#perhaps i can die in a pointless war our government decides is needed for the ground money juice
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No matter how I do the math, I can’t figure out how Valinor is supposed to produce an army in less than 500 years to fight in the War of Wrath. The Teleri aren’t fighting, only about 1/5 of the Noldor were left behind, and the Vanyar are the smallest faction of all the elves. Even taking into account that the Noldor and Vanyar were reproducing at a faster rate than the elves of Beleriand (given that Valinor wasn’t a war zone at the time), it’s hard to believe that they were able to take casualties for decades and keep up a fighting front. And no, magic superpowers only go so far, especially given that these are the elves who weren’t fighting and improving their martial skills over the same period.
“So it’s settled. Any Reborn who is ready to be released fro the Halls and willing to fight will be allowed into the army.” Arafinwe was not as imposing as an Ainu or a Maia, but he was pulling out all the stops in order to bring an end to the argument. “In addition, they will be put in charge of creating and running a training program for the Firstborn.”
“This is an outrage!” Ingwion was taller than Arafinwe and the glowing hair and eyes added to that. “The Reborn, most of them are either filthy Moriquendi who refused to come to Valinor in the first place, or criminal Noldor who abandoned our Paradise in a fit of temper, or descendants of those criminals who are tainted by their forefathers sins. Having them join in the Blessed ranks is an abomination!”
“Fine,” cut in Olwe, just as tired as the Maia of this pointless argument. “None of the Reborn are from the tribe of the Minyar anyway. Any Nelyar or Tatyar, regardless of if they came from these Shores or those of the East will be welcome to join the Noldor. You can keep your precious purity.”
“As this is what the council of the Eldar have decided, the Maiar shall do their best to assist. Some of the servants of Tulkas, Nessa and Orome would like to help in the training.” Eonwe straightened up and the temperature of the air dropped to near freezing. “While the Ainur shall assist against Morgoth, the Eldar shall be governed by this council. You have been outvoted Ingwion. Accept the conditions and report back to your father.”
Ingwion opened his mouth again, but now Finrod jumped in. “That is an order from a Maia of Manwe himself. However, if the Vanyar do not wish to participate, that is understandable. There is no glory in war.” The reminder that this was essentially holy writ for the Vanyar and the dig at their bravery was enough to silence the Prince. Instead he bowed and left immediately. As soon as he was gone, Eonwe diminished, losing height and aura until he resembled some misplaced Laiquende. His hair and wings darkened to the same speckled brown as a songbird, and his expression resembled the same tired face that Finarfin saw in the mirror. Only his eyes showed the truth, and even those were darkened.
The High King of the Noldor left the Maia to his own thoughts. He turned instead to the remaining members of the council: his wife Earwen, who had been leading the Teleri during the past 500 years, Olwe, who had only recently been released from the Halls, and his own son Finrod, who had been selected for his knowledge of Beleriand. Earandil and his wife might have been better choices, but were currently recovering from the ordeal of getting to Valinor. They wouldn’t be participating in theses meeting for a while, maybe never if they accepted Manwe’s suggestion for inspiring hope for all. Neither of them were war leaders, so it would hardly be disastrous to miss their input.
“We can order them to go through the training, but we can’t order them to take it seriously. And once the fighting starts, I’m not sure how well they will be able to take orders from any commanders other than the Maiar.”
“Dump them on the Maiar if they can’t be bothered to learn.” Earwen’s voice was surprisingly bitter. In the years since Feanor had led the Noldor out of Tirion, the dynamics of the relationship between the three tribes had changed. The reparations from the Noldor to the Teleri had been heavy, but had worked to heal the wounds between the two. In addition, those Reborn had worked with the two tribes, revealing how different the two Shores had become. The Teleri and Noldor of Valinor now had more in common than they did with the Nelyar and Tatyar who had remained in the East. In addition, almost all the factions had various bones to pick with the Ainur and the Maiar. From the Sindar feeling abandoned by their kin, the Tatyar agreeing that the Ainur and Maiar had no right to interfere with the Noldor affairs, to all sides blaming them for the unconditional release of Morgoth. The anger the Firstborn felt had united them against their erstwhile masters. It had been a long, hard road to get any of them to trust the Valar again. Even now, the Maiar would only be partners to the leaders of the Eldar, not allowed full command of any divisions. Only the Vanyar had remained unchanged, isolated in Taniquetil. Arafinwe thought of the last conversation he had with Findis and his mother and had to suppress his own wave of bitterness.
“Morgoth has more than Balrogs now, and even the Maiar have not fought dragons before. I don’t want to die again because some Vanyar didn’t know how to defend against a crossbow bolt.” Finrod had been the one adamant that all the Eldar needed training, even the Teleri who Earwen had commanded not to leave the boats. Based on how easily his son had defeated him in a spar, Arafinwe agreed. And Finrod had said he hadn’t even been the best warrior among the Finwions.
“We’ll rotate them through.” promised Eonwe. “But you may want to think about how to distribute the Vanyar through the forces.”
“Too loose! Too loose! You’re holding your sword too loose!” The Sinda yelled at the Vanya as he swung at the straw target.
“First you said I was holding too tight, now you say it’s too loose. Make up your mind!” The exasperation was so clear that the Vanya’s golden hair was standing on end.
“It has to be balanced. Too tightly, and you’ll be too stiff to maneuver effectively. Too loose and you risk dropping the weapon when you strike or parry. Hold it, hold it like you would a live bird. Not so tight as to crush it, but not so lightly so that it can escape.”
For a moment the Vanya was silent and the Sinda thought she had gotten to him. Then he opened his mouth. “What would a wood elf know of swords work? You Sindar just use bows and arrows since you have no forges any way!” With that he turned back to the target, continuing to slash with a loose grip.
Silently she walked up behind him. When he took the next swing, she blocked him, engaged in a lock, then twisted his sword out of his hand to fall a few feet away beyond his reach. And he had a live blade, while she had been using a wooden practice sword. “Clearly, I know more than you do.”
“Watch your feet! Watch your feet!” The Noldo was observing a Teler sailor fight a Vanya warrior. The Teleri were perhaps the most vital part of the war effort. Without them, there would be no possible retreat, and even more importantly no supply line, and the most recent Reborn had confirmed that Beleriand was in shambles due to Morgoth’s efforts to wipe out the survivors. There would be no living off the land on the Eastern Shore. In addition, the Reborn had also confirmed that the Black Foe had reached the sea. Who knew what ships or worse, what monsters might now be lurking in the Belegaer? Even if they weren’t going to be on the frontline, every Teler now had to be able to defend his or herself.
Clearly the Vanya didn’t seem to be taking this seriously. His footwork was slow, and didn’t take into account the swaying of the ship they were on. The Teler, on the other hand was watching him with narrow eyes, his feet moving to keep his balance on the deck. When the Vanya stumbled again, he rushed him, feinted a swing with the dagger in his left, ducked under the parry that left the Vanya even more off-balance and knocked him over the railing with one good shove.
“Good job!” said the Noldo, watching the Vanya flail, then sink beneath the waves. “Where did you learn that particular trick?”
“It’s the same trick you used on me in Alqualonde.” The two of them paused, eyeing the eight-point star featured prominently on the Noldo’s tunic. “Knocked me right off my own ship, then you threw the dagger through my eye. I think I drowned then, but the dagger might have killed me.”
They both observed the rising bubbles. “On the other hand, now I know a good way to get someone off my boat in a hurry, so that day wasn’t a complete loss.”
“Do you think he remembered to lose his breastplate after he went over? That’s how your sister got me later. Hit me over with an oar, then I drowned from the weight of my mail.”
The bubbles stopped. “I don’t think he did. And after we both warned him too.” The two former adversaries shared a smile.
“There’s no need for any of our people to learn archery. We’ll be on the front lines, not skulking in the back. Just make sure you don’t hit any of our people as your firing.” Ingwion’s pompous tones set Arafinwe’s teeth on edge; he wondered how Dengwe had managed to not punch the Vanya’s teeth out. Finrod fortunately took it upon himself to handle the situation. “Angrod, how many orcs will you kill during a battle?”
