... on MSNBC. Catch it here. She says she and Alex have thought about becoming mothers, but both are ambivalent about the idea. (Given Ellen's list of donor candidates, maybe it's best that she stays childless.) She also talks about her voice role in "Finding Nemo", and the spontaneity of dancing. Go check it out.
2004-11-09
More on Hezbollah Drone (Mirsad-1)
The Iranian/Hezbollah "Mirsad-1" UAV that recently accomplished an incursion into Israeli airspace had a payload capacity of 40kg, according to this bulletin from Debka:
Ha'Aretz writes that
and adds:
Some analysts believe the drone is primarily a psychological tactic, and that the actual military value of the Mirsad-1 is limited. It may serve as a signal of Iran's determination to defend itself and its nuclear program against strikes by Israel or the US; Syria may also be using the incident to strengthen its negotiating position with regard to the Golan Heights.
In other news, Iran announced it has acquired the capability to mass-produce medium-range ballistic missiles. Iranian Defense Minister Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani told journalists in Tehran that the IRI is able to manufacture in bulk the Shahab-3 missile, whose range was recently upgraded to 1,250 miles.
RELATED:
Morning Report: April 12, 2005 (Hezbollah drone penetrates Israeli airspace.)
Hezbollah Drone Update
Eagle/Heron, and Another UAV
Hizballah unmanned aerial craft that penetrated Israel two days ago is capable of carrying 40 kilos - and therefore a bomb, according to Israeli chief of staff Gen. Yaalon’s report to Knesset committee Tuesday. Craft spent 7-12 minutes over northern town of Nahariya.
Ha'Aretz writes that
Apparently, the drone carried a camera capable of transmitting images while the plane is in motion. On Monday, Hezbollah's television channel, Al-Manar, aired footage of what it said was the drone it had sent into Israel.
and adds:
The drone was Iranian made. It was developed and built in Iranian plants in the 1990s. The aircraft is considered technologically very simple, with a pre-programmed route that is installed before launch. During the flight, a camera sends images back to a ground station, which was supposedly manned by Iranians, and the plane is apparently supposed to land by parachute.
The Iranians supplied several such planes to the Hezbollah, just as they supplied rockets. One of the Iranian conditions for the supply of the drones was that Hezbollah get clearance from Tehran before any launch.
The Hezbollah operatives were trained in the use of the plane by experts from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Some analysts believe the drone is primarily a psychological tactic, and that the actual military value of the Mirsad-1 is limited. It may serve as a signal of Iran's determination to defend itself and its nuclear program against strikes by Israel or the US; Syria may also be using the incident to strengthen its negotiating position with regard to the Golan Heights.
In other news, Iran announced it has acquired the capability to mass-produce medium-range ballistic missiles. Iranian Defense Minister Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani told journalists in Tehran that the IRI is able to manufacture in bulk the Shahab-3 missile, whose range was recently upgraded to 1,250 miles.
RELATED:
Morning Report: April 12, 2005 (Hezbollah drone penetrates Israeli airspace.)
Hezbollah Drone Update
Eagle/Heron, and Another UAV
2004-11-07
Posting will be light over the next few days ...
... while I get caught up on schoolwork. I've got to read Edgar Allan Poe for Tuesday, and master integration by parts for a Calculus exam next week.
So you will all just have to muddle through without me for a little while.
So you will all just have to muddle through without me for a little while.
LGF on Netherlands jihad: It's not about race.
Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs gets it exactly right when he says:
Read more at these entries:
Jihad in the Netherlands
"Murder Is Normal"
This is the almost universal, wrongheaded slant on the story in mainstream media: that the horrific murder of Theo Van Gogh had something to do with race, when in fact it was driven by a violent, supremacist religious ideology.
Read more at these entries:
Jihad in the Netherlands
"Murder Is Normal"
More on the Eagle/Heron Drone Deal - and Another UAV
The Times of India reports:
Also on the subject of drones, an Iranian-produced drone operated by Hezbollah made an incursion into Israeli airspace. According to Ha'Aretz:
The Jerusalem Post elaborates:
RELATED:
Morning Report: April 12, 2005 (Hezbollah drone penetrates Israeli airspace.)
Hezbollah Drone Update
Eagle/Heron, and Another UAV
Israel is likely to sign a deal to supply spy drones worth $230 million to India soon, officials said Sunday.
State-owned Israeli Aircraft Industries will also supply military surveillance hardware for the unmanned aircraft which will be jointly produced in India, defence ministry officials said.
"We are quite close to signing a deal," a highly-placed official said. They said the offer includes 50 Eagle-Heron Israeli drones which have a range of 1,000 kilometres (620 miles), can stay airborne for more than 24 hours and cruise at an altitude of 25,000 feet (7,575 metres).
India, which treated Israel like a pariah for decades, has forged close military links in recent years. It is acquiring two Phalcon Airborne Early Warning Systems worth a billion dollars and will jointly produce a long-range missile from the Jewish state.'
Also on the subject of drones, an Iranian-produced drone operated by Hezbollah made an incursion into Israeli airspace. According to Ha'Aretz:
Hezbollah announced Sunday that it had sent an unmanned reconnaissance drone on sorties over northern Israel earlier in the day, saying that the plane - known as the Mirsad-1 - flew as far as Nahariya before returning safely to its base in southern Lebanon.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed Sunday evening that a drone did indeed enter Israeli airspace, and flew over the northern city of Nahariya. The IDF said that the drone crashed into the sea when it returned to Lebanon. Reports from Lebanese fishermen of an object slamming into the sea apparently confirms the IDF's report.
"The new qualitative achievement comes as part of the natural response to Israel's violation of Lebanese air space," the militant organization said in a report on its television channel, Al-Manar.
The Jerusalem Post elaborates:
The penetration of an unmanned spy plane into northern Israel Sunday has gravely concerned the IDF command, which is bracing for a flare up on the northern border as the disengagement approaches.
The IDF confirmed Sunday night Hizbullah's claim that it had succeeded in sending a drone over the skies of the western Galilee.
It was the first time an enemy unmanned aerial vehicle had succeeded in entering Israel and represented a bold and provocative step by the Iranian-backed Shiite group.
Hizbullah said the UAV, dubbed "Mirsad 1" or Ambush, had reached all the way to the northern Israeli costal town of Nahariya at 10:30 a.m. and "returned safely to base," mimicking the old IDF statements usually put out after bombing raids in Lebanon.
