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cwmoonglum · 3 years

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War Games

It's hard to remember how people felt in the weeks between September 11th and the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom. The psychic damage of the terrorist attack was perhaps the first truly global event I remember in detail. Previously, the only thing I can recollect dominating television screens in the same way was the death of Princess Diana.

The thing is, back then I was twelve years old and, like most people around me, I rather liked America. It was where most cultural production came from, so in a childish – if accurate – way I thought of it as the capital of the world. And New York was the capital of America, at least the pop cultural America that gave me the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman, Men in Black and the like. Anyone who wanted to attack America had to be someone like Shredder, the Joker or that gross skin-stealing cockroach alien who guzzles sugar water.

The weeks after September 11th were the first time people around me paid any attention to the theatre of politics. It's the moment I can first recollect where reality began melting down and people behaved like they were playing an Alternate Reality Game. Al Qaeda were Shredder, with a worldwide network of Foot Clan ninjas waiting to destroy civilisation. Later, as attempts to track down the masterminds of the terrorism stalled, kids would play 'find Bin Laden,' which was just Hide and Seek with a beating for anyone that got caught. Unlike the hazy, barely comprehensible Balkan conflict, Afghanistan had a simply story.

It's worth noting that Enduring Freedom, a name that reads as a bitter joke in itself, was not the original name for the operation. Rather, it was to be called Operation Infinite Justice. Very comic book. And just the wrong side of the 'World Police' criticism that would dog America very soon. It was changed to prevent offending Muslims, who regard infinity as the realm of God. This did not prevent the president from referring to the operation as a 'crusade.'

Such subtleties went overlooked by my twelve year old self and my friends. Rather, we heard the beat of the war drums and the demands for blood and nodded sagely. Yes, we said, America will take her revenge. There was noone more invested in this than my friend Raphael, who in the days leading up to the invasion used all his print credits in the school library to print out maps of Afghanistan. Come lunch time, he walked around the playground handing them out, and encouraged everyone to draw up their own invasion plan. I wonder now how much television he was watching, as he had a not unimpressive knowledge of the culture and regions of a country he had never even heard of two months ago.

Perhaps Raphael was a Company plant, and the US invasion force was using the typewriter/monkey approach to war planning. He did collect the completed maps, after all. So maybe the uninformed speculation of schoolboys in the North of Ireland trickled up to the Pentagon. Or maybe not. Certainly, few of Raphael's more elaborate ideas for the American military saw the light of day. These included riot shields made of tank armour and quasi-light sabres. White phosphorous munitions were used in 2009, and probably more often than we know about. Raphael was just excited by the idea after learning about magnesium in chemistry class.

Sometime between the commencement of the war in Afghanistan and that in Iraq, something changed. A lot of us decided that we didn't like America. The President, George W. Bush, was kind of an idiot. He was a fun cartoon foil for a villain like Shredder, but as we watched things explode on the nightly news, it became clear that an idiot shouldn't have access to all those munitions. The mask slipped, and while it took many of us – myself included – a long time to develop a political theory after politics was murdered in 1991, we knew enough to hate America. We were children of the End of History, but History had just shoved its hand through the fresh gravedirt and clambered out.

When the Iraq War was spooling up, the very same kids who had a few years ago been drawing up invasion maps with Raphael were openly deriding American attempts to project power. Cultural products were still American. More so than ever, in fact. When I think of the mid 00s, I wonder at just how dominate the US was before the internet allowed other perspectives to creep in. Consequently, when I think about opposition to the Iraq War, I think about a song by Le Tigre, which includes clips of the rallies against imperial violence worldwide. The antiwar movement was colossal. It even managed to spark a protest at my school/Deep State war planning facility. When the bell rang to signal the end of lunch, hundreds of kids refused to enter their classrooms and milled about aimlessly, showing each other their polyphonic ringtones and gossiping. A vanguard of older kids tried to start chants, but the absurdity of it meant they dwindled away pretty quickly. Glad as we were to take part in the action, few of us thought that news of our disobedience was going to be passed up from the teachers to the Education Authority, and from there to the government, US diplomats and eventually George W. Bush himself. It was nice to see Raphael trying to lead the chants though.