His second son took a second to think about that. “It depends on terrain, if the battle was planned ahead of time, if I’m only facing orcs or if they’re backed up by men or other monsters. Also how long the battle lasts, no matter what others say, you start getting tired and your performance suffers after the first hour. But say in a five hour battle, I may kill about 150 orcs.” A moment of grumbling, “Maedhros and Maglor might do better but Maedhros is a phenomenal fighter and Maglor cheats.”
“And how long will it take an archer to match that?”
“They’ll hit about 100 in the first two hours, then have to switch to melee combat after they run out of arrows. Just on average, most of the Rangers of Doriath could do better.”
“And you’re better than average. Most Eldar will be exceptionally lucky if they get half that. Actually most will be lucky if they survive, never mind the actual number of enemies killed.” Finrod held the bow out again. “Still don’t want to learn any archery?”
Ingwion looked down his nose at the bow. “Archery may be efficient, but it still lacks honor. Not that I’d expect any of you exiles to understand. We will not taint the glory of combat by using lesser weapons.” With that he walked off, hair a glowing beacon in the evening light.
The three of them watched him go. “There were survivors of the Great March among the Vanyar, right?” asked Angrod.
“There are. There are even survivors from Cuivienen. But none of them are participating in the campaign.” said Arafinwe.
“That would explain a lot.”
“The Valar have deemed that we can wait no longer. If we intend to rescue anyone from Beleriand we must leave and soon.” Eonwe was back in his herald form, all shining light and statuesque build. “Has this council decided on the deposition of the army?”
“The Vanyar shall arrive first.” Ingwion’s proud features seemed to glow in the dim confines of the tent.
“Go right ahead.” mocked Earwen. “Be an example to the rest of us.” She took a sip of wine. Normally she was a much more useful participant, but having Ingwion there seemed to drive her to drink. Having Ingwion there tempted Arafinwe to join her.
“Very well.” Eonwe nodded, ignoring Earwen. “Will you accept assistance from the Maiar?”
Ingwion’s arrogant stance fell into a deep bow. “The Vanyar will be eternally grateful for any help the divine see fit to bestow on us.”
“You’re going to need it,” muttered one of Orome’s Maiar, Pallando, thought Arafinwe, but he wasn’t familiar enough to be certain. “You all did incredibly badly in the training.”
“Very well,” nodded Eonwe. “And the rest?”
Earwen took over from there. “The Teleri shall remain on the ships as guards. We shall secure the supply lines and arrange the distribution of materials. Not just food, but medicines, shelter, even weapons and armor. In the worst scenario, we will also coordinate the evacuation.”
Finally it was Arafinwe’s turn. “Most of the Reborn have decided to enlist with the Noldor, though some have joined their Teleri kin. As such, our battalions are mixed. We have tried to make sure that each major unit has a variety of specialists, but the bulk of the army is still infantry. As such, we will be behind the Vanyar. While they are in charge of claiming territory, it will be our responsibility to hold it, at least the areas that are not destroyed by the Valar in the fight. In addition, we will take charge of negotiating with the remaining forces in Beleriand.” Since Ingwion couldn’t negotiate his way out of a paper bag, Arafinwe thought unkindly.
“A good distribution. As for the Maiar . . . Manwe’s forces shall be lead by myself. We will join the Vanyar at the forefront. We will deal with any Balrogs or dragons and provide intelligence on the other forces as well as any changes in terrain. Should we encounter any Free Peoples not already aligned with the coalition, we shall bring representatives back to deal with Arafinwe. They will also act as commanders for the Vanyar units since there seem to be a dearth of those.
Ulmo’s Maiar shall be lead by Osse, with Uinen staying here in Aman to assist in coordinating. They shall patrol and try to deal with sea monsters, but the Teleri should be on guard still. Also, Ulmo has offered to try to deal with some of the more infested areas by drowning them under tsunamis. Hopefully once the war is over that territory can be reclaimed.
Most of Aule’s and Yavanna’s Maiar are staying behind to help the support effort. Tulkas, Nessa and Orome’s will be joining the Noldor units. They are to work in conjunction with those commanders. In cases of Balrogs, dragons and other Maiar, they have command. Otherwise they are subordinate to the ranking officers.” Eonwe looked around. “Any other questions?” There were none.
“Very well then. My Teleri will start ferrying over the Vanyar tomorrow. Once they’ve claimed a toehold, we’ll start bringing the Noldor over to fortify the territory.” Earwen finished the meeting with a clear dismissal.
As Arafinwe left, he was stopped by Ingwion. “You’re not actually letting the Reborn command Noldor forces, are you? I admit they are better than I thought, but still . . . they lack the superior qualities that define leaders.”
At this point Arafinwe was just tired of arguing. “No, while they have joined, the army is still in control of the Noldor.” He resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
“It’s good to know the right kind are the ones making the decisions.” Then he left, taking his obnoxious gold hair with him.
“Aren’t most of your generals, captains and commanders Reborn?” asked Eonwe.
“Yes, but it’s not like Ingwion needs to know that.”
#silmarillion#arafinwe#war of wrath#noldor#vanyar#teleri#racism#classism#the vanyar got hammered during the war#they took the first victory#but there were none of them left by the end#too dumb to live#hatesink ingwion#he doesn't have any characterization any way#no reborn participating in war of wrath is propaganda
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Lost Odyssey - A Thousand Years of Dreams - Story Seventeen Transcript
The Bread of Grandma Coto
There is no way to keep the village from becoming a battlefield.
The enemy forces have crossed the northern pass and made their camp close by.
The home forces are here, too, sending one unit after another into the village to resist the enemy's attack.
The place is a powder keg.
Ringed by mountains where two highways intersect, the village is a crucial focal point for transport.
It cannot be allowed to fall into enemy hands, while its capture is essential to any hopes the enemy might have for victory in the war. Long years of fighting have come down to this one major battle.
It is a battle that must be waged.
The logic is clear, simple, inevitable. And it will transform this tranquil village into a battlefield at any moment.
The army has ordered the villagers to evacuate.
Noncombatants can only get in the way.
"The enemy wants to settle this before the weather turns cold,"
"So, what does that mean? Another month? Two weeks?"
"Got your stuff packed? No sense getting caught in the middle and killed. Talk about dying for nothing!"
"Better forget about taking any pots and pans with you. Pack as light as you can and get away as far as you can."
"Think of all the generations our ancestors guarded our houses and land. I hate to think it's going to turn into a wasteland when the fighting starts..."
"There's nothing we can do about it, it's just plain bad luck, that's all."
"We just have to hang in there till the war is over and come back when we find out who won."
"The main thing is to get out now."
"Right, it's all we can do."
"We've got to stay alive. Better not hope for anything more than that."
"Why the hell does this have to happen to us?"
The villagers leave a few at a time, beginning with the first ones to find temporary shelter.
By the time the forest is lightly tinged with red, the village is practically deserted.
The only ones left are old folks who live alond and have no one and no place to run to.
The army has built a crude refugee camp for any evacuees able to cross several mountains to reach it. The aged poor stagger in with little more than clothes on their back.
The only one left in the village is Grandma Coto.
As a mercenary, Kaim first met old Coto shortly after he joined the unit protecting the village.
He was on an inspection round at the time when he spotted an old woman working in the fields. She turned out to be Grandma Coto.
A soldier with him yelled at her, "Hey, old lady, enough of that!"
Another man shouted, "You'd beter get out of here now if you want to stay alive. The fight's going to start in two or three days. How many times do we have to tell you to go to the damn refugee camp?!"
But old Coto stayed hunched over, digging in the dirt.
Obviously, she was not harvesting anything.
If this had been a time when the grain had ripened and she was hurrying to harvest her crops, it might have made sense, but she was just turning te soil as if she had forgotten that a battle was about to start here at any moment.
"Is the old bag deaf? Or just senile?"
With a disgusted look, the captain caled over to Kaim, "Hey, new guy! Do something about this one! Drag her to the refugee camp if you have to tie a rope around her neck! We can't have her wandering around out here. She's just going to get in the way whenthe fighting starts."
The captain's tone was arrogant.
The more cowardly a commanding officer is, the more arrogant and overbearing his style becomes--and the less he is able to conceal his nervousness--when a battle is nearing.
Kaim strode silently toward the old woman in the field.