But reports from Lebanon said the UAV crashed at sea on its return trip from it sojourn over the tiny corner of Israel. An IDF statement said Hizbullah was aided in the endeavor by Iran and Syria "with the aim of targeting Israeli civilians."
It was a propaganda coup for Hizbullah, showing it could succeed in doing what no Arab state has. Only Egypt among the Arab nations has a serious UAV program. Iraq had attempted to develop one but it was not a success.
The Iranians, however, have been developing UAVs for over a decade and it is one of theirs that is believed to have been used Sunday by Hizbullah. The Mirsad 1 is a small remote-controlled drone with one engine and a small camera.
RELATED:
Morning Report: April 12, 2005 (Hezbollah drone penetrates Israeli airspace.)
Hezbollah Drone Update
Eagle/Heron, and Another UAV
Morning Report: November 7, 2004
Allawi declares state of emergency. Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi declared a 60-day state of emergency across most of the country in the face of increased enemy attacks, with a US-led attack on Fallujah in the works.
French, Ivorian forces clash, sparking violence. According to the BBC report on Ivory Coast violence, 'Pro-government mobs in Ivory Coast have been making house-to-house searches to find and attack French citizens in the commercial capital, Abidjan. French peacekeepers there have moved 80 to 90 people to safer locations. As more reinforcements arrived, the troops were deployed around the city, trying to stem looting and burning. The troubles began after the French virtually wiped out the Ivorian air force, following the death of nine peacekeepers in a government raid. The mobs - supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo - went on the rampage after the French action.'
The Head Heeb explains: 'French peacekeepers in Cote d'Ivoire are reporting eight dead and 23 injured after one of their positions was bombed by Ivorian government aircraft. The French forces later retaliated against the Ivorian air force, with various reports saying they shot down three aircraft or destroyed them on the ground. It is unclear whether the government aircraft deliberately bombed the French base, but whether or not the attack was intentional, both the peacekeepers and their neutrality have become casualties of the collapsing peace.'
In light of the escalating crisis in Cote d'Ivoire / Ivory Coast, the United Nations Security Council has called a special meeting.
China, Iran, and oil. According to recent reports, China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said he saw "no reason" to refer Iran's nuclear program to the United Nations Security Council while on a visit to Iran. Meanwhile, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, visiting China, said that he would like to see China, rather than Japan, become Iran's largest crude oil consumer. China is the world's second largest consumer and importer of oil. Analysts believe that China's economy is in very serious trouble, in part due to rising energy costs.
French, Ivorian forces clash, sparking violence. According to the BBC report on Ivory Coast violence, 'Pro-government mobs in Ivory Coast have been making house-to-house searches to find and attack French citizens in the commercial capital, Abidjan. French peacekeepers there have moved 80 to 90 people to safer locations. As more reinforcements arrived, the troops were deployed around the city, trying to stem looting and burning. The troubles began after the French virtually wiped out the Ivorian air force, following the death of nine peacekeepers in a government raid. The mobs - supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo - went on the rampage after the French action.'
The Head Heeb explains: 'French peacekeepers in Cote d'Ivoire are reporting eight dead and 23 injured after one of their positions was bombed by Ivorian government aircraft. The French forces later retaliated against the Ivorian air force, with various reports saying they shot down three aircraft or destroyed them on the ground. It is unclear whether the government aircraft deliberately bombed the French base, but whether or not the attack was intentional, both the peacekeepers and their neutrality have become casualties of the collapsing peace.'
In light of the escalating crisis in Cote d'Ivoire / Ivory Coast, the United Nations Security Council has called a special meeting.
China, Iran, and oil. According to recent reports, China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said he saw "no reason" to refer Iran's nuclear program to the United Nations Security Council while on a visit to Iran. Meanwhile, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, visiting China, said that he would like to see China, rather than Japan, become Iran's largest crude oil consumer. China is the world's second largest consumer and importer of oil. Analysts believe that China's economy is in very serious trouble, in part due to rising energy costs.
2004-11-06
From my Father's World War II Memoirs
The day we landed on New Georgia at Lambeti Plantation, we were able for the first time to appreciate fully the devastating effectiveness of our artillery. All the land that had undergone the terrific artillery fire was all but denuded of live vegetation. Shattered remnants of coconut palms drooped pathetically, resembling gaunt weeping willows. The Air Force contributed to the destruction of this area. I could see this as I walked along the road from the Plantation to the Munda Airfield. All along the way were holes that could have been made only by 100 or 200-pound bombs. There was something curious about these bomb craters, something besides the fact that they were used as water points and swimming holes; it was grass and flowers which had sprung up in the inside. Most of the bomb craters looked like freshly made excavations with the sand, coral, etc. thrown outside around the edges. But some looked like natural depressions in the naturally uneven ground, so overgrown were they. Symbolic, it seemed, were zinnias - just common pink, garden zinnias one finds in the garden at home - growing from the depths of bomb craters. Yes, in a way they were symbolic of the good, the God-created, the enduring, and everlasting, which reappears untouched after the fury of man's wrath has spent itself.
Pacific Driftwood
The Dreams Into Lightning Universe Expands
I've recently updated several of the other web pages that you see on the sidebar (and one or two that you don't), with more to come.
My father's page, titled Urban Renewal and labelled here with his name (Ken McLintock), has a couple more of his poems posted. Also, I've just finished posting the complete text of "Pacific Driftwood" and "Jottings", Dad's literary memoir from World War II. (I spent most of the evening typing it in.) The original typescript consists of 23 pages of old air-mail letter paper and was among his personal effects at the time of his death. It contains writing by his fellow soldiers of the 136th Field Artillery Battalion, and his own impressions of the campaigns at New Georgia, Guadalcanal, Lingayen Gulf, and Cagayan.
My sister, Stephanie McLintock, also left behind some exquisite writing, which I am posting at the page labelled with her name. I've changed the blog title; it is now called Wilderness Vision. Stephanie was troubled but enormously talented and she left behind a large amount of poetry and fiction, so please visit her site as often as you like.
Updates on human rights and the war against fascism will be posted at Freedom Matrix. I will be posting on Judaism, America, and the meaning of freedom at The Light of Freedom. These blogs have lain dormant for several months but I plan to start developing them more fully in the weeks to come.
The Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Holocaust Files, and Asher Abrams Portfolio are all mine too, but I haven't been updating them lately. However, suggestions for The Iraqi Holocaust are always welcome. It's not the most enjoyable blog to work on, but I think it is one of the most important.
A mysterious individual named Shoshanna posts at The Ocean Names of Night. She seems to think she owns this blog. I refuse to be responsible for anything she says.
My father's page, titled Urban Renewal and labelled here with his name (Ken McLintock), has a couple more of his poems posted. Also, I've just finished posting the complete text of "Pacific Driftwood" and "Jottings", Dad's literary memoir from World War II. (I spent most of the evening typing it in.) The original typescript consists of 23 pages of old air-mail letter paper and was among his personal effects at the time of his death. It contains writing by his fellow soldiers of the 136th Field Artillery Battalion, and his own impressions of the campaigns at New Georgia, Guadalcanal, Lingayen Gulf, and Cagayan.
My sister, Stephanie McLintock, also left behind some exquisite writing, which I am posting at the page labelled with her name. I've changed the blog title; it is now called Wilderness Vision. Stephanie was troubled but enormously talented and she left behind a large amount of poetry and fiction, so please visit her site as often as you like.
Updates on human rights and the war against fascism will be posted at Freedom Matrix. I will be posting on Judaism, America, and the meaning of freedom at The Light of Freedom. These blogs have lain dormant for several months but I plan to start developing them more fully in the weeks to come.
The Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Holocaust Files, and Asher Abrams Portfolio are all mine too, but I haven't been updating them lately. However, suggestions for The Iraqi Holocaust are always welcome. It's not the most enjoyable blog to work on, but I think it is one of the most important.
A mysterious individual named Shoshanna posts at The Ocean Names of Night. She seems to think she owns this blog. I refuse to be responsible for anything she says.
Chicxulub?
Apparently the blogospheric counterpart of the K-T Event has propelled me up TTLB's evolutionary ladder into the world of "large mammals". I'm guessing it's just, once again, an artifact of random fluctuations in one of the blogrings, e.g. Blogs For Bush, that currently is causing links to Dreams Into Lightning to be displayed on so many homepages. Still, it's fun while it lasts.
2004-11-05
The Zero Ring
original fiction by Asher Abrams
No one understood why King Avishai of Dungard chose to relinquish everything then, his kingdom and his rule, or why he should have been ready to hand himself over to the care of his three daughters. Perhaps it was true, as he said, that the cares of rule weighed too heavily on him; perhaps also he had come to the realization that he had entrapped himself too deeply in the things of this world. And it was just possible, as a few murmured, that he was becoming uncomfortable with his reputation as a miser, as a man a little too fond of keeping things for himself.
Now he is floating over their heads, the suspensors on his throne set very high so that they must crane their necks to see him: this is how he is, Levana thinks, afraid to be seen touching the ground. And he's smiling that secret smile and he's got that twinkle in his eye, and he radiates that boyish innocence that never quite becomes childishness. On either side stand Hanna and Shira. In the middle, directly before him, stands Levana, the youngest, shifting her weight now and then, the toes of her left foot accommodating the comforting feel of the small, smooth secret in her left shoe.
"Love," he is saying, "is beyond any price. Love is a fair country with no borders, no boundaries. Love is what binds us together, and love is what has made this kingdom great."
Hanna and Shira are looking inscrutably at Levana. The afternoon light finds its way in through the cantilevered skylights of the great, round central hall of the Palace. Levana gazes at the ancient mosaics that circle the single unbroken wall, then looks up at Avishai, silhouetted against the graceful, shallow dome that rises above the skylights.
Rising before her, between her and Avishai, a colored projection of the map of Dungard appears, like a glowing stained-glass window. In the north is the Mountain Country, and the region called the New Land. In the middle, dividing the kingdom, are the cold and arid steppes, with their uninhabited regions of sand and stone. There also lies the maze of volcanic craters and canyons surrounding the Great Fissure, which dominates the central region of Dungard like a spider in her web. This is the land where so many soldiers fell, the land the old generals and sergeants-major still tell stories of in the halls of the palace. And to the south, stretching to the coast, is the Plains Country, the farmland, and the seat of the ancient capital, where the Palace still sits on a mountainside overlooking the city and the sea.
The map is divided vertically into three sections of different colors. Two, of roughly equal sizes, are labeled with her older sisters' names; the third, the central strip running from north to south and distinctly larger than the others, is left unmarked. The land of Gallia, vast and vague, looms off the eastern shore.
Confronted with this manifestation of their father's will, Shira and Hanna fidget and toy with the ceremonial tablets on which their shares of the kingdom are inscribed. Avishai's voice is soothing.
"Hanna found the favor of Lord Tir, and she will be the co-ruler of his province under the new order. Shira has acquired her share of Lord Roncor's province through her merits as well. You, Levana, have it much easier. You don't have to please anybody. Just stay here in Dungard, and the Central Province is yours alone. I have no quarrel with the King of Gallia, but you are needed here. You must give up the foreigner if you love me.
"You do love me, don't you, Leva?" His gaze is steady and solicitous. The throne lowers imperceptibly. She has only to say what he wants to hear, and her name will appear on the third region, and the tablet -- drawn up weeks before -- will be brought out and handed to her by gracious servants.
"It's Gallius I love," she says. "You can't keep me forever."
Gallius is not good looking or a particularly powerful king. In fact, he is unambitious and indifferent to geopolitical influence. His interest in Levana seems to be for herself alone. Sometimes Levana worries guiltily if it is not she, drawn by his holographic maps of the lush landscapes of his land, whose motives are impure. But in the long and empty weeks that fill her life, it is not the land she dreams of, but the man.
"Watch what you say, little girl."
And it is at this moment that she knows she cannot please him.
"Daddy, I'm not your little girl anymore."
There's a moment of explosive silence; then the map goes dark and the throne plummets to its resting place on the low carpeted dais. He peers into her eyes. His lower lip quivers, as thoughts seem to compete for his attention. His voice is low and breathy, like wind and far-off thunder.
"How dare you tell me that! Take that back at once."
But she is silent.
"Have you nothing to say?"
Still she is silent.
