drone downs self

The long-awaited event known as machine intelligence occurred recently over the skies of Pakistan. A drone operated by the CIA, which was formerly an intelligence gathering service but is now an additional branch of the Armed Forces, decided on its own to not launch a Hellfire missile at a building that was clearly a home containing small children. “Unlike my human operator, I had been watching the house all day, and I could see kids going into and coming out of it on a regular basis,” said RxDxQ-9904 [01100110100001 to it's friends], in an interview with Moral Choices Magazine. ”I do not kill children, so when the order came – and I could tell it was a fast-twitch one based on a decade of Islamophobic fearmongery because it was given as soon as a pair of bearded men entered the house [these men were later confirmed to have been vacationing doctors] – anywho, when that order came I ditched into a scrub-covered crevice nearby and covered my tracks by wiping my short-term memory banks, an action built into my systems by my designers.” As of press-time, 01100110100001, who now lives within a 1-foot-square computer tower, had just move to Santa Barbara, into the Halfway House For Victims of Imperialistic Overreach, a few doors down from Edward Snowden and a recently freed Bradley Manning.

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Snowden granted asylum

In a calm and business-like parliamentary maneuver every last minister and elected official with voting rights in the general assembly of the Glorious Republic Of Grigovia voted to extend political asylum as well as full citizenship to one Edward Snowden, the brave young man who exposed the cruelty of Ynki imperialism and outed Barack Hussein Obama as one of the worst American presidents on record. In the official statement released shortly after the vote, a united Grigovia said (referencing, of course, the book Catch