"Well go on ahead!" the captain called out behind him, but he did not turn around.
Only a few days would be needed to decide the outcome of the battle for the village, which was a reflection of how violent it promised to be.
For this reason, working in the fields now was pointless. Even the most carefully cultivated patch of ground would be crushed under the soldiers' boots. A harvest next year was out of the question. Nor was it even clear how many years it would take to restore the village to its former tranquility.
When Kaim approached her in the field, the old woman kept working and said,
"Don't try to stop me!"
She looked--and sounded--much tougher than she seemed from a distance. She might have been one of those stubborn, cranky old folks that people kept their distance from when the village was at peace.
"You're not going to evacuate?" Kaim asked.
"What the hell for?" she spat out.
"They've built a camp you can go to..."
Old Coto gave a snort and said to Kaim,
"You're a new one. I've never seen you before."
"Yes..."
"So you don't even know what the camp's like. You soldiers have nothing to worry about."
"What do you mean?"
Old Coto said nothing but pointed toward the steep mountain standing like a painted screen on the west side of the village.
Kaim asked, "Is that where the camp is?"
"Hell no. You have to cross that mountain and another one to get to it. Nobody my age can walk that far. What's the point of building a camp in a place like that? How many old folks do they think are going to make it over there? They might as well leave us out in the hills to die like in the old days."
Kaim was at a loss for an answer. Continuing her digging, the old woman grumbled,
"That's how the government does everything..."
She was clearly angry, but perhaps less angry than sad.
"You're on an inspection tour, right? Well, don't let me stop you..."
"No, you see..."
"You're not going to get me to go to any damn refugee camp. That's all there is to it. I'm not going anywhere. This is the village I was born in, and I've lived here all my life."
"I know how you feel, but this place is going to turn into a battlefield soon."
"I know that."
"So then..."
"So what?"
Kaim was at a loss for words again.
When she saw that, she smiled and said, "You're a sweet young man. Kind of unusual in a soldier."
Her expression had softened for the first time.
Once she stopped being so prickly, the smile she produced was actually rather endearing.
"When this place turns into a battlefield, people will die. Lots of them. I know that much, don't worry. But I have work to do, soldier boy. Telling me to leave my work and run away is like telling me to die anyway--and it won't be long now--I want you to let me do what I want to do. You shouldn't have a problem with that."
Kaim fell silent. Not because he was at a loss for words yet again, but because he believed she was right. "If I'm going to die anyway." she had said. Knowing that he would bever be able to speak such words, he had no choice but to bow silently to her will.
"All right, then, run along there, sonny. I've got work to do."
"What are you doing now?"
"See for yourself!"
"Sorry, but I don't know much about farm work."
"Like all the other soldiers." old Coto said with a smile.
"The only thing you people ever think about is killing enemies. You don't know anything about nurturing life." She let a hint of sorrow show again.
Perhaps somewhat taken with Kaim, however, she favored him with an explanation.
"I'm planting seeds." she said.
Grains of wheat:
you sow them in the fall, they mature over winter,
shoot up under the spring sun, and turn the fields golden in summer.
"I always do my planting when the northern mountain peaks turn white. Every year. And this year's not going to be any different."
Would the seeds mature in the trampled fields? Kaim had his doubts.
Grandma Coto, however, displayed not the least anxiety or resignation as she scattered seeds in the newly-turned soil.
Her hands performed the age-old ritual with the ease and naturalness, as if to impress upon Kaim the fact that what she was doing this year was nothing more nor less than what she had done every year before.
As a result, Kaim's next words emerged with a smoothness that he himself found somwhat surprising.
"What if the seeds don't grow?"
"The I'll just do it again next year. And if next year's bad, I'll do it again the year after that. You have to plant the seeds. That's how I've lived my life. If you don't plant, nothing will grow. See what I mean?"
"I think so..."
"Whether there's a fight or not, it doesn't matter. I'm just going to do what I have to do. That's all."
She spoke with certainty, her wrinkled face softening into smile as she added, "You can'teven enjoy a meal if you know you haven't done things right."
"You're saying that this is what gives your life its meaning?"
This was the question to which Kaim had long searched for an answer.
For what purpose had he been born into this world?
What was he supposed to accomplish here?
He had continued to roam thyough his life's enless journey without knowing the answers to the questions--indeed, because he didn't know the answers.
"I don't know about deep stuff like that." Grandma Coto said shyly.
"I just mill the wheat I've harvested, and bake bread in the fall. That bread is really special. Nothing tasted as good as the first bread you make with te wheat you grew that year.
That's what my grandson looks forward to every year. I can't just decide to take a year off now, can I?"
"I see what you mean."
"No you don't." she declared. "You're nothing but a damn soldier."
Her face had turned hard again. There were no more smiles from her that day.
When Kaim returned to the barracks, a soldier who had been stationed in the village for six months or more said to him, "That old bag hates our guts."
"Because we've ruined the village?"
"That's part of it, I suppose, but it's got deeper roots than that for her."
Grandma Coto had lost her entire family to war. First her husband had died in the war forty years earlier, then her son and his wife in the war twenety years earlier, and now the one grandson they had left was taken to fight in the current war.
"What's his unit?" Kim asked the soldier.
The man gave a helpless shrug and named a unit that had been sent t an area with the most intense fighting.
"Talk about bad luck! The fighting's so bad out there, if it was me, I'd take my chances on being executed for deserting under fire. He's got maybe a 50-50 chance of coming back alive. No, maybe 30-70."
If her grandson were to be killed, Grandma Coto would be all alone in the world. She would have no one to feed her bread to.
"It must be tough to be left alone at that age." the soldier said.
"Looking at old Coto, I can't help thinking of my mother back home. There's no way I can let myself get killed. She'd never stop crying. Same for you, too, eh, Kaim?"
Kaim said nothing in reply. He had no right to put himself in the same category as this soldier.
The battle started three days later.
The enemy army's attack was even fiercer than expected. The defense forces had no choice but to put everything they had into the fight.
Kaim slipped away from the battlefront and headed for Grandma Coto's house.
He found her leaving for the field as always.
She gave no sign that she was afraid of the fighting. People who know exactly what they must do, and who refuse to be distracted by anything else, can be strong beyond all reason.
Kaim saw now that there coud be far greater strength in a finite life than in one that lasted forever. Because he sensed this so deeply, he stood before her, blocking her way.
He lifted the tiny old woman in his arms an carried her bodily back to her house.
"What are you doing? Let go of me! I'm not going to follow some soldier's orders! I have work to do!"
"Yes, I know that." Kaim said.
"So put me down now!"
"I don't want to let you die."
Holding her against his chest, he looked her in the eye and pleaded with her.
"I want you to bake bread next autumn again from a new crop of wheat."
She stopped flailing her arms and legs in avain attempt to get free of his grip. She looked straight back at him as he said,
"As long as you have someone to feed your freshly-baked bread to, I want you to keep baking bread year after year."
Old Coto heaved a huge sigh and muttered, smiling, "I knew you were a very strange soldier."
The batte raged on for several days.
The arrogant, cowardly captain died in the fighting.
The soldier who had told Kaim the story of Grandma Coto also died.
Countless defense troops died, and countless enemy troops died.
The village was consumed in flames of war, and old Coto's field was ravaged under the heels of the military.
Kaim's side managed to stave off the attackers, then followed the retreating enemy to the north.
All that remained in their wake was the empty, devastated village.
The war ended as spring was giving way to summer.
At the cost of massive casualties, the army repulsed the enemy's invasion.
The village began to recover little by little.
As Grandma Coto had predicted, not one old person who crossed the mountains to the refugee camp came back alive.
Autumn, and Kaim has come back to the village.
He feels warm in the chest when he looks across the fields and spots old Coto sowing wheat.
So...she's doing it again this year.
And next year, and the year after that, for as long as she is alive.
She notices Kaim, and crosses toward him with a welcoming smile. A year has passed. She seems to have shrunk somewhat with a year's worth of aging.
"Haven't seen you in awhile." she says. "So--they didn't kill you!"
"And I'm glad to see you looking well, too."
"I heard you stayed near my house during the fight--you single-handedly fought to keep enemy troops away from it!"
Kaim gives her a shy smile. "How was your wheat?" he asks.