"Do you know what comes from nothing? Nothing -- and by the Merciful and Mysterious, that's what you'll get! Servants, annul those papers -- computer, redraw the map! And you -- go to your new home in Gallia and never let me see your face again. Pack tonight. I'll have Gallius send his men to meet you on the beach tomorrow."
Levana is too stunned to cry at first. Then she does.
Then, much later, she walks slowly to her room and takes off her shoes.
*
It is always there. Never out of reach, in her shoe, under a pillow, or in the airspace under one of the useless ceramic pieces that decorate her room. Sometimes she puts it in the pocket of her tunic, but usually that does not feel safe enough to her. But it is always there, and with it, a memory and a hope.
Now, at nineteen, her last memory of her mother is as fresh as it was on that day, when she was eleven years old. The room looked then much as it does now: walls of pink stone, floor of marble, covered with old rugs from her mother's family. An ornate chandelier in the ceiling sprinkles cool, harsh light from one floating light globe. Sitting on the soft, purple-covered bed, she can see her mother once again standing beside her.
Elnura is holding something small wrapped in purple velvet. She is tall and strong, like most of the women of the Mountain Tribe. Traditionally Mountain women are metalworkers, since prehistoric times of living and working in caves, while the menfolk hunted game and wild food. Years ago, Levana has been told, Elnura was a Seer, and a scholar of ancient lore. When Avishai is not around, which is seldom, Elnura spends time teaching Levana from her ancient books, with titles like The Way of Power and The Book of Creation.
"Do you know the legend of the Rings of Power?" she asks Levana.
"There were nine of them. They were all destroyed." She says the last word with feeling.
Avishai is watching from the door of the bedroom. "There were ten rings," Elnura is saying, "ten and not nine. They were numbered. The Nine Ring was the first to be destroyed, and the One Ring was the last."
"But you said there were ten."
"Before one, what do you count?" Levana does not answer and she continues: "This is the Zero Ring. It is called the Ring of Dreams, and it is the mother of the other nine. It shows you things in the world as they really are -- how things are conceived and born, how they develop, and how they end. It shows you the beginnings and the endings of things. And then it shows you the emptiness at the heart of Creation. It shows you the Void.
"This ring has been the secret of the women of the Mountain Tribe since ancient times. Only women have the power to channel its energy -- men are destroyed by it. Sometimes right away, sometimes slowly. Once a shepherd got hold of the Ring. He put it on. They found him the next day, going on all fours, eating grass and bleating back at the sheep. To wear this Ring is to look into the Void, and men are afraid of empty spaces."
Avishai grunts contemptuously. "Zero," he says. "Unnecessary number." He turns to go, still looking at the Ring out of the corner of his eye. It is because the Ring is forbidden to him that he finds it irresistible.
The Ring is a very simple, plain gold ring on the outside. Its surface is shiny and without scratches. It is like a curved mirror. The inside, the flat surface that fits against the finger, is inscribed with the thirty-two characters of the Classic Script. Each character appears exactly once, but their order changes from one moment to the next. Sometimes they form words; sometimes the words seem to fit together into ideas -- but, like the shapes you can see in the clouds, the meaning soon vanishes. Because you cannot see through the ring, you can never see all the characters at once. (Levana imagines that if she had a small, cone-shaped mirror, she might.)
"Thirty-two signs dance around the rim," Elnura says, "but it is the space in the middle that makes it useful."
"Will it ever run out of ways to arrange the letters?" Levana asks.
"It will take eight thousand trillion trillion years."
"Mama, did you ever wear this ring?"
It is the question Elnura has been waiting for. "Yes," she says, "in the old days, that is. Among my people. Before you -- before we became acquainted with the people of the Plains Tribe, and your Kingdom. I was known as a seer, one who knew how to use the ring, how to see dreams and look into the Void. I used the Ring often in those days." Here she pauses again. "I used it again last night."
"What did you see?"
Elnura stands up and does not answer at first. "Some things," she says finally. "I saw some things." She takes the ring back gently and puts it in her pocket. "I love you," she says to Levana, and leaves, telling the servants that she's taking a little walk.
The next day they learn that Elnura has traveled to the Great Fissure and thrown herself in.
The following night a servant whom Levana does not recognize, and will not see again, gives her a parcel wrapped in purple velvet. It is the Ring.
From then on, she keeps it in her shoe; she knows he will never look there. Sometimes she carries it in her pocket, rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger. Occasionally her fingertips will slip into the open space. When this happens she feels a pleasant tingling shoot up her arm and into her head. There is a sense of weightlessness. She finds the experience delicious but avoids this violation as much as possible; she feels it is unfair to the Ring to tease it in this way.
Mostly she just looks at it, watching the letters. Sometimes they form words, or almost form words. During the tedious shows and entertainments that are supposed to make her evenings lively, she looks at the Ring, keeping it cupped in her hands. In the tiny hours of the heavy mornings, she reads it in the moonlight.
Once a few of the characters arrange themselves to form FREDOMS, which is almost freedom but the letters are wrong. The next moment it becomes SERFDOM, and then the letters return to chaos.
*
It is after midnight. She snaps the brass latch on her goatskin satchel, and looks around at the rejected items of clothing strewn about. Picking up a delicate hair ribbon, she almost yields to the urge to tidy up, then thinks better of it. The ribbon falls to the floor.
She has heard from Hanna and Shira.
Hanna, the eldest: "I guess you know what you're doing to us. After you left, Shira and I got the Middle Province divided up between us, and with it the care of the Palace Compound. You know he wouldn't keep anything for himself -- that means we're going to have to look after him the rest of his life. I guess you got even."
And Shira: "Well I hope you're proud of yourself. Our father is devastated. Do you have any idea what you've done to him? If you have any decency you'll promise you'll forget about that foreigner and stay home where you belong. Then maybe, maybe he'll take you back."
Her life is ending and beginning. She feels like a long-festering sore that has been gashed and is at last beginning to bleed. It does no good to try to re-think her words of the day gone by. She thinks of begging Avishai to take her back, she thinks if she offers to forget Gallius perhaps he will.
Now she stares at the ring, which seems for the first time to have turned a frosty silver. She needs more than endless recombinations of the same signs. Only the transcendent vision of the wise women of the Mountain Tribe will do now. She imagines herself in the coarse, splendid, traditional woolen robes she has sometimes seen her mother wear. She decides that this is a time for seeing deeply into things. And as the warm glow surges from finger to arm to brain and suffuses her body, she understands why night, with its emptiness, is the mother of dreams.
