Lanes

"As poor as my young family was when I drove to the recruiting centre in Oklahoma in March of 2002, I would never have signed up if I knew that I would be blasting into Iraqis' homes, terrorising women and children and detaining every man we could find - and all that, for $1200 a month as a private first class. One's first obligation is to the moral truth buried deep inside our own souls... I had to sign a paper... "Desertion in the time of war means death by a firing squad'. That just about sums it up."
Joshua Key, The Deserter's Tale

Nothing could fix the sinking depths, nothing. I was out of the taxi and heading towards the chaos of the building. Already a police woman was putting up crime scene tape; trying to control the crowds. Several people were sitting on the pavement. He walked right in. He had always had an uncanny knack of being able to walk in anywhere; becoming almost invisible or appearing as if he belonged.

Whatever it was, he could walk past almost any security; and had done so. Already he was in the foyer. There was smoke everywhere; chaos and dust; pain and confusion. On the spur, he pressed the lift button. He couldn't deny he hadn't pressed the button before; in one of the gloomiest stages of his life. Frantic registrars and normally stitched up office women; usually stomping around with sheaves of paperwork, looking important; holding people's lives in their arrogant, self-righteous hands; tumbled out of the lift. He hesitated a micro-second and stepped in.

He could see a policeman heading towards him. He had woken up, obviously, to the fact that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He pressed Floor Five and the doors slid shut. Suddenly he was alone; and like all the madness in his life it could only have happened to him, alone in the lift in a bombed building; while sirens and chaos enveloped the area for a kilometre around. The lift wasn't its normal self; and groaned and creaked as it ascended.

God, this place of all places; the place tens of thousands of its victims hated more than any other place; while millions of dollars of government propaganda made the pretense that what happened here was worthy; the cheap dark corrupt bastardy and the the gloating self-satisfaction of the victors in the charade that was this place's reality never made it into the public mind. He had done his best to expose the sick psycho-pathology of the place; and had failed. And now here he was. Even in the lift he could smell the dust and the flames.

THE BIGGER STORY:

NY Times blogs:

Columbia University was the scene today of speeches, rallies and protests related to a speech by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, which began at 1:30 p.m. (We live-blogged the speech.) The school’s campus in Morningside Heights was off-limits to the public for much of the day; a university identification was required to enter through the main gates on Broadway at 116th Street.

In his most pointed arguments yet, Mr. Ahmadinejad said that science and research had been used in the West as tools of oppression.

“They even violate individual and social freedoms in their own nations under that pretext,” he said. “They do not respect the privacy of their own people. They tap telephone calls … They create an insecure psychological atmosphere, in order to justify their war-mongering acts in different parts of the world.”

He added: “By using precise scientific methods and planning, they begin their onslaught on the domestic cultures of nations, which are the result of thousands of years of interaction, creativity and artistic activity. They try to eliminate these cultures in order to strip people of their identity.”

The Age:

A new online voter poll shows federal Labor would trounce the coalition if an election were held now.

The Herald/Nielsen poll, conducted for Fairfax newspapers, is the first online national survey of voters conducted before the election.