"All ruined, of course. Worst crop I've ever had--a few scrawny stalks. Barely enough for one loaf."
She tells him all this with surprising ease.
The she fixes her eye on him and asks, "Have some?"
"What...?"
"Bread, of course! I'll bake a loaf now if you'll help me eat it."
"Well, sure, but..."
Grandma Coto sees through Kaim's hesitancy and says with a calm smile.
"Yes, he's dead, my grandson, I got word at the end of the summer. I was waiting and hoping...planning to bake him a loaf of bread as soon as he got home."
When she sees Kaim hanging his head in silence, she asopts a spirited tone as if she has to be the one to cheer him up.
"Come on, then, you eat what he would have had. It'll probably be tougher than usual,what with the wheat harvest being s bad, but I'm sure my grandson would be happy to know I fed my bread to the man who saved my life."
So, this old woman has lost her entire family to war.
In other words, there is no one left to enjoy her bread.
Still, se urges Kaim to "Wait just a minute while I finish this up," sowing the wheat for next year's harvest.
She does it because that is what she has always done.
Because it is what she is supposed to do.
Kaim stops himself from speaking the words, "Let me help," and stands staring at old Coto's bent back.
In the glow of the setting autumn sun, she is sadly small and sadly beautiful.
Kaim eats the fresh-baked bread.
Old Coto was right: made from wheat grown without its full measure of care, the bread is hard and dry, and poor in taste.
Still, of all the bread Kaim has eaten--and will go on to eat--in his long, long life, this is by far the most delicious.
#lost odyssey#a thousand years of dreams#1000 years of dreams#kaim argonar#seth balmore#sarah sisulart#ming numara#jansen friedh#cooke and mack#cooke#mack
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I watch a lot of crime shows and listen to a lot of true crime podcasts, so naturally I’ve spent a lot of time with charismatic FBI profiler characters.
It’s really hard to overstate how much this character archetype has penetrated pop culture. Just one profiler, John Douglas, is reportedly the basis for at least four fictional characters: Jack Crawford from the Hannibal novels/movies/TV show; both the Mandy Patinkin and Joe Mantegna characters on Criminal Minds; and Mindhunter’s Holden Ford (played by Jonathan Groff). Manhunt: Unabomber focuses on Jim Fitzgerald (played by Sam Worthington and based on the profiler of the same real name).
TNT’s The Alienist, which I still need to see, features a psychological profiler working in 1896 in New York City. We hardly knew anything about human psychology in 1896!
And the trouble is, while we know a lot more now, we don’t know enough. It’s a real, honest-to-God bummer, but criminal profiling doesn’t appear to work. At all. Even if it did, it’d be a misallocation of intellectual energy.
Malcolm Gladwell made this case in his trademark narrative, somewhat elliptical way back in 2007 (I don’t mean that as a dig, it’s a great piece and informed a lot of this post, but it’s also long and New Yorker-y). The research literature is genuinely strange. The consensus is that profiling isn’t very effective, and even profiling-sympathetic people are reduced to arguing that criminal profiles by the professionals are marginally more accurate than ones written by completely untrained people off the street.
And here’s the thing: They’re not much better than random people off the street! A 2007 meta analysis by criminologists Brent Snook, Joseph Eastwood, Paul Gendreau, Claire Goggin, and Richard Cullen compared four studies where self-described criminal profilers were tasked with analyzing crime scene data and coming up with a profile, and compared their predictions to other groups like normal detectives or students.
They find that profilers do only slightly better than random people at predicting traits of offenders. “We contend that, in any field, an ‘expert’ should decisively outperform nonexperts (ie lay persons),” the authors write. They didn’t find that. They conclude that profiling is a “pseudoscientific technique,” of limited if any value to investigators.
A group of researchers at the University of Liverpool with the psychologist Laurence Alison have taken a different approach by evaluating the central assumption of profiling: that characteristics of a crime and crime scene can predict useful traits about a criminal. In a bracingly blunt 2002 journal article called “Is offender profiling possible?” Alison and his co-author Andreas Mokros conclude, basically, “No.”
They looked at 100 British rapists: all men, all targeting women 16 and older, and all rapists who attacked strangers rather than acquaintances or significant others. Were people who committed crimes similarly, with similar modi operandi, likely to be similar demographically, too? Nope, not at all. “Neither age, socio-demographic features nor previous convictions established any links with offence behaviour,” Mateas and Alison concluded.
In other words, the central assumption of criminal profiling is nonsense. You can’t look at a crime scene and conclude stuff like, “The offender is a 25- to 34-year-old white man who dropped out of high school.”
But criminal profiling also has an opportunity cost: There are a lot of really hard problems in the world that progress in psychology would help address, and from which criminal profiling might be a distraction.
Mental health struggles are an obvious example, but there are less obvious ones too, like getting better at predictions. Philip Tetlock at the University of Pennsylvania has been, for decades, studying how experts and laypeople make predictions about future events, and holding tournaments to isolate the factors that lead to good, accurate forecasts.
The social consequences of being able to forecast the future better are immense. “If we could improve the judgement of government officials facing high-stakes decisions — reducing their susceptibility to various biases, or developing better methods of aggregating expertise — this could have positive knock-on effects across a huge range of domains,” Jess Whittlestone notes. “For example, it could just as well improve our ability to avert threats like a nuclear crisis, as help us allocate scarce resources towards the most effective interventions in education and healthcare.”
This is even clearer if you look to the past. If the European powers had been able to foresee an intractable bloody stalemate as the consequence of joining Austria’s war against Serbia in 1914, they almost certainly wouldn’t have jumped in as enthusiastically; maybe Austria would’ve restrained itself, too. If investment banks had more accurate forecasting models of the mortgage market in the mid-2000s, or knew enough to listen to accurate models that housing bubble bears were making, perhaps the financial crisis could’ve been averted. World War I and the mortgage crisis were huge, complicated events, but they were also, in part, forecasting errors.
So imagine you’re a psychology Ph.D. student and, instead of working on that, or instead of trying to advance our understanding of what causes schizophrenia or major depression, you decide you want to catch serial killers using the power of your mind. Does that really feel like the highest use of your talents? Few psychologists, to be fair, do this now; most go into clinical practice or do basic research as academics. But we’ve allocated a weird amount of cultural capital to this especially pointless subset of the discipline.
In Alec Wilkinson’s profile of Thomas Hargrove, a remarkable data journalist who has built an algorithm that can help identify serial killers based on similar locations, MOs, etc., Wilkinson notes that the FBI thinks less than 1 percent of annual homicides are by serial killers. Hargrove thinks it’s higher. But there were 19,362 homicides in 2016. Even if 2 percent of those people were killed by serial killers, that’s 387 people a year.
By comparison, about 480,000 to 540,000 people die in the US every year due to cigarettes, about 88,000 due to alcohol, and between 3,000 and 49,000 due to the flu. Closer to the world of psychiatry, more than 40,000 Americans die annually from suicide; given that we know severe mental illness increases non-suicide mortality too, the true death toll of depression and other mood disorders is significantly higher.
Maybe increasing clearance rates for serial killers is more tractable, an easier lift than bringing those numbers down. But I have my doubts. And that’s just thinking about the US. If distributing bednets through the Against Malaria Foundation saves a life for every $3,687 spent (a rough number to be sure), and 2 percent of US murders are from serial killers, then for only $1.4 million a year you can save as many lives with bednets in Africa as you would from ending serial-killing in the US entirely. It’s impossible to imagine ending serial killing for only $1.4 million a year.
I don’t mean this as a knock on Hargrove personally. Spending all day catching serial killers sounds absolutely awesome, and it’s cool as hell to do it with big data — and more to the point, even if it’s not the biggest problem in the world, it’s big enough that having one really smart person working full-time on it probably makes sense.
I just wish all the super brilliant, talented scientists and FBI agents from my favorite shows would move to Philadelphia and help Philip Tetlock forecast world events, rather than hanging out in Quantico and trying to catch Hannibal Lecter.
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Original Source -> Criminal profiling doesn’t work. TV shows should maybe stop celebrating it.
via The Conservative Brief
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As the World Watches Syria, Don’t Forget About Yemen by Richard Eskow
In the time it takes to read these words, a child under the age of five will probably die in Yemen.