Clouds obscure the starlight, and the plain is lit only by occasional flashes of gunfire. Two great armies are poised to clash, but her business is not with them. She is leading a Gallian commando unit in some sort of search-and-capture mission. She sees an outline in the night: it is the enemy leader, pathetic and helpless, and he will not be killed, but captured, as in a chess game, it is more satisfying that way.... The scene fades into a parade, it must be a victory celebration, she is marching with soldiers all around her...and now she is speaking with a great sage, discussing the mystery of things in the cell of some kind of monastery.... And finally she sees herself with an old man at her feet, raised up high as if on a throne, suspended in the air.
And then comes the kiss of the Void.
It could swallow you. It could tear you apart from the inside. She feels the weight of a vacuum in her body, and then the vacuum explodes and she feels she is both giving birth and being born, being crushed and turned inside out. For a moment, she sees her body lying on the bed, thinks how trivial and ugly it looks, like a rag doll that a child has dragged through the mud. Then everything dissolves into a flaming circle, and she passes through the center and finds peace.
After vision comes memory. Levana lies on the bed, rumpled now and damp with sweat, feels the ring icy on her finger, its power spent for now. Having seen the future, she feels she has already stepped outside of the Palace compound. Looking back, she sees things she has always overlooked, or things to which she has closed her eyes.
Memories come with a vengeance.
-- Her mother is speaking to Avishai, perhaps Levana is eight or nine. Elnura is saying, "Why don't you ever let the girls out of the compound? They need to see things, they need to travel." Avishai: "They have all they need. I provide them with everything." Elnura: "The same way you provide for your people! Yes, I've seen the way you treat your people. I've seen the slaves in the factories, chained to the machines, with electrodes in their heads to keep them from thinking evil thoughts...." Avishai raises a single finger in denial: "Those are not slaves! They are contract laborers. Slavery is against the law -- I signed the order myself!"
-- Hanna and Shira and the cruel games they played on her. And the way they looked when they did not know she was looking, haunted and scared.
-- Washing his feet. Of all the tasks that she has been given since her mother's death, this is the worst. She must kneel before him with the basin. Once, only once, she dares to ask, "Couldn't you get a maidservant to do this for you?" He is not angry; he simply looks wounded. "I thought you loved me, Leva," he says.
-- At thirteen she is too old to put flowers in her hair but she still does. She thinks she is alone in the garden. A voice from behind startles her: "You look so beautiful with flowers," he says, and starts caressing her shoulders. "You should wear them more often. Why are you so tense, little girl?" She never wears flowers again.
Now everything is clear, and freedom is a lighthouse on the horizon, a beacon over the Great Sea, and it shines on the filthy stones of the Palace Compound and calls to her. And to hell with the rest of them.
*
Seen from the outside, the Palace looks small, a grey mass nesting in the walled Compound on the mountainside like a pigeon. A road runs down the mountain to the city, but the road is hard to see, as if the mountain covers it. A small path, much steeper and shorter, leads from the Palace to the seashore. Levana looks back up at this path for the last time, and smiles at what she sees.
As he walks down the path to meet her, she can see he's carrying something, he's got his arms behind his back and he's picking his way carefully among the rocks with his feet. As he walks toward her she sees he is trying to recreate the mischievous grin that she used to love in spite of herself, but now he only manages to look desperate. So he is going to give her a gift. Very nice. She has something for him too.
"Something to remember me by," he says as he produces the bouquet of flowers. His taste for melodrama has not abandoned him. Politely, if a bit stiffly, she puts one hand out to take them.
She locks eyes with him and reaches inside her tunic, pausing just for a moment. "Put out your hand."
She gives him the gift, presses it into his trembling palm. She closes her eyes and forms one word in her mind: slowly. It is the only time she has ever prayed.
The path to the Palace rises and winds through the rocks, twisting like a plume of smoke. Levana turns to look back at it, and at her father. He holds the ring, incredulous, staring into her eyes and past them.
"Keep it," she tells him as gently as she can. "Mother would have wanted you to have it. It shows you the beginnings and the endings of things."
"How will I know which is which?"
"'Their end is embedded in their beginning, and their beginning in their end,'" she says, quoting the Book of Creation.
She sees he has seen something in the distance. She looks over her shoulder. It is the flyer from Gallia, now gliding over the water, now coming to rest and hovering over the sand. Two or three armed men in berets and black shirts get out and wait beside the vehicle. Its sleek, foreign design reminds her of a seashell.
The flowers. Their smell rises to her nose, nauseating her. She thinks: Even now he wants me to be his girlfriend. The old pervert. Their colors are lurid, obscene, like all the secret vices of the earth.
He's watching her. He's studying me, she thinks, trying to memorize the way I look. Let him. He will soon have enough on his mind. Yes, he is fingering the Ring already, stroking it. She turns away from him, looks down at the flowers.
"Leva," he calls plaintively. "You're going away."
She doesn't turn to answer him, doesn't even care if the wind carries her words back to him, or where it takes the flowers she throws into the sky. "Everything goes away."
She walks a few paces, and looks back for the last time, and he's motionless, just watching her go. He's not looking at her anymore, but at his idea of her. Now he can no longer see even that. In his mind's eye, she is already gone across the big water.
Now he sees nothing.
"The Zero Ring" copyright (c) 2004 by Asher Abrams.
All rights reserved.
the horror of nothing to see
-- Luce Irigaray
No one understood why King Avishai of Dungard chose to relinquish everything then, his kingdom and his rule, or why he should have been ready to hand himself over to the care of his three daughters. Perhaps it was true, as he said, that the cares of rule weighed too heavily on him; perhaps also he had come to the realization that he had entrapped himself too deeply in the things of this world. And it was just possible, as a few murmured, that he was becoming uncomfortable with his reputation as a miser, as a man a little too fond of keeping things for himself.
Now he is floating over their heads, the suspensors on his throne set very high so that they must crane their necks to see him: this is how he is, Levana thinks, afraid to be seen touching the ground. And he's smiling that secret smile and he's got that twinkle in his eye, and he radiates that boyish innocence that never quite becomes childishness. On either side stand Hanna and Shira. In the middle, directly before him, stands Levana, the youngest, shifting her weight now and then, the toes of her left foot accommodating the comforting feel of the small, smooth secret in her left shoe.
