Incoherent Blessings

*

Ogden saw the hatchlings scurrying around outside the glowing arches. Triangular bodies, three tentacle-legs that looked like muscular black pythons. The point of the shortest hatching would come up just to his knee, the tallest came to his chin.

The sticky foam seemed to be working, reducing two hatchlings to weakly wiggling lumps on the muddy ground, unable to pull those tentacle legs loose. He counted another five hatchlings moving freely, but they din't engage. Did they fear the weapons? Were tehy aware that the less-lethals might isolate them? If so, why didn't they at least run north? Why didn't they try something?

Ogden again sensed a trap - the enemy wasn't behaving rationally or consistently with the previous two encounters. But trap or no trap, he had his orders.

"Corpporal Cope, tell First Platoon to move in. Capture the enemy by hand."

Cope spoke into his handset and relayed the orders.

Scott Sigler, Contagious.

Triumph and defeat, the great imposters, that's what the commentators said, there on the other side of the world as Federer went into the history books as the greatest grand slam player in history. His own head was savage with wild dreams, defeat, a life not lived. Brigette had the sad lack of shame of all alcoholics down in their caps, knocking at the door, I'm lonely, following me and Gersch out into the beer garden, even though she knew it would be awkward. He hadn't seen much of Gersh since he had decided to clean up his act, and they were glad to see each other, friends from those long nights getting whacked, telling the whole world to go and get effed. There in that derelict house. Though she thought he was the bees knees, he couldn't stand her anywhere near him. "I'm not talking to you, I've told you that Brigette," he had to say, time and again. And still she would follow them out, invading their private conversation. What's going on boys?

Well nothing was going on, we were lost in a boy's world, let's go to my place, Gersch said, jumping off the bar stool immediately it was clear she was out there invading their space, knew no shame. Had he once been like that, knowing no shame, pursuing some love slash lust object even though it wasn't reciprocal? Basking, normally, in the glow of others, the one they all wanted; but as the years passed and age began to settle on his frame, he could hear the voices calling, calling, don't give up, don't despair. And he would wake up sobbing for no particular reason. They had been out drinking, of course, all night, and when they left the bar a party was on near the beach, full of young, fashionable things in their 20s. There was no room in those lives for someone his age. You just can'[t handle having a cool dad, he would tell the kids, when they groaned at his sunglasses or his attempts to dance. Dad, you were never cool, they would declare. How little they knew.

I can't believe you and mum, were like that, heroin addicts, his daughter had said, and the party kept on going well into daylight, and suddenly they were swept up in the groups of 20-somethings heading towards the party house. There were joints everywhere but no one handed him one. Brigette scored heroin but didn't give him any. He was left out as always, on the outside looking in, and woke up crying over an entirely fictional circumstance. He had been straight too long, weeks now, and the dreams and emotions bubbled to the surface and he couldn't stand still, couldn't cope, would never be the same again. Lack of sleep never killed anyone, the saying went, but he wasn't so sure. Their heads were full of television images. Movies told dramatic stories of other people's lives, and all the garbage of the modern media caught in their brain, half distended images, odd couples, odd scenes.

He knew he couldn't survive, not like this. He didn't want to die another legend in his own lunchtime. Just as he had once not wanted to die a drunken old queen on a bar stool. Everything was the same and everything was different. His fingers flew across the keyboard and he longed for comfort, for release, perhaps even for love. He missed the golden rivers, when the bar became his everything, his cafe, his universe, his beginning, his end, when the room set in shellac and he could pick out every last person, tell a story about each and every one of them. What a grand mixture. How profound these bar scenes seemed. How lonely he had become. He paraded the lets-get-together I'm together signs and could never tell anyone what was really going on inside. Well I'm just a garden gnome alcoholic, the next three speakers insisted on saying, shaming him because he was different. A group of non-conformists had its own rigid conformity. And he could not bear them.

They were outside the party now, having given up hope that one of the young things would pass him a hash joint, they were on a sweeping lawn with the sea below. Brigette was completely stoned, her eyes pinned, he could see that, happy, oblivious, deeply stupid. Why had he even come here with her? Other twenty-somethings came and went from the party house, the one where he would never fit, not now, not since the years had betrayed him and turned all his dreams and self images into mud, when the reality of growing old finally struck him and he was left to marvel on the outskirts at the self-confidence of this new breed, at the way they regarded themselves as the centre of the universe, the primary generation. Just as his generation had done before them. He went over to her, lent down towards her and demanded to know: what about me, it isn't fair. Why didn't you leave me some? You said you didn't want any, you said you were straight, she replied, I'm sorry. Yet another group lined up at the party house door, young, handsome, creative, and he stared at them with true envy. He would never fit in now, never.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/03/2616419.htm

An expert on Indigenous policy says the Federal Government needs to change its approach to the widening gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

The national Productivity Commission report, released yesterday, found the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is widening in a number of key economic and social indicators, including child abuse.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has described the findings as "devastating", but Dr Patrick Sullivan, who has worked closely with Indigenous communities for more than 25 years, says he is not surprised by the Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage report.

"I don't think anyone involved with Indigenous people is surprised by these findings," he told ABC News Online.

Dr Sullivan, an adjunct associate professor at the National Centre for Indigenous Study at the ANU, believes the gap is widening because there is "in a nutshell, too much bureaucracy".

"There are too many steps in the chain in the delivery ... and there are too many chains," he said.

"Basically it's a problem of the inappropriateness of trying to deliver very basic benefits particularly in remote areas through bureaucratic structures involved."

He says the Rudd Government has inherited some major policy flaws brought in by the Howard government.


WASHINGTON (AP) — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's abrupt and unscripted holiday resignation is an odd way to launch a potential presidential bid and certainly no help for a party battered by scandal and fighting for relevancy.

From a folksy figure who catapulted from obscure governor to conservative darling and vice presidential nominee, it's merely the latest move in a political drama that has left Republican elders scratching their heads.

No one is sure why Palin took such an unusual path. All points suggest a strategy designed to maintain her political viability with an eye toward a 2012 presidential bid. Barring a personal surprise or scandal, little else makes sense.

Even in explaining her exit from the governor's office during the middle of her first term, former aides to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and current allies criticized Palin for what they said was a typically erratic and seemingly irrational act. McCain, who named Palin his running mate in 2008, issued a terse statement wishing her well.

"If this is her launching pad for 2012, it's a curious move," said John Weaver, a former senior strategist for McCain's presidential bids. "Policy is politics, and she has no real accomplishments as governor."

Some party officials, including some once close to Palin, wondered whether she departed in advance of a brewing controversy, an assertion her camp denied. During the presidential campaign, McCain officials fretted about six or seven areas of personal and professional concern, according to a former official who helped investigate Palin's background after her rocky rollout.

http://www.nme.com/news/michael-jackson/45843

Michael Jackson will be honoured at a public memorial service in Los Angeles next Tuesday (July 7), it has been announced.

The late King Of Pop's life will be celebrated at the Staples Center and simulcast at the nearby Nokia Theatre, with family, celebrity friends and fans expected to attend at both venues.

However, only US fans are able to apply to attend the event, who can register on the venue's website.

More than half a million people have applied for the 17,500 free tickets since the ballot was opened yesterday evening in the US, according to Reuters.

The Staples Center is the venue were Michael Jackson was rehearsing for his London O2 Arena residency, footage of which was released last week.

Jackson's family wanted to hold a public memorial at his Neverland Ranch today (July 2), but we unable to secure the exemption to have the burial on the private property north of Santa Barbara, CA.