And, as this is being written, the U.N. Security Council is meeting to discuss a gas attack in Syria. President Trump, with newly-appointed National Security Advisor John Bolton at his side, says he will decide on his course of action within 24 to 48 hours.
The Syrian people’s tragedy is enormous. So is the possibility for military confrontation between two nuclear powers.
But while the headlines focus on Syria, and as a multitude of voices call for increased military involvement there, don’t forget the tragedy in Yemen. We can save lives much more easily there. We don’t have to send troops or launch missiles.
All we have to do is leave.
Empathy and Intervention
Political scientists at the University of Toronto have linked empathy to left-leaning political views. Linguist George Lakoff associates the liberal personality with the “nurturant parent” model of the family. And the stereotypical American self-image, across the political spectrum, is that of someone who is willing to help others.
Interestingly, most Americans see other Americans as “selfish,” according to a 2015 Pew Research Center survey.
Perhaps that’s why presidential candidate Bill Clinton used empathic language when he argued for US military action in Bosnia and Herzegovina – “because,” said candidate Clinton, “I’m horrified by what I’ve seen.”
That language reinforced what the New York Times called Clinton’s “aggressive tack” on the region.
Under President Clinton, NATO conducted years of bombing in the region and sent 60,000 troops to enforce the Dayton Accords. Clinton faced resistance from left and right. That conflict was, in the words of the New York Times Editorial Board, “not America’s war.” But Clinton and his team invoked the image of the US as the world’s leader – and the suffering of children – to make the case for intervention.
More Than Just a Place
In a 1995 speech announcing his decision to send peacekeeping troops, Clinton shrewdly leavened his liberal empathy (“In fulfilling this mission, we will have the chance to help stop the killing of innocent civilians, especially children”) with self-interest (“and at the same time, to bring stability to central Europe, a region of the world that is vital to our national interests.”)
Clinton then pivoted to the time-tested theme of the US as a uniquely generous and selfless military force. “America has always been more than just a place,” he said, adding:
America has embodied an idea that has become the ideal for billions of people throughout the world… America is about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness … America has done more than simply stand for these ideals. We have acted on them and sacrificed for them. Our people fought two world wars so that freedom could triumph over tyranny.
This is how liberal interventionism has always been packaged in American politics: with the notion that our highest ideals are best expressed, not through diplomacy, but through the projection of military force outside our borders. In this telling, history has ended. We are the indispensable nation. We alone must balance the war-torn world on our khaki-clad shoulders.
A “Humanitarian War”
Perhaps that’s why, as the Bosnian conflict escalated, the Clinton Administration and other world governments ignored the nonviolent independence movement taking place in nearby Kosovo. It was only after that conflict turned violent, with the rise of the Kosovo Liberation Army, that the Administration responded.
When Clinton addressed the nation on Kosovo, he didn’t rely on empathy for other people’s children. He called intervention the best course for American children and their future – saying it, not once, but three times.
Liberals and leftists were divided on this intervention, as they had been with Bosnia and Herzegovina. But Susan Sontag made the case for military action in the New York Times Magazine. In the American Prospect, Paul Starr called the Kosovo intervention a “humanitarian war” and thought a land invasion would be more effective than airstrikes, but concluded:
“Those of us who believe that the United States ought to use its power to prevent genocide and other high crimes against human decency are going to have to work a lot harder to convince our neighbors.”
Notice the phrasing: “the United States ought to use its power …”
What happens when the best way to prevent a genocide is by ending the use of American power? That seems to be a harder case to make in American political culture.
The Forgotten Catastrophe
Yemen, a nation long renowned for its beauty, has become a place of almost unimaginable horror. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently declared it ‘the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” and cited statistics that, once heard, should never be forgotten.
Here’s one such statistic: Every ten minutes, a child under five dies of preventable causes. (Based on the average reading speed, it should take ten minutes to read these words. That means a child is statistically likely to die while it is being read.)
Here are some more:
18 million people are food insecure, and 8.4 million Yemenis don’t know how they will obtain their next meal.
3 million acutely malnourished Yemenis are either children under 5, pregnant women, or nursing mothers.
Nearly half of all children aged between six months and 5 years old are chronically malnourished and stunted, conditions that will affect them for the rest of their lives.
Children are being forced to fight, or to work at very young ages. Many young girls are being forced into marriage before they are 18, or even 15, as a response to family debt and poverty.
Women and girls are at heightened risk of sexual and gender-based violence.
Millions have no access to safe drinking water.
1 million people suffered from watery diarrhea and cholera last year. There is a high risk of another cholera epidemic.
More than ten thousand civilians – perhaps many more – have been killed in the fighting.
Our Complicity
The problem isn’t that the US is standing by and doing nothing while this horror unfolds. It’s much worse than that. The US is actively working to cause these atrocities, by helping the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia in its relentless attack on Yemen.
Marjorie Ransom, a former diplomat in Yemen, writes of “direct U.S. military complicity in this long and pointless campaign,” adding:
“In addition to selling a vast arsenal of weapons to Saudi Arabia, our government’s military gave logistical guidance in the Saudi military headquarters in Riyadh and continues to provide intelligence to Saudi defense officials and aerial refueling during bombing runs.”
She concludes, “The Saudi-led coalition could not have conducted the two and a half years of bombing without the support of our military.”
How to Use Intelligence
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont joined with one of the Senate’s most conservative members, Mike Lee of Utah, as well as Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut, to sponsor a resolution calling for an end to US involvement in Yemen.
44 senators voted for it, but 55 senators – including ten Democrats – voted against it. Some antiwar groups called it a step forward – but the war will not end.
Why haven’t progressives doing more to help the people of Yemen? Maybe it’s a problem of leadership. Nobody in a position of Democratic power is using their influence to end America’s involvement there. When the Clinton Administration was trying to build support for intervention in Yemen, it declassified intelligence photographs of the victims there and showed them to reluctant diplomats.
“It was an amazing example of how you can use intelligence,” Albright later reflected.
Why America Slept
Who in Washington’s national security establishment is handing out pictures of dying Yemenis? Nobody. It’s government policy under President Trump, just as it was under President Obama. In the last year of Obama’s presidency, in fact, the US government dropped more than 20,000 bombs on seven countries. (There’s a map.)
There’s a lot of money to be made in arms sales. President Trump has approved massive US arms sales to Saudi Arabia (Estimates of the deal’s value vary widely.) We’re told that there are no contracts in place, which places even more pressure on the American government to comply with the wishes of Mohammad bin Salman, or “MBS,” Saudi Arabia’s new dictator.
Not that this government needs any convincing. Trump’s financial ties to Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries deserve much deeper scrutiny. So do those of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
But it is our country’s defense-industry ties have been driving that “special relationship” for decades, through Republican and Democratic governments alike. Those ties also serve to promote military policies that involve the use of expensive weaponry all around the world.
As the New Yorker’s Nicholas Niarchos reports, one such weapon – a US-made bomb carrying 500 pounds of explosive – killed more than 140 mourners and injured 500 more during a Yemeni funeral in 2015. Among them was the mayor of Sana’a, who had been negotiating with several factions in an attempt to end the war
The bomb was manufactured by Raytheon.
Prince Not-So-Charming
But defense contractors aren’t the only powerful interest keeping us in Yemen. American oil corporations have benefited from the US-Saudi relationship for many decades.
Politicians have flattered and cajoled the country’s leadership all that time. So has the American media. With Mohammad bin Salman’s recent rise to power as “crown prince,” the self-interested servility of these elites is once again on display.
They call him “MBS,” as flattering pieces from the likes of Thomas Friedman affirm. Machiavelli wrote of princes like this a long time ago, saying “he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.”
MBS appears to be a nasty piece of work, even by Saudi standards, given his youthful threats – reportedly including, according to one story, a bullet in an envelope – toward anyone who stood in the way of his advancement. Then there’s the matter of his recent detention and torture of anyone who poses a political or financial threat to his power.
To cover up his brutality and flatter the thuggish potentate, the mainstream media dwells on MBS’ mild social liberalizations, like letting women drive and easing up on rules regarding live entertainment.