"Love," he is saying, "is beyond any price. Love is a fair country with no borders, no boundaries. Love is what binds us together, and love is what has made this kingdom great."
Hanna and Shira are looking inscrutably at Levana. The afternoon light finds its way in through the cantilevered skylights of the great, round central hall of the Palace. Levana gazes at the ancient mosaics that circle the single unbroken wall, then looks up at Avishai, silhouetted against the graceful, shallow dome that rises above the skylights.
Rising before her, between her and Avishai, a colored projection of the map of Dungard appears, like a glowing stained-glass window. In the north is the Mountain Country, and the region called the New Land. In the middle, dividing the kingdom, are the cold and arid steppes, with their uninhabited regions of sand and stone. There also lies the maze of volcanic craters and canyons surrounding the Great Fissure, which dominates the central region of Dungard like a spider in her web. This is the land where so many soldiers fell, the land the old generals and sergeants-major still tell stories of in the halls of the palace. And to the south, stretching to the coast, is the Plains Country, the farmland, and the seat of the ancient capital, where the Palace still sits on a mountainside overlooking the city and the sea.
The map is divided vertically into three sections of different colors. Two, of roughly equal sizes, are labeled with her older sisters' names; the third, the central strip running from north to south and distinctly larger than the others, is left unmarked. The land of Gallia, vast and vague, looms off the eastern shore.
Confronted with this manifestation of their father's will, Shira and Hanna fidget and toy with the ceremonial tablets on which their shares of the kingdom are inscribed. Avishai's voice is soothing.
"Hanna found the favor of Lord Tir, and she will be the co-ruler of his province under the new order. Shira has acquired her share of Lord Roncor's province through her merits as well. You, Levana, have it much easier. You don't have to please anybody. Just stay here in Dungard, and the Central Province is yours alone. I have no quarrel with the King of Gallia, but you are needed here. You must give up the foreigner if you love me.
"You do love me, don't you, Leva?" His gaze is steady and solicitous. The throne lowers imperceptibly. She has only to say what he wants to hear, and her name will appear on the third region, and the tablet -- drawn up weeks before -- will be brought out and handed to her by gracious servants.
"It's Gallius I love," she says. "You can't keep me forever."
Gallius is not good looking or a particularly powerful king. In fact, he is unambitious and indifferent to geopolitical influence. His interest in Levana seems to be for herself alone. Sometimes Levana worries guiltily if it is not she, drawn by his holographic maps of the lush landscapes of his land, whose motives are impure. But in the long and empty weeks that fill her life, it is not the land she dreams of, but the man.
"Watch what you say, little girl."
And it is at this moment that she knows she cannot please him.
"Daddy, I'm not your little girl anymore."
There's a moment of explosive silence; then the map goes dark and the throne plummets to its resting place on the low carpeted dais. He peers into her eyes. His lower lip quivers, as thoughts seem to compete for his attention. His voice is low and breathy, like wind and far-off thunder.
"How dare you tell me that! Take that back at once."
But she is silent.
"Have you nothing to say?"
Still she is silent.
"Do you know what comes from nothing? Nothing -- and by the Merciful and Mysterious, that's what you'll get! Servants, annul those papers -- computer, redraw the map! And you -- go to your new home in Gallia and never let me see your face again. Pack tonight. I'll have Gallius send his men to meet you on the beach tomorrow."
Levana is too stunned to cry at first. Then she does.
Then, much later, she walks slowly to her room and takes off her shoes.
*
It is always there. Never out of reach, in her shoe, under a pillow, or in the airspace under one of the useless ceramic pieces that decorate her room. Sometimes she puts it in the pocket of her tunic, but usually that does not feel safe enough to her. But it is always there, and with it, a memory and a hope.
Now, at nineteen, her last memory of her mother is as fresh as it was on that day, when she was eleven years old. The room looked then much as it does now: walls of pink stone, floor of marble, covered with old rugs from her mother's family. An ornate chandelier in the ceiling sprinkles cool, harsh light from one floating light globe. Sitting on the soft, purple-covered bed, she can see her mother once again standing beside her.
Elnura is holding something small wrapped in purple velvet. She is tall and strong, like most of the women of the Mountain Tribe. Traditionally Mountain women are metalworkers, since prehistoric times of living and working in caves, while the menfolk hunted game and wild food. Years ago, Levana has been told, Elnura was a Seer, and a scholar of ancient lore. When Avishai is not around, which is seldom, Elnura spends time teaching Levana from her ancient books, with titles like The Way of Power and The Book of Creation.
"Do you know the legend of the Rings of Power?" she asks Levana.
"There were nine of them. They were all destroyed." She says the last word with feeling.
Avishai is watching from the door of the bedroom. "There were ten rings," Elnura is saying, "ten and not nine. They were numbered. The Nine Ring was the first to be destroyed, and the One Ring was the last."
"But you said there were ten."
"Before one, what do you count?" Levana does not answer and she continues: "This is the Zero Ring. It is called the Ring of Dreams, and it is the mother of the other nine. It shows you things in the world as they really are -- how things are conceived and born, how they develop, and how they end. It shows you the beginnings and the endings of things. And then it shows you the emptiness at the heart of Creation. It shows you the Void.
"This ring has been the secret of the women of the Mountain Tribe since ancient times. Only women have the power to channel its energy -- men are destroyed by it. Sometimes right away, sometimes slowly. Once a shepherd got hold of the Ring. He put it on. They found him the next day, going on all fours, eating grass and bleating back at the sheep. To wear this Ring is to look into the Void, and men are afraid of empty spaces."
Avishai grunts contemptuously. "Zero," he says. "Unnecessary number." He turns to go, still looking at the Ring out of the corner of his eye. It is because the Ring is forbidden to him that he finds it irresistible.
The Ring is a very simple, plain gold ring on the outside. Its surface is shiny and without scratches. It is like a curved mirror. The inside, the flat surface that fits against the finger, is inscribed with the thirty-two characters of the Classic Script. Each character appears exactly once, but their order changes from one moment to the next. Sometimes they form words; sometimes the words seem to fit together into ideas -- but, like the shapes you can see in the clouds, the meaning soon vanishes. Because you cannot see through the ring, you can never see all the characters at once. (Levana imagines that if she had a small, cone-shaped mirror, she might.)