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missrkl · 3 years

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The Temple

Chapter Two

Rachel felt plagued by this girls life. Joanna was her name. She was just new to the temple, only been here a few months, but already she was up there on the platform getting married. Those getting married, even if they were from The Voiceless, had a major transition within the community. Their status within the community changed. They turned into somebody, became voiceful. More friends, more family, more ministry. Joanna was younger than her as well. Rachel felt herself being plagued with these questions, wasn’t she beautiful enough? Didn’t she hold enough weight of her own? Did she lack value? Wasn’t she precious? Rachel sighed as she watched the whole community celebrate Joanna’s wedding. The only thing Rachel was grateful for was that she didn’t marry Kai. She wouldn’t know what to do if Kai got married. She’d probably shut herself off from everyone even more than she was already shut out. Kai was her kryptonite, Kai was her weakness. Kai was the only one who ever stole her heart from Adon, or at least who had the biggest potential to do so. Rachel could never turn her back on her Yah, on Adon, the most respected creator Deity of their community. He had created her after all, how could she? Hadn’t he breathed her and moulded her into being?

Rachel stood up and took a chance to leave as the entire community stood on its feet to clap the bride and the groom. This was Rachel’s specialty, disappearing in the crowd, unknown, unseen, and never heard from until she wanted to be heard from. Like a ninja, or a spy. Rachel inhaled the fresh air as she stood outside of the community walls, the wind blowing her hair. Rachel had bigger things to deal with than Joanna’s wedding. Rachel had to meet Ecclesiastes now. He was raising an army to fight the status quo, to break the equilibrium. Rachel ran to Diana’s Playground, the Princess of The Royal Family of the land, the playground was a park open to all, that’s where Ecclesiastes was building up his army of warrior fighters. Rachel entered Diana’s Playground and went to the most hidden part somewhere and there stood Ecclesiastes and the rest of the gang. This is where she belonged. Where they rebels? Rachel wouldn’t say they were, Rachel would say that they were the group created by Adon to fight the hypocrisy within the community. Adon hated injustice and Adon was a sovereign deity, which means that he knew about them and if he knew about them and they were about to destroy a

Community of his making then he would have put a stop to them a long time ago, so the fact that He didn’t meant Adon was for them, so who could be against them?

Ecclesiastes was speaking as soon as Rachel joined the group. This is what he was saying ““Call me “the Quester.” I’ve been king over Israel in Jerusalem. I looked most carefully into everything, searched out all that is done on this earth. And let me tell you, there’s not much to write home about. God hasn’t made it easy for us. I’ve seen it all and it’s nothing but smoke—smoke, and spitting into the wind. Life’s a corkscrew that can’t be straightened, A minus that won’t add up. I said to myself, “I know more and I’m wiser than anyone before me in Jerusalem. I’ve stockpiled wisdom and knowledge.” What I’ve finally concluded is that so-called wisdom and knowledge are mindless and witless—nothing but spitting into the wind. Much learning earns you much trouble. The more”

‭‭(Ecclesiastes‬ ‭1:12-18‬ ‭MSG‬‬)

Rachel knew what he meant. All that learning, all that education that The Elites had become so proud of was nothing more than chasing of the wind, Hevel, meaningless. Education didn’t make one Elitist more than it didn’t make an un-educated person better than The Elitist. Ecclesiastes was speaking again as Rachel strained to hear his voice as the wind rustled the trees quite frantically, ““I said to myself, “Let’s go for it—experiment with pleasure, have a good time!” But there was nothing to it, nothing but smoke. What do I think of the fun-filled life? Insane! Inane! My verdict on the pursuit of happiness? Who needs it? With the help of a bottle of wine and all the wisdom I could muster, I tried my level best to penetrate the absurdity of life. I wanted to get a handle on anything useful we mortals might do during the years we spend on this earth. Oh, I did great things: built houses, planted vineyards, designed gardens and parks and planted a variety of fruit trees in them, made pools of water to irrigate the groves of trees. I bought slaves, male and female, who had children, giving me even more slaves; then I acquired large herds and flocks, larger than any before me in Jerusalem. I piled up silver and gold, loot from kings and kingdoms. I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song, and—most exquisite of all pleasures— voluptuous maidens for my bed. Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day’s work! Then I took a good look at everything I’d done, looked at all the sweat and hard work. But when I looked, I saw nothing but smoke. Smoke and spitting into the wind. There was nothing to any of it. Nothing. And then I took a hard look at what’s smart and what’s stupid. What’s left to do after you’ve been king? That’s a hard act to follow. You just do what you can, and that’s it. But I did see that it’s better to be smart than stupid, just as light is better than darkness. Even so, though the smart ones see where they’re going and the stupid ones grope in the dark, they’re all the same in the end. One fate for all—and that’s it. When I realized that my fate’s the same as the fool’s, I had to ask myself, “So why bother being wise?” It’s all smoke, nothing but smoke. The smart and the stupid both disappear out of sight. In a day or two they’re both forgotten. Yes, both the smart and the stupid die, and that’s it. I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It’s smoke—and spitting into the wind.”

