safe by autotelic

The Mescalero Apache formed his words through dry stone creased lips

There was no telling how old the dude was.

I guess he could have been over 100 years old

Even way fucking older than me

He sure looked wrinkled

As I looked at him the clouds passed over the hole in the thatched domed roof

I remembered very different clouds

But these ones sailing across the New Mexico skies cut out the thin beam of light that had lit up the space

Now all was dark and I could just hear him breathing , a rasping sound

Maybe from spending so much time meditating in the burning vapours  

'Union in Strong place ' , he repeated ' that's where it will open'

The beam returned carrying wisps of incence smoke upwards 

My ears popped as I took a toke on the pipe again

It was getting really fucking  hot in the dugout

'Look, I said throwing a twenty by one of the hot stones'

I gotta split cos I need to be some place cooler

The old Apache nodded sadly 

I guess he didnt have too many smoking buddies nowadays 

Outside the April winds blew down from off the mesa

I wondered if the old guy had meant Strong City up in Union County

I checked the GPS , it was a few hundred miles almost due North of Roswell

The shit going down there had been on the news all week

The hate jocks had had a field day on the car radio

They just loved to fuck over other people's beliefs - whether good or bad

They believed in nothing 

It seems the Healer kid had accused 66 year old Wayne Bent aka Michael Travesser

Self professed Messiah of the  Lord Our Righteousness Church

Of sexual abuse

Only Travesser had documented with his congregation how his sleeping with virgins  had been Divinely inspired 

Whatever, the State of New Mexico had extracted all the minors

And back at  Strong City Travesser had threatened the Governor of new Mexico with a Third World War

Dumb crazy Waco shit

But I still wondered if he could be the one

I thought back to when I thought my work cracking the secrets of nature was Divinely inspired

I had tapped into the energy of the Lord 

We need to believe in something bigger

We craved His Knowledge and Love

But there was something fucking weird going on

The interview with the Seer Pyotr Kuznetsov in Russia had confirmed that

Sure he was verging on insane

Who isnt nowadays? 

But he'd also been frightened

He'd babbled on about the Great Hunger

And how he'd taken the women and children to the caves

Then the Russian authorities had sectioned him

They knew something was up

They were trying to tap into something more

To escape from poverty 

Into a shared redemptive vision

I'd got some weird dope from the Russian scientific community too

Something big was going down

I'd managed to get hold of Prof Leontieff for a few seconds

I had to  promise to send his secretary a few dollars in the post

You should not have phoned me like this ' he said in a despairing tone '

The timing is not good

'Its coming, the Hunger.'

And the line had just gone dead.

They had come for me the next morning and told me my visa had been revoked

And frogmarched me to the airport.

Have a good flight Mr Oppenheimer they'd said as I settled into my seat

Fuck you Ivan I'd replied

And they'd laughed through metal teeth and offered me a drop of vodka

I thought what the fuck, no hard feelings and raised the flask to my lips

'We come to Los Alamos one day , yes...

I laughed , lowering the flask, you mean Las Vegas.?

But the armed police escort had gone.

I looked down at the flask in my hand

It bore an inscription

Oak Ridge N.M.

Jesus, I thought, someone's playing with really loaded dice.

The religious fervour in Patna, India the previous week had been pretty scary

Talk of women putting curses on the villagers

There had been an upsurge in the spate of lynchings and burnings

The worse had been the communal beheadings of terrified women by ignorant mobs

Still, I figured the murderous motives could have been economic at heart

Hard times and families not wanting to repay dowries

The soaring price of food was hurting everyone.

It was amazing what poverty could do to people.

But the shit in Africa had been spookier

Possessions were rife , child sacrifice was being reported on a daily basis

And witches were being accused of penis theft across half the continent

There was mass hysteria

Jean Marc a trusted contact within the Kinshasa police force told me the witchcraft was for real

Our Guns jammed when we tried to take down this one motherfucker who had been killing albinos for their organs ' he'd said deadpan

Robert , he said' I've fought in jungles up to my neck in shit , the guns of an entire police unit just don't jam. They don't The beast just laughed as he hacked one of the constables with a panga

And said ' You cant stop the opening'

My mobile phone rang.

' Yeah, Albuquerque..maybe a few hours ..I'm on 285 just past North Lucy but if that weirdo phones again don't engage him . Tell him I'm out of town...'

Hello? Hello?

The line hung

I love this fuckling place

It reminds me of Manahattan 

I looked at my cell phone call log when I realised there were no bars

He'd called again.3 times.

He'd somehow also managed to get my hotel number in the Ukraine.

I thought to eat lunch  at a fast food restaurant at Clines Corners but the advertised prices were way too high

'We need to eat out in these parts too , we aint all rich city folk ' the waitress said, ' and the toilets out back, we've got a deal on six packs of coke and for 20 bucks I'll give you a hand job  if you're inteested , forty I'll blow you but I dont swallow'

The waitress wasnt unattractive but she spoke very matter of factly

The depressed looking trucker stirring his coffee at the bar beside her didnt even look up 

JThere was just the sound of his spoon hitting the side of the cup 

'Well?' she said, 'What's it going to be, you hungry or not? '

I tipped her five and just settled the bill forthe  gas.

And was glad to get back out on to the road 

I'd chased a spectre half the way around the world

Against a background of worsening global economic chaos

If there was going to be an opening

Someone had to be there to push it back through

I'd been one of those who'd let it in before

And I was paying for that

And would continue to pay for it for many life times to come

Strong City seemed a long shot

But just maybe there would be an opening there

I needed to atone for my sins

At Los Alamos  

It was the least I could do.