"Thirty-two signs dance around the rim," Elnura says, "but it is the space in the middle that makes it useful."
"Will it ever run out of ways to arrange the letters?" Levana asks.
"It will take eight thousand trillion trillion years."
"Mama, did you ever wear this ring?"
It is the question Elnura has been waiting for. "Yes," she says, "in the old days, that is. Among my people. Before you -- before we became acquainted with the people of the Plains Tribe, and your Kingdom. I was known as a seer, one who knew how to use the ring, how to see dreams and look into the Void. I used the Ring often in those days." Here she pauses again. "I used it again last night."
"What did you see?"
Elnura stands up and does not answer at first. "Some things," she says finally. "I saw some things." She takes the ring back gently and puts it in her pocket. "I love you," she says to Levana, and leaves, telling the servants that she's taking a little walk.
The next day they learn that Elnura has traveled to the Great Fissure and thrown herself in.
The following night a servant whom Levana does not recognize, and will not see again, gives her a parcel wrapped in purple velvet. It is the Ring.
From then on, she keeps it in her shoe; she knows he will never look there. Sometimes she carries it in her pocket, rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger. Occasionally her fingertips will slip into the open space. When this happens she feels a pleasant tingling shoot up her arm and into her head. There is a sense of weightlessness. She finds the experience delicious but avoids this violation as much as possible; she feels it is unfair to the Ring to tease it in this way.
Mostly she just looks at it, watching the letters. Sometimes they form words, or almost form words. During the tedious shows and entertainments that are supposed to make her evenings lively, she looks at the Ring, keeping it cupped in her hands. In the tiny hours of the heavy mornings, she reads it in the moonlight.
Once a few of the characters arrange themselves to form FREDOMS, which is almost freedom but the letters are wrong. The next moment it becomes SERFDOM, and then the letters return to chaos.
*
It is after midnight. She snaps the brass latch on her goatskin satchel, and looks around at the rejected items of clothing strewn about. Picking up a delicate hair ribbon, she almost yields to the urge to tidy up, then thinks better of it. The ribbon falls to the floor.
She has heard from Hanna and Shira.
Hanna, the eldest: "I guess you know what you're doing to us. After you left, Shira and I got the Middle Province divided up between us, and with it the care of the Palace Compound. You know he wouldn't keep anything for himself -- that means we're going to have to look after him the rest of his life. I guess you got even."
And Shira: "Well I hope you're proud of yourself. Our father is devastated. Do you have any idea what you've done to him? If you have any decency you'll promise you'll forget about that foreigner and stay home where you belong. Then maybe, maybe he'll take you back."
Her life is ending and beginning. She feels like a long-festering sore that has been gashed and is at last beginning to bleed. It does no good to try to re-think her words of the day gone by. She thinks of begging Avishai to take her back, she thinks if she offers to forget Gallius perhaps he will.
Now she stares at the ring, which seems for the first time to have turned a frosty silver. She needs more than endless recombinations of the same signs. Only the transcendent vision of the wise women of the Mountain Tribe will do now. She imagines herself in the coarse, splendid, traditional woolen robes she has sometimes seen her mother wear. She decides that this is a time for seeing deeply into things. And as the warm glow surges from finger to arm to brain and suffuses her body, she understands why night, with its emptiness, is the mother of dreams.
Clouds obscure the starlight, and the plain is lit only by occasional flashes of gunfire. Two great armies are poised to clash, but her business is not with them. She is leading a Gallian commando unit in some sort of search-and-capture mission. She sees an outline in the night: it is the enemy leader, pathetic and helpless, and he will not be killed, but captured, as in a chess game, it is more satisfying that way.... The scene fades into a parade, it must be a victory celebration, she is marching with soldiers all around her...and now she is speaking with a great sage, discussing the mystery of things in the cell of some kind of monastery.... And finally she sees herself with an old man at her feet, raised up high as if on a throne, suspended in the air.
And then comes the kiss of the Void.
It could swallow you. It could tear you apart from the inside. She feels the weight of a vacuum in her body, and then the vacuum explodes and she feels she is both giving birth and being born, being crushed and turned inside out. For a moment, she sees her body lying on the bed, thinks how trivial and ugly it looks, like a rag doll that a child has dragged through the mud. Then everything dissolves into a flaming circle, and she passes through the center and finds peace.
After vision comes memory. Levana lies on the bed, rumpled now and damp with sweat, feels the ring icy on her finger, its power spent for now. Having seen the future, she feels she has already stepped outside of the Palace compound. Looking back, she sees things she has always overlooked, or things to which she has closed her eyes.
Memories come with a vengeance.
-- Her mother is speaking to Avishai, perhaps Levana is eight or nine. Elnura is saying, "Why don't you ever let the girls out of the compound? They need to see things, they need to travel." Avishai: "They have all they need. I provide them with everything." Elnura: "The same way you provide for your people! Yes, I've seen the way you treat your people. I've seen the slaves in the factories, chained to the machines, with electrodes in their heads to keep them from thinking evil thoughts...." Avishai raises a single finger in denial: "Those are not slaves! They are contract laborers. Slavery is against the law -- I signed the order myself!"
-- Hanna and Shira and the cruel games they played on her. And the way they looked when they did not know she was looking, haunted and scared.
-- Washing his feet. Of all the tasks that she has been given since her mother's death, this is the worst. She must kneel before him with the basin. Once, only once, she dares to ask, "Couldn't you get a maidservant to do this for you?" He is not angry; he simply looks wounded. "I thought you loved me, Leva," he says.
-- At thirteen she is too old to put flowers in her hair but she still does. She thinks she is alone in the garden. A voice from behind startles her: "You look so beautiful with flowers," he says, and starts caressing her shoulders. "You should wear them more often. Why are you so tense, little girl?" She never wears flowers again.
Now everything is clear, and freedom is a lighthouse on the horizon, a beacon over the Great Sea, and it shines on the filthy stones of the Palace Compound and calls to her. And to hell with the rest of them.
*
Seen from the outside, the Palace looks small, a grey mass nesting in the walled Compound on the mountainside like a pigeon. A road runs down the mountain to the city, but the road is hard to see, as if the mountain covers it. A small path, much steeper and shorter, leads from the Palace to the seashore. Levana looks back up at this path for the last time, and smiles at what she sees.