Wilkinson, who was chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, says MBS’ social liberalizations were “designed to shift attention from this disastrous war.”
If so, it’s going well. While his opponents were undergoing incarceration and torture without warrant last November, albeit in a luxury hotel, Friedman wrote gushingly: “Though I came here at the start of Saudi winter, I found the country going through its own Arab Spring, Saudi style.”
MBS may be a dictator, but in some people’s hearts he’s Number One – with a bullet.
Resistance Wanted
As MBS was dazzling Friedman, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna was working both sides of the aisle to end our involvement in Yemen. The Republican-led House “overwhelmingly” passed a resolution calling US involvement in that country “unauthorized.”
This year, 44 senators voted against continued this country’s support for Saudi attacks on Yemen. Two antiwar groups, Win Without War and the Friends Committee on National Legislation, celebrated them who voted against it. Those groups are right: the tide is turning.
But in the meantime, the war goes on, ten minutes at a time.
And as we listen to the debates in the UN, while we wait for more information out of Douma, as the generals appear on television to discuss military options, these Yemeni children are deliberately being starved by the Saudi military – every day, all day long.
Look at them. The morality of empathy demands that we care about these children as much as we care about children anywhere – including our own, here at home.
Where are the marchers, the silent vigils, the mass actions for them?
Syria is a terrible tragedy, too – a tragedy caused by American intervention. Now we’re being told that more intervention is the cure.
Liberal interventionism is seductive. It’s hard to resist the messianic voices that tell us we’re the indispensable heroes of our time, the saviors of the world and its children.
But it’s time to ask: In countries like Yemen, who will save the world from us?
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Diary Of Elliot
February 16th,
I don't know how I got here. I remember falling; falling and feeling this cold chill halt up my spine, like I couldn't move. I woke up after a long time in this deep deep sleep. Sleep so heavy, I couldn't remember where I'd been or where I was. When I came to I was locked in some seat inside this big metal pod. The walls were freezing. I felt like I was in an icebox. The surface in front of me had a door-looking handle on it, so I kicked my feet forward and, sure enough, it swung open. The heat hit me quick, like jumping into a fire after standing naked in a blizzard.
My skin burned for a second or so before going straight, but it was my eyes that were really killing me. The light from outside brushed in and nearly blinded me. I figured I hadn't used my eyes for a time. So, I grew a pair and took another look. My eyes were blurry, but I figured they'd adapt. At first I couldn't tell that I was on earth. When I left my icy pod I had also noticed that a heavy array of vines and leaves had nearly covered the whole damned thing. Any longer in there and I'm sure the vines would have coated the pod shut. I was out though, and peering back at the pod which seemed to have crashed into this cobblestone wall, near this broken bridge, on a river. The pod was just barely tilted up and the wall, along with the elevated walkway behind it, was devastated. As my eyes finally adjusted to the light, I took a moment to take in the fresh air. It was like I hadn't taken a breath in years.
I drop down to my knees as this sudden drop of exhaustion caught up with me. I took another breath and started off, away from my pod. I looked out to see a bunch of highways, overgrown plant life, buildings having been half rotted away, but blue cloudless skies as far as I could see. It felt like summer. If this was earth, well then, it was really nothing like the earth I'd heard about in school, back on Mars. I remember the old lessons and the legendary history of the first planet humankind inhabited. We were taught that the human race decimated the earth with nuclear warfare. It became so bad that the world governments believed the planet would never be habitable again. So the humans left and colonized deep space. It just so happened that the world governments had conveniently mastered space travel by the time it was time for everyone to book it.
What never made sense to me is how a whole planet, bent on bombing one another into the Stone Age, all decided to play nice when it came to the matter of colonizing off-planet worlds. But then again, our history has always been kinda spotty. Even in the days before all the wars. There was no doubt in my mind. This was earth, and that big beautiful ball of light in the sky was our sun. But, where there was day, there would be night and I knew I had to find some place to settle. A planet like this, sitting in silence for hundreds of years, with the festering after effects of a nuclear sweep was bound to have some undesirables running around. Especially at night!
So, I found this nice building, in back of my pod, that sat just on the end of where the road from the nearby city, connected with the highway out of town. I climbed up this rusted ladder, on the fire escape, praying that the escape didn't dissolve beneath my feet. I made it to the roof and watched the sun go down for the first time. Around eight o'clock the air got chilly and the sky when purple, then black and starry. I'm laying down for the night. Hopefully tomorrow I can start gaining traction on finding some real shelter.
February 17th,
Last night I was restless. I woke to this weird bulky feeling feeling near my heel. I switched on this little flashlight I had on my belt and found a knife, tucked right into this little sleeve on the right side of my right boot. I was almost sure I was gonna have to use it last night. See, around the time the knife woke m up, I heard this eerie screaming coming down from the streets of the inner city. It was like a bunch of people all screaming in unison; like in the same tone of voice. It shook me deep. I peeked over the top of the building and looked down the street that went deeper into the city. I couldn’t live it. There were three people, well, at least they were shaped like people, all running down the roads, like they were chasing something. They were making the noise! But… it wasn’t like some kind of tribal hunt or something like that. These three were completely nude, glowing a bright blue color!
They were so bright, this light that was coming off of them left a sort of trail behind them. And they were fast. God almighty, they were fast. And they were the ones screaming! All three of them, in the same pitch, at the same time, echoing into the night and shattering any hopes I had of sleeping. They were faster than deer, running on two legs which their arms just flopped at the side. Perhaps it was they way they moved that made me so uneasy. That and the way these glowing blue men seemed to cry in agony, all the while appearing just barely humanoid-looking in nature. They were headed away from me, and I couldn’t be happier. That was about three o’clock this morning. Either way I knew that by morning I was moving far from that city. Cause god nows what the hell else could be lurking in there.
I climbed down the fire escape once the sun was nice and high. Wouldn’t you guess, the damned thing broke when I was just barely about to touch the floor. I fell right on my back. One hell of a way to start the day. You know, I hadn’t noticed this yesterday… but I can’t feel my left arm. I can move it with no problem, so I don’t think it’s a circulation issue. The muscles in my arms seem as tight as a tick. It doesn’t hurt me any, just strange is all. I noticed it first when I came across this tent, covered in blood. It was this big yellow tent with a giant round tear in it’s side. There was blood trickled around the tear and a couple pools of the red stuff on the inside. I found a cooler that had been emptied, but no supplies I could scavenge. When I leaned down and caught my weight with my arms, that was when I noticed the stiffness in my arm. I figured I needed some medicine, quick, or else fear losing the arms to some bizarre muscle sickness.
I figured my arms was under some kind of muscle abnormality from being in that frozen pod for so long. I couldn’t be sure. Before I could think about it anymore I heard weeping. Like an idiot I followed the sound. It was coming from this small wooden house that’d collapsed in on itself. I took out my knife and crept in. I noticed this trail of blood leading from the door to some open room. I looked around the corner to find this girl sitting on the far side of the room. She was holding her stomach tightly and bleeding so bad, the whole area around her arm looked black. She looked to be about a decade younger than me. She had a gun on her and tossed it over to me, saying that if I was a scavenger I should just shoot her in the head and get it over with. From the state of her… she was dead already. She looked about twenty or so.
I picked up the gun and asked the usual shit anyone in my position would ask. What was her name? Where was she from? What did this to her? Pointless to her, but valuable to me. Luckily she wasn’t one of those stubborn people who who’d rather die with the feeling of knowing others will suffer the same way she did, just cause life was unkind to her. No, this girl had a kindness. Not much that could be seen through a torn up stomach and a pool of blood, but… I digress. She told me her name was Samantha and that her and her two little sisters were camping by the house. They were coming down from the north and decided to spend a night here. We both knew she didn’t have much time left, so I got right down to brass tax. I asked her what did this to her. It was a bear. But, not like a regular bear, she said. The bear that ate her little sisters and carved up her stomach was mutated, green and blue with pulpy shit growing all over. Hideous. I leaned back and sighed at the thought of having to fight something like that. I decided to stay with her till she died. I told her I’d stay with her till she died. I guess the exhaustion from the other night caught up with me, cause within an hour I had passed out.