Plus I had no choice.  

I'd learned too late

There is no free will

We hunger for it

But it doesnt exist 

.

biofuel drove me to it by autotelic

In a response to UN General Secretary Ban Ki -Moon's  call for more money from the international community to combat the global criss caused by soaring  food prices President George W Bush has pledged  $770m in international food aid to help ease the effects of runaway food prices that have sparked riots in some countries.

The sum offered is just  above the $755m Mr Ban called for to plug a  funding gap for the World Food Program  this year , so its a generous offer, however critics have pointed out that the money wont be available until October when it is actually needed now and that Bush is not really tackling the problem as he has also announced further subsidies and more land to be dedicated to the growing of food and feed crops for biofuel production , a process the UN sees as massively contributing to the global food crisis while the Bush administration merely regards it as a minor contributory factor. Currently, 25%, of corn production in the US is for biofuel production and because of world grain lows, farmers and politicians alike, are hoping the  US midwest is not going to be exposed to drought over the summer.

Mr Ban said the world currently faced "widespread hunger, malnutrition and social unrest on an unprecedented scale" because of soaring food prices' but with a rising population and waking China and India  competing with the biofuel industry  to feed better quality food to their new emerging middle classes its very likely that the world will continue to face hunger , malnutrition and social unrest ' on a global scale, only as the norm. 

.

Adding to  the onslought of environmental disasters we seem bent on  inflicting on the planet and ourselves Reuters reports today two additional concerns , a forecast of arctic sea  ice shrinking to a record low again in 2008 due to global warming with ice  lossage  the size of Texas and California combined and news that Siberia's Lake Baikal , the worlds largest lake, warmed faster than global air temperatures over the past 60 years, 

The lake has warmed 1.21 degrees Celsius (2.18 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1946 due to climate change, almost three times faster than global air temperatures, according to a paper by the scientists to be published next month in the journal "Global Change Biology."

Polar bears in the arctic are already  being pressured by the shrinking ice shelves  and the fate of the freshwater seal, unique to Lake Baikal also hangs in the balance as the warming of the lake  is melting the ice caves and formations it breeds its pups in exposing them for the first time  to land based predators and birds.

But there is another concern , commercial interests moving in to industrially exploit the fall out from global warming, greater access to the arctic and its oil and other resources brought about by the retreating ice. The US, Russia, Canada and Denmark are already squaring up to each other in the arctic anxious to stake claims in what is clearly going to be the 21st century's new Klondyke region as global warming opens up the region for a free for all. 

The Earth is tired and I dont think we are going to take any notice until the sea and temperature rises force us too by which time it will be too late.

contra conception by autotelic

A grey haired troll like woman sits on the step outside the intermediate ward entrance demanding money , cigarettes and a man
She's in the  secure facility  next door  but they let her stray
As they know if they forget her she'll break back in
Her fingers are yellowy brown, she's been burnt  by life  
She confides to visitors she can no longer piss
The ward staff eventually relent and hand her some  bread
The meds clearly arent working
She's still way too conscious
And once she finishes eating she outlines her list of demands again
Then spits on the ground and tells everyone to fuck off
Politely.
The young gay guy at the fence  recently found out he has AIDS
He's on the ward for taking an overdose
He's on a voluntary section
When he arrived he wanted to be here

Now he's not so sure there's any reason to be
He and his lover dress up for the review
They look like they  have plans to flee
The unit's psychiatrist has other plans
He compulsorily sections the man for his own safety

There's no escaping life here either
Alone or otherwise
It's fucking prosecuted relentlessly
In the asylum only the life affirming have the key to the cage
It's a dull closed universe of compliance
Designed to crush those with even a glint of striped rebellion left in their eyes
As proof the broken tygers trudge cosmic patterns around the exercise yard
Erratically clawing at old foes and festering hopes 

A little African woman girl

Skips along playing with  the dolls in her own head

Personalties dimly clash and interact

The depressives tread deep blue water

Standing apart the blonde ward nurse sternly counts her charges
Using the fingers of both hands

In the sunlight
Her ' What Would Jesus Do? ' bracelet sparkles

As a reminder
I think why doesnt she ask him?

He's in the television room

Surfing channels for the big game.

the drugs dont work

Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered the hallucinogenic drug LSD, or Acid, has died of a heart attack at his home in Basel at the age of 102.

Mr Hofmann first produced LSD in 1938 while researching the medicinal uses of a crop fungus.

He accidentally ingested some of the drug and said later: "Everything I saw was distorted as in a warped mirror". For some reason Hoffmann thought the drug would be useful for people with mental health problems as if they didnt have enough  problems already.

Not to be confused with 60's activist Abbot ' Abbie '  Hoffmann  who was bi polar , busted for dealing drugs rather than inventing them and  committed suicide in 1989.

kali goes to radioshack by autotelic

    "What's exciting is that people are building new social systems, new systems of review, new systems of governance . My hope is that those will produce... new ways of working together effectively and fairly which we can use globally to manage ourselves as a planet."

   Tim Berners Lee on 15th anniversary of release of web code into public domain by CERN

It's ancient and darkly alive
This Interfabrique 
Shaping thoughts
Into beautiful conforming patterns and spirals
Of chaotic obedience
In monochrome blue
But Governance you say?
By whom ?
For what?
The hooded thuggees of existence?
Or the jugganaut of all anihilating progress?
Bent on the conquest of time

Nope
The man -machine has no future 

Nothing changes
The heart is all