As he walks down the path to meet her, she can see he's carrying something, he's got his arms behind his back and he's picking his way carefully among the rocks with his feet. As he walks toward her she sees he is trying to recreate the mischievous grin that she used to love in spite of herself, but now he only manages to look desperate. So he is going to give her a gift. Very nice. She has something for him too.
"Something to remember me by," he says as he produces the bouquet of flowers. His taste for melodrama has not abandoned him. Politely, if a bit stiffly, she puts one hand out to take them.
She locks eyes with him and reaches inside her tunic, pausing just for a moment. "Put out your hand."
She gives him the gift, presses it into his trembling palm. She closes her eyes and forms one word in her mind: slowly. It is the only time she has ever prayed.
The path to the Palace rises and winds through the rocks, twisting like a plume of smoke. Levana turns to look back at it, and at her father. He holds the ring, incredulous, staring into her eyes and past them.
"Keep it," she tells him as gently as she can. "Mother would have wanted you to have it. It shows you the beginnings and the endings of things."
"How will I know which is which?"
"'Their end is embedded in their beginning, and their beginning in their end,'" she says, quoting the Book of Creation.
She sees he has seen something in the distance. She looks over her shoulder. It is the flyer from Gallia, now gliding over the water, now coming to rest and hovering over the sand. Two or three armed men in berets and black shirts get out and wait beside the vehicle. Its sleek, foreign design reminds her of a seashell.
The flowers. Their smell rises to her nose, nauseating her. She thinks: Even now he wants me to be his girlfriend. The old pervert. Their colors are lurid, obscene, like all the secret vices of the earth.
He's watching her. He's studying me, she thinks, trying to memorize the way I look. Let him. He will soon have enough on his mind. Yes, he is fingering the Ring already, stroking it. She turns away from him, looks down at the flowers.
"Leva," he calls plaintively. "You're going away."
She doesn't turn to answer him, doesn't even care if the wind carries her words back to him, or where it takes the flowers she throws into the sky. "Everything goes away."
She walks a few paces, and looks back for the last time, and he's motionless, just watching her go. He's not looking at her anymore, but at his idea of her. Now he can no longer see even that. In his mind's eye, she is already gone across the big water.
Now he sees nothing.
"The Zero Ring" copyright (c) 2004 by Asher Abrams.
All rights reserved.
American Literature Revisited
You've probably read my earlier post about my Early American Literature class. I should point out that the main reason I've found it frustrating is the large class size. Also being a Bush supporter I kind of feel like an "army of one", but that's true pretty much wherever I go in Portland.
Following the election, there was a period of very lively political discussion in class. People were angry and frustrated - that's only natural, these are tense times and it's been a very intense election season. And for the first half hour or so, most of the students were going on about those "ignorant" Republicans, and all that stuff.
But then an interesting thing happened. Once folks had had a chance to get their feelings off their chests, the conversation grew more reflective. People began to question the assumptions about "red-state" voters. Several students stressed the importance of getting rid of liberal stereotypes and dogmatism. One even gave a very detailed critique of Michael Moore's "propaganda" (the student actually used that word).
All of this makes me feel very hopeful about the future of America. I didn't say anything, beyond pointing out that "not everyone in this classroom voted for the same person" (and how would I know that, unless I voted for Bush?). I could have gotten up and said "Michael Moore is a big fat stupid white man", but what would that have accomplished? The important thing was that these students understood the need for more dialogue. The young woman sitting behind me even said at one point, "I wish I could talk to a Bush supporter, and just ask them why they voted for Bush."
Because I'm outnumbered by about 40 to one in this class, I don't attempt to get into political debates, just as I don't go onto the Democratic Underground site and try to enlighten everyone there. But I'm always happy to talk with people one-on-one, and an attitude of "I'd like to hear what you have to say" is a good beginning for those conversations.
As we've discovered in class, American literature is inseparable from American politics, and you can't discuss one without the other. And neither of these things can exist unless people are willing to talk to one another - and listen. I think we're headed in the right direction.
Following the election, there was a period of very lively political discussion in class. People were angry and frustrated - that's only natural, these are tense times and it's been a very intense election season. And for the first half hour or so, most of the students were going on about those "ignorant" Republicans, and all that stuff.
But then an interesting thing happened. Once folks had had a chance to get their feelings off their chests, the conversation grew more reflective. People began to question the assumptions about "red-state" voters. Several students stressed the importance of getting rid of liberal stereotypes and dogmatism. One even gave a very detailed critique of Michael Moore's "propaganda" (the student actually used that word).
All of this makes me feel very hopeful about the future of America. I didn't say anything, beyond pointing out that "not everyone in this classroom voted for the same person" (and how would I know that, unless I voted for Bush?). I could have gotten up and said "Michael Moore is a big fat stupid white man", but what would that have accomplished? The important thing was that these students understood the need for more dialogue. The young woman sitting behind me even said at one point, "I wish I could talk to a Bush supporter, and just ask them why they voted for Bush."
Because I'm outnumbered by about 40 to one in this class, I don't attempt to get into political debates, just as I don't go onto the Democratic Underground site and try to enlighten everyone there. But I'm always happy to talk with people one-on-one, and an attitude of "I'd like to hear what you have to say" is a good beginning for those conversations.
As we've discovered in class, American literature is inseparable from American politics, and you can't discuss one without the other. And neither of these things can exist unless people are willing to talk to one another - and listen. I think we're headed in the right direction.
Post-Election
Jane has an excellent round-up of international opinion at Armies of Liberation.
Michael J. Totten, analyzing data provided by Andrew Coyne, deduces that 45 percent of the people who voted for Bush are self-described liberals or moderates. MJT also puts the Pat Robertson faction of the GOP in perspective, and advises against painting all "conservatives" with the same broad brush.
Channeling Whoville, Michele at ASmall Big Victory speaks out for New York Bush voters.
More to come.
Michael J. Totten, analyzing data provided by Andrew Coyne, deduces that 45 percent of the people who voted for Bush are self-described liberals or moderates. MJT also puts the Pat Robertson faction of the GOP in perspective, and advises against painting all "conservatives" with the same broad brush.
Channeling Whoville, Michele at A
More to come.
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