrounded the encampment, the legends of the morrow born today. They were there to protect. To scare away the unclean. "We are done here." They folded their utensils. They packed their bags. They fled with feeble explanations to their superiors. They lied and lied and lied. They wanted to spend Christmas with their families. They were tired of the hypocrisy, compromise, the seeming madness, the perilous times that were now upon them. And so they fled to save their own skins.
Pure of heart, pure of intent??!! Just messing with you babe. Just scaring away the flakes. This is a military to military transfer, simple as that.
In the wavering light, in the fluxing matter that surrounded them, in the rendition of the spirit which they knew not, in the ancient AIs, their own evolution making them the galaxy's top predators without peer, the beauty of falcons and the stunning beauty of this place. Coming home, coming home. Perhaps most surprising to Old Alex was how much they loved trees, the citadels of forests, as if these sacred places which once blanketed the east coast had been defoliated with intent, as if someone had stepped in to destroy their churches, and he would rise up angry, and brook no more their impatience.
"We're waiting for the big one," said one of the Watchers on the Watch, and he laughed and shrugged all at once, because nothing he did, as recepticon not decepticon, would make the slightest difference. Already here in so many ways, the vaulting sky, the fluxing air, the remnant voices conjured across a billion years, technologies previously only guessed at.
"Someone walking over your grave?" he asked of Chris, his host come flatmate of the moment who had shivered in that familiar twist when the entire galaxy is pulling at your heart. "Dragged across more like," came the reply. Or perhaps, he did not say, you too have been awakened and can feel the spatial distortions of that extraordinary distance in time and space. Perhaps those elements of the genome tuned to activate at these moments in the turning points of humanity were firing. Perhaps none of us would be left untouched.
In these unfolding times.
THE BIGGER STORY:
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/vintage-year-for-the-wealthy-covid-19-widens-gap-between-rich-and-poor/
Executive bonuses inflated by JobKeeper, rising property and share prices, tax cuts for the wealthy. What’s not to like about 2020 for the top end of town? Tasha May takes a closer look at how the pandemic is exacerbating wealth inequality in Australia.
Before the pandemic hit, the distribution of wealth in Australia was already deeply unequal. According to the Income Inequality in Australia 2020 Report, by the Australian Council of Social Service, Australia ranks fifth in the world for the number of people with ultra-high wealth – individuals with more than US $500 million. Other notable statistics:
The average wealth of those in the highest 5% wealth group is $6.8 million.
The average wealth of Australian households in the top fifth of the population, at $3.25 million, is more than 90 times that of the lowest 20% wealth group, at $36,000.
People in the highest 20% of the wealth scale hold nearly two thirds of all wealth (64%), while those in the lowest 60% hold less than a fifth of wealth (17%).
Those in the highest 20% of the income scale lives in a household with almost six times as much income as someone in the lowest 20% of the income scale.
While temporary measures such as JobSeeker and JobKeeper have helped some of the most vulnerable through the pandemic, Peter Davidson, principal advisor at the ACOSS, says the cut to the coronavirus supplement in September by $300/fortnight was cruel.
While people relying on these payments had for once been able to buy essential medication as well as fresh fruit and vegetables, the “government’s decision to further cut income support at the end of the year by another $100/fortnight is … a crushing blow to millions, including one million children,” says Davidson.
All this in the face of calls from the business community, the Reserve Bank of Australia and eminent economists – not the usual suspects – for a permanent and significant increase in the unemployment payment. Instead, the government preferred corporate welfare.
The rich get rich
“Everybody knows the fight was fixed/the poor stay poor, the rich get rich/That’s how it goes/Everybody knows.” So sang Leonard Cohen in his 1988 song ‘Everybody Knows’.
Such lyrics ring all the truer in 2020. In a year marked by the separation of our physical bodies, the gap between wealthy and poor has also widened, with the wealth of investors ballooning. The stock market rose to record highs last month, with the ASX200 recording its strongest month ever.