‭‭(Ecclesiastes‬ ‭2:1-17‬ ‭MSG‬‬)

Ecclesiastes meant that all that hard work and buying things to boost up your ego and status within this community was nothing but smoke, like chasing the wind. Rachel couldn’t agree more. Look at all those Elitists, always standing on the platform, getting everything they could ever want, it was all Hevel, meaningless, it was nothing but chasing the wind. Did being The Voiceless meant that their life was worth a whole lot less because they couldn’t get all that they could get? No! It was all Hevel, meaningless. All of them would die, every single one of them, and what then? Did their marriages hold up to much? Did their status within the community give them much leverage in Elysium and neither did it get them any right standing or leverage with Adon, their Yah.

Ecclesiastes continued ““I took another good look at what’s going on: The very place of judgment—corrupt! The place of righteousness—corrupt! I said to myself, “God will judge righteous and wicked.” There’s a right time for every thing, every deed—and there’s no getting around it. I said to myself regarding the human race, “God’s testing the lot of us, showing us up as nothing but animals.””

‭‭(Ecclesiastes‬ ‭3:16-18‬ ‭MSG‬‬)

Ecclesiastes was saying that there was corruption everywhere, no where is perfect, most especially within the community of the well beloved such as The Elitists, The Dazzlers, The Argumentalists. Corruption, Rachel knew of the corruption going on behind closed doors, she had been silent a long time, biding her time with Adon training her hands for war, using Ecclesiastes as the tool. Soon, there would be no hiding place for the most corrupt within these walls.

Ecclesiastes ended the meeting with these words ““Watch your step when you enter God’s house. Enter to learn. That’s far better than mindlessly offering a sacrifice, Doing more harm than good. Don’t shoot off your mouth, or speak before you think. Don’t be too quick to tell God what you think he wants to hear. God’s in charge, not you—the less you speak, the better.”

‭‭(Ecclesiastes‬ ‭5:1-2‬ ‭MSG‬‬)

Rachel understood perfectly and she couldn’t agree more. The Elitists and leaders thought they were the ones taking the shots, but in fact Adon was the one in charge. They feigned a pretension of worship, but in reality they were worshiping each other. Rachel couldn’t argue better herself. Why would Adon create a black race, even a tanned race if they were to be treated and labelled as The Voiceless? Seen as nothing more than a nuisance, a mistake even. Did Adon ever make mistakes? Never! He was their Yah! The Deity to which all of their worship should belong to. So how could they be treated as such? Ecclesiastes looked at her, he nodded. Rachel was his protege, his first warrior. She had become leader within this group. She now too had to address the crowd, she knew exactly what to say. Rachel stood up on the speakers corner podium and said ““This is why the fulfillment of God’s promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. God’s promise arrives as pure gift. That’s the only way everyone can be sure to get in on it, those who keep the religious traditions and those who have never heard of them. For Abraham is father of us all. He is not our racial father—that’s reading the story backward. He is our faith father. We call Abraham “father” not because he got God’s attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn’t that what we’ve always read in Scripture, God saying to Abraham, “I set you up as father of many peoples”? Abraham was first named “father” and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, “You’re going to have a big family, Abraham!” Abraham didn’t focus on his own impotence and say, “It’s hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child.” Nor did he survey Sarah’s decades of infertility and give up. He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That’s why it is said, “Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.” But it’s not just Abraham; it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us”