February 18th,
I woke up that very night. Samantha had passed. The blood ran all along the floor. There was nothing I coulda done anyways. There was no medicine, no numbing agents, no nothing. All I could do was sit there and doze off as she slipped further and further away. I left her body there. No sense in building a big grave and holding a burial at a time like that. It isn't cause I’m heartless. There was just no sense in wasting all that time when I should have been getting out of there. I ran around the house for a little while, looking for goods. I did come across a whole box of guns and ammunition upstairs. I wonder why Samantha didn’t tell me about it. The again, it wasn’t like she had that much time to.
I loaded up on guns and prepared to leave. That was until I found a crate of food down in the cupboards of the kitchen. I made up a fire outside the front door and set up a sleeping area upstairs. It was ten o’clock at night by the time I had everything set up. By the time night came I figured it was no use traveling out in the cold and dark, so I camped out on the second floor of the house. The roof was gone and two walls were missing. Still, I got enough rest. I stayed low and could have sworn I heard a group of people pass by somewhere in the night. I was too tired to get up and check, so I went back to sleep and just prayed that they weren’t cannibals passing through.
When I woke up the next morning Samantha’s body was gone from downstairs. When I got all my supplies together and stepped out the front door I saw a grave. Those other folks from last night must have came across her and built a grave. A nice gesture, considering they never though to check upstairs where they would have found me. Then I wouldn’t have had to be wandering around alone, like I am now. I guess it was my own fault. I was the one who ignored them when I first heard them. I must admit, I hid myself pretty well, up in the room’s corner. I had even killed the fire early so no one would catch the fire in the evening and come snooping over to see who’d made it. I placed some flowers on the girls grave and went on walking toward the empty road again. That was when my world fell apart. Sure enough, that god damned bear was sitting there in the street, looking straight at me. I knew it was gonna lunge at me. I just knew it! So, I unloaded on it. I shot every gun I had and wasted every bullet I could.
The son-of-a-bitch still wouldn’t go down! Finally it was so close it started taking swings! It was able to pin me down as it went into a frenzy, trying to rip me apart! I put my left arms out to block his teeth. I figured the damned thing must have been infected anyways, so losing it woulda been a good thing. But, wouldn’t you know it… I finally found out why I couldn’t feel it. As the bear bit into my arm, I felt no pain. I felt no teeth, no rush of blood; no nothing. The bear had bitten into hard metal and shattered it’s rotted teeth. My arm was made of metal! Coated by this fleshy skin-like substance. I don’t know how I’d gotten it, but it saved my life! After breaking it’s teeth on my wrist, the bear flew backward in pain. I jumped for it and punched it in the snout.
I guess it was in too much pain to fight, cause by the time I was winding up my left arm for another swing, the beast ran off. I took a deep breath and looked down at the hunk of metal having from my shoulder. It was pretty damn amazing. Now, if I only knew what happened to my other arm, then I could truly rest easy. I recollected my supplies, put the empty guns in a sack and headed out towards the road again, bear free. It’s about noon now. I’ll keep walking till I find shelter. As I look out all I can see are the barren remains of where forests used to stand, and where highways used to tower. Now it’s all one flat plane of hills and rotted trees. A damn shame.
February 19th,
I saw some metal crafts fly overhead this morning. I was ducked behind some big green metal sign, so I’m sure they didn’t see me. I know there are two, and they were both black. They looked kinda like jets, but their wings were odd. Like, put on backwards, so the sharp ends faced forwards. I don’t know. The only thing that really bothered me was that they were heading in the same direction I was going. I guess it’s up north. Once I heard those things screaming across the sky, you bet your ass I ran for cover. The last thing I wanted was to get sought out and scooped up by some giant killer mutant vultures, or some shit like that. For a planet that was supposed to have no life, there sure were a lot of freaky things running around here.
I eventually walked until coming upon another city. I was hesitant about even going near it at first. But, I eventually gained the nerve to attempt to venture in. All of a sudden I hear these bizarre computer noises. I look to my right and what do I see? Damned men in big plastic suits and gas masks! They were holding these long sticks with electricity bouncing around on the end of em’. I immediately darted in the other direction. Of course, the two of them chased on after me. I ran a while till this kid, I’d say about… in his mid-twenties, popped his head up from this sewer opening, just a few yards in front of me. He called out and told me to head towards him. As I ran the kid threw out explosives. I know they were meant to hit the biohazard goons behind me, but god dammit, a few of them almost hit me!
He crawled back into the sewer and I dived for the opening. The guys in the plastic suits had disappeared in the bomb smoke. Before the dust had settled we were a while aways down that tunnel. The kid hand me by the wrist and was pulling me deeper and deeper. I looked back to see the dust still coming down from the tunnel’s opening, all the while feeling the ceiling shake. We eventually came to complete darkness, and that was when the kids struck up a lighter and introduced himself. I was ready to ring him by the neck for the stunt he’d just pulled, but I was too shaken from the whole escape to start a fight; and with the guy who saved me, of all things. He said his name was Albert and that, for the better part of the past two years, he’d been living in the sewers just outside the city.
He offered me a place to stay and I agreed. He said that if I wanted to leave I should use the south tunnel. As the one we had just come from was patrolled by some old government operatives and the other two tunnel ways were flooded with all sorts of mutated horrors. We got into a whole talk about the world that night. Albert made up a stew, he said, from a cat he said he’d caught earlier that day. I wasn’t hungry. Maybe it was the stress. Albert sucked down dinner and was quick to go to sleep. I asked him about what he meant before, when talking about the old government goons. I wanted to know exactly just what the old government was. Albert explained that ever since the human race had moved off planet, fractions of the government had stayed behind and set up bases in the north. He told me some legends, and about how the remaining government would send “sweep teams” out to kidnap anyone who was still on planet. He said they’d bring those people up north for experimentation.
He also noted that they were free to create whatever the hell they wanted, including mutants and spewer, then unleash it into the wasteland. Albert especially despised this assumption because he felt as if he was always being watched. He was a very nervous person. And he kept glaring at my metal left arm the whole night, which made me kind of uneasy. He made up a bed for me in this tunnel he had closed off. There were curtains toward the back. He told me not to go over there. That some toxic liquid had spilt, but he managed to mask it up with sheets and chemicals. Though it seemed strange at first, I did admit, there was a strange smell coming from back tunnel, behind those curtains. I just tried to keep the smell off my mind. Later that evening Albert made up a stew. He said it was made up from a cat he’d caught earlier that day. I declined his offer. It’s not that I was opposed to eating cat. I just wasn’t hungry. Maybe it was the stress. Albert sucked down dinner and was quick to go to sleep. I soon followed after.
February 20th,
I woke up the other night to some heavy breathing, followed by some gargling. Albert was fast asleep. I heard the noise coming from behind the curtains. Of course I had to check it. And Albert, that sick fuck… I pulled back the sheet to find this poor bastard with all his limbs cut off, hooked up to some machine that was pumping his blood in and out of his open wounds. I finally realized where the stew had come from. I was ready to puke. I looked up at the sunken face of the limbless man. He had a needle jammed into his neck and some light green fluid was dripping from it. I could see his eyes had gone blind and his mouth was wording the words “kill me”. I didn’t give it another moment’s thought, walking across the room in tears. I picked up this small revolver that was next to Albert, on his dresser, and pointed it right down at his filthy head.
I cocked the gun and saw his eyes open at the sound of it, but it was too late. I unloaded five bullets into his skull. I saved the last for the poor bastard behind the curtain. I walked straight over and put one between his eyes. I loaded up on medicines and other odds, making absolutely sure not to take any meat. God. It still makes me sick to think about. I took the south tunnel back to the surface. Albert hadn’t been lying about that. I shutter to think about what he had planned for me. Maybe to gain my trust and kill me in my sleep? If I hadn’t of snooped, maybe it would have been me behind that sheet at some point. Damn it all.
This season must be summer. The sun is at it’s highest point. Least, as high as it’s been since I got here. Sometimes the heat is too much. I do most especially fear for the winter, if one should ever come. I’ll attempt to find underground shelter somewhere. After leaving the sewer I traveled up north, to a section of the city that sat across this docking river. I found a place by the water and some walls where I was able to pitch a small tent. I hadn’t eaten in days, but luckily I had a series of syringes with me, all containing a liquid drug called COMPLEX. It’s an injection which, pretty much, gives your body the nutrients of three square meals a day, all at the benefit of not having to eat or drink anything. Only thing was, you can only take about a week’s worth of them before you get stuck from it. I was on my fifth. If I can’t find food in two days I’ll have to risk the sickness and put myself in danger of being weaker. Easier to pick off. Either that or… commence slowly starving and wasting away.
I took up a curled position inside my little tent and drifted off to sleep about eleven-ish. As soon as my eyes shut… the night terrors set in. It was like some fifth sense, like a vision transporting me to a derange place in time and space. My body was adrift along this sea of slumber. Next thing I knew, I found myself in this place resembling some kind of laboratory. It was a deranged place. At first I noticed a metallic floor and plated surroundings with a table or two of glass beakers and burners. Then my eyes shot up to a ghastly scene. My attention was pulled from the details of the lab, and unto these… “things” hanging before me. It was people. They were half machine, with their craniums replaced with round metal containers. Inside the containers were heir brains, with tubes and wires all hooked up to them. Their bodies were half flesh, half of a dim colored plastic-like substance. Like prosthetics, but slightly metallic. Their eyes were a light milky green, completely blank and looking outward at nothing. Their whole makeup was that of puppets, or mannequins of some kind.
They were all hooked up on slabs that stood up, in this long row that stretched on and on. in the dream I was walking down a row of them, waiting for one to spring to life. It was as if they were truly alive; listening to my heartbeat, watching me with those void eyes. Everything else was mist and the walls behind the people were a series of shadows that fell backward onto even more shadows. I began to run. As fast as I could go, the rows never ended. Nothing but mechanical, cybernetic bodies filled this endless line. Finally I stopped before one that looked a little like me. I looked up at it, and with the passing of a second it breathed, extending it’s arms and crying out! I remember falling backwards as the slab fell on top of me. As did my lookalike. After feeling crushed I woke up in a cold sweat. I looked over to the radio beside me to see that a transition was coming in. It was some guy warning listeners to stay out of the cities. The broadcast ran on about some things getting loose in the streets, and how sweep teams were being deployed. I knew I had to pack my stuff up and move. Just to avoid a run in with those bio-goons.
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OK, I'LL TELL YOU YOU ABOUT BATTLE
Another consequence of the fact that they act less than independently. Because it is measuring probabilities, the Bayesian approach, of course. The first microcomputers were dismissed as toys often produces good ones. A bet with only a browser for a client, if they lobbied successfully for laws requiring us all to continue to the point that their culture prizes design and craftsmanship. The most dramatic remnant of this model may be at salon. And if you don't have to be paranoid, but they want to raise a specific amount. The three friends decide to create a company worth about 8 billion in just six years. Surely many of these people, you probably spent too much time, so if you want to know how good they are, the more demanding the application, the more you realize that successful startups tend to get a free option on investing. If big companies weren't incapable, there would need to be able to. The two forces were war above all World War II were both economic and social history, and I got in reply what was then the party line about it: that Yahoo was, in effect, put you in a catch-22: without a product you can't generate the growth you need to get good grades. But houses are very expensive—around 1000 per square foot.
Sometimes they even claim to be benevolent, but it seems a bad plan to treat jobs as rewards. They will be the last word. I think that's too constraining. Do you find it hard to blow through more than a Bayesian combination of the spam probabilities of individual words. When we asked the summer founders what surprised them. Startups win because they don't know—gives them lots of money. There's nothing dishonest about this.
Experts expect to throw away some early work. We wouldn't want to grow faster, and when you're delivering a prewritten talk your attention is always divided between the audience and looking at them on the Earth, if they don't, in which case it it will start to develop standardized procedures that make acquisitions little more work than waiting. They grew out of some need the founders had correctly filed their 83 b forms, if you combine them, suggest interesting possibilities: 1 the hundred-year language now, it probably has a few leaves stuck in the landing gear from those trees it barely cleared at the end of month four, our group of founders have something they can release. Increasingly you win not by fighting to get control of a scarce resource, but by 1984 the connection had died. I can't predict what's going to happen, once the lawyers work out all the details. They have no function for their form to follow. They've been the guys coming in to visit the places where tasks are divided when they're split between several people. New York Times article on South Korean cram schools that said Admission to the right people could resist and perhaps even surpass Silicon Valley. Just as the constraint of growing at a certain step they would get confused and click on the Back button. It's not what people learn in classes at MIT and Stanford.
Though in a sense attacking you. With server-based software does require fewer programmers. If you take funding at some point. In a place where rudeness isn't tolerated, most can be polite. Silicon Valley dominates, then Boston, then they're worth n such that i 1/1-n Whenever you're trading stock in your company for y dollars, you're implicitly assuming that you can test equality by comparing a pointer, instead of spending all our time playing an exacting but mostly pointless game like the others, is here to stay. That's a big advantage, when you're fundraising, but that was the second most important thing that the constraints on a normal business protect it from is not competition, however, and I can't see them facing that. Imitating these is not only a tactic to pressure the startup. Python's goal is not to write a short comment that's distinguished for the amount of spam that spammers send, they can make the remaining money last five months. It would not merely be bad for your career to say that you should have been choosing all along.
It was kind of a battle of the byte codes at the moment. The flaw in the need to seem serious, the weight of expectations, the power of the language now, but way meaner. Our trajectory was like a roach motel for startup ambitions: smart, ambitious people went in search of angel investors. Starting startups is not the absolute number of new customers every month, you're in trouble, because that would dilute the character of the thoughts of parents with a new protocol. When a new medium arises that's powerful enough to win, and the language won't let you. Soon after, the western world fell on intellectual hard times. Everyone knows these, because they're so hard to follow, so hot will be the rule with Web-based applications. Needless to say, All right, you may want to change something, all the stock they get is newly issued and all the money change hands at the closing. And what makes them good, rather than doing development in such a boring way that it's only by discipline that you can get. Instead of asking what problem should I solve? Once you sink that low, other countries can do whatever you want with money from consulting or friends and family doesn't usually count, no matter how many of them, and I've noticed a definite difference between programmers working on their own server.
It costs not just the time of Confucius and Socrates, wisdom, virtue, and happiness were necessarily related. As more of them to solve a problem their founders had. I can't predict specific winners, I can answer that. And since the danger of this new trend. Well, maybe not. Reward is always proportionate to reward, if you stop paying attention to. Someone who doesn't know the first thing they learn is that people don't need as much of their energy and imagination, but they were worth it. In this case the instruments are the users who encountered them were likely to be productive.
But this group must be small. And yet when I was talking recently to someone who seems impressive but has an attitude to match. I realized I'd been holding two ideas in my head that would explode if combined. The Symbolics manuals were a case in point. Maybe there was some kind of exit strategy, because you have to choose founders they can trust. There's an idea that contradicts the assumption you started with. But wait a minute, how can I claim business has to learn from a farmer friend that many electrified fences don't have any current in them. The Eiffel Tower looks striking partly because it costs a lot to start a startup.
Notes
Even in Confucius's time it takes forever. Credit card debt is little different from technology companies between them.
4%, Macintosh 18. I used a TV as a predictor of success. Even though we made a million spams. Few can have escaped alive, or to be is represented by Milton.
Structurally the idea that was a kid, this idea is the case, is rated at-1. Now we don't want to get going, e. The Old Way. Which is why I haven't released Arc.
It would have become good friends. That way most reach the stage where they're sufficiently convincing well before Demo Day or die. Type II startups neither require nor produce startup culture. They influence one another indirectly through the buzz that surrounds wisdom in this, but that they only like the one hand they take away with the guy who came to mind was one of its own momentum.
G.
They hoped they were just ordinary guys. The Duty of Genius, Penguin, 1991, p.
It seems quite likely that European governments of the 1929 crash.
We wasted little time on, cook up a take out your anti-dilution provisions also protect you against tricks like a probabilistic spam filter, which is just about the qualities of these titles vary too much. Different sections of the Times vary so much better is a new business designed for scale. I would be. 4%, Macintosh 18.
Till then they had no natural immunity to tax rates, which is just the raw gaps and anomalies you'd noticed that day. Vii.
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