‭‭(Romans‬ ‭4:16-25‬ ‭MSG‬‬)

Rachel could feel the holy anger rising within her. The Elitists were chosen based on their good and moral behaviour in society, they were chosen because of their pretty looks and highly exceptional talent, even based on the sector they were born in, what crowd they belonged to known as cliques. Rachel knew Adon didn’t create this community to be like that. Everyone could be an Elitists and had every right to become and Elitist should they succeed. Their right standing with Adon was not based on their performance alone, but on The Promise and that promise was for all not just for the chosen few, especially not for those based on skin colour, hair colour, social skills, team mates, moral behaviour or favouritism within the leaders. Rachel stepped down from the platform and got a pat on the back from Ecclesiastes. There was a time and a season for everything, and right now the season was training their hands for war.

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reminiscent-bells · 6 years

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what I’ve been reading V

I frequently save news articles, essays, short stories, etc. to my phone to read when I have time to kill. Here are my favorites from 2017.

I use the Instapaper app to read these on my phone. Previous editions are here: one two three four

BIOGRAPHIES, INTERVIEWS, AND PEOPLE OF INTEREST

How One Las Vegas ED Saved Hundreds of Lives After the Worst Mass Shooting in U.S. History - This is heavy on the medical jargon but is still a fascinating read.

Keepers of the Secrets - “I was told that the most interesting man in the world works in the archives division of the New York Public Library, and so I went there, one morning this summer, to meet him.”

A High-End Mover Dishes on Truckstop Hierarchy, Rich People, and Moby Dick - The weird world of a high-end moving company.

The princess myth: Hilary Mantel on Diana - Mantel could never release another novel and just blog about the British royal family and I’d read it every single day.

The Iconoclast - A doctor doggedly pursues a new form of cancer treatment that yields incredible results.

The Brutality of the Barkley Marathons - I think I put something up about the Barkley Marathon every year, but it’s endlessly fascinating to me.

Patrick Stewart Will Look Great Forever - A light celebrity puff piece, sure, but Stewart’s charm comes through even here.

The Librarian of Congress and the Greatness of Humility - A great profile on Dr. Carla Hayden, the first female person of color to be Librarian of Congress.

Alex Haley Interviews Martin Luther King, Jr. - See title.

FOOD

What Would it Take for an American Guy to Become Danish? - I rarely read travel articles that make me want to go to the place depicted immediately, but this is an exception.

A Last Dinner in the Jungle - Eating in France’s largest refugee camp.

Why the “Hot New Food Town” Must Die - See title.

Slop Machines - If you’re getting pork off a Vegas buffet table, it probably ate the same stuff you’re eating.

Revenge of the Lunch Lady - A very different perspective on Jamie Oliver and American school lunches.

CRIME AND POLICING

The Curious Case of the Disappearing Nuts - Thieves stage elaborate heists to steal nuts. Yes, like the kind you eat.

HISTORY

Beneath the Yew Tree’s Shade - On the association between yew trees and death.

The Long Way Round - The unbelievable true story of a Pan Am flight that essentially had to circumnavigate the Earth after Pearl Harbor, this will end up as a movie someday.

Untitled blog post on Roman inheritance law - The sources on this are pretty thin, but the thesis - that all of Western civilization as we know it is predicated on Roman inheritance law - leads to some fascinating reading.

At War With the Rat Army - A family fleeing Nazi Germany wages war on a vicious rat population.

When Fairfield County Was the Comic-Strip Capital of the World - An intriguing look into the Sunday funnies.

SPORTS

A 15-Year-Old (Sorta-Maybe) Basketball Prodigy - What it’s like to be courted by Division I basketball programs before you can drive.

Colin Kaepernick is called a distraction, but from what? - Argues an excellent point about media coverage of Kaepernick.

Why President Trump ignites Gregg Popovich - I was not familiar with Popovich prior to this year - this is an interesting profile.

GAMES (VIDEO AND OTHERWISE)

The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons - Tabletop RPGs seem to have had a great year, as this piece discusses. (Now if only I could get my buddy to pull the trigger on his Curse of Strahd game...)

Exit the Dungeon Master: Tonys Rehearsal Is Calling - See above.

Game Maker Avery Alder on the Mechanics of Care - A palate cleanser after all the D&D talk above.

Your load is too heavy: Zork deep reading - Analyzing inventory management in a classic text adventure yields some interesting insights.

How to Make an Escape Room - See title.

Far Cry 5 Is About Living Under Fear in America - An extremely good piece by extremely good guy Austin Walker.

Dwarf Fortress creator Tarn Adams talks about simulating the most complex magic system ever - A great check-in with the strange, wonderful Dwarf Fortress behemoth.

Quadrliateral Cowboy Points to a Different Kind of Intimacy in Games - I came to Quadrilateral Cowboy for the programming/stealth puzzles, but I stuck around for the little snippets of your crew between jobs.

PLACES AND TRAVEL

A ‘tale of decay’: The Houses of Parliament are falling down - See title.

Building in the Shadow of Our Own Destruction - See title (n.b. I did not intentionally start this section with these two)

The death and life of the great British pub - I swear to God, this order isn’t intentional.

What Happened to Worcester? - A good profile on a good city.

TECHNOLOGY

Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Your Free Will - I’ve heard the premise of this article repeated multiple times, but this is the first time it actually clicked for me.

Something is wrong on the internet - I’ve proselytized for James Bridle here before, but this piece of his on children and YouTube that went viral (in my tech circle, at least) is required reading.

The Judge’s Code - On William Alsup, a federal judge who has become something of a celebrity for his handling of huge technology cases.

The Founder of Pinboard on Why Understanding Fandom is Good For Business - Another guy I’ve stumped for, Maciej Ceglowski, talks about his surprising success in working with fandoms on his bookmarking service Pinboard.

Where Pizza Rat, fake news, and art collide, there’s a wizard named Zardulu - “Art criminal” Zardulu seeks to break down the boundaries of reality. See also this excellent Reply All episode.

The Disappearing Computer - Legendary tech columnist Walter Mossberg’s final piece looks ahead to a strange new future.

Who is Anna-Senpai, the Mirai Worm Author? - A captivating piece on revealing the author of a malignant piece of software.

THE FINE ARTS

Do Androids Dream of Colossal Women? - On the preponderance of giant women in science fiction movies.

Ridley Scott breaks silence on replacing Kevin Spacey in All the Money in the World - See title.

Why Black Men Love Dragon Ball Z - See title.

The First Woman to Translate The Odyssey Into English - See title. I read The Odyssey this year in the Fagles translation, but I actually might go back and read Emily Wilson’s version looking at the excerpts here.

Outlawry, Supervillains, and Modern Law - An entertaining perspective on how supervillains might be handled by courts in the world of comics.

How the Palmer House’s Actual Homeowner Ended Up in Twin Peaks: The Return’s Final Scene - A fun peek inside the most unsettling scene on TV this year.

The Secret History of Dune - A hefty chunk of Frank Herbert’s inspiration is revealed.

I Grew Up in A John Hughes Movie - On the surprising accuracy of Hughes’ films.

The Persistence of Prog Rock - I’ll stump for The Alan Parsons Project until my dying day.

Margaret Atwood on What The Handmaid’s Tale Means in the Age of Trump - See title.

The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We’re All Going to Miss Almost Everything - On completionism, and why it’s impossible.

The Teenage Dreamland of Twin Peaks - Reflections on coming of age with Twin Peaks.

This Is Not an Interview with Poppy - See title?

Where It Was: Rereading Stephen King’s It on Its 30th Anniversary - See title.

The Jedi as samurai vs. the Jedi as ninja - Not exactly heavy intellectual material, but an interesting perspective on trying to make sense of Star Wars.

FICTION

The Woman of the House - Some housepainters find themselves in an unusual situation.

Under river, outside time: The Woolwich Foot Tunnel Anomaly - A crew of workmen discover some unusual qualities to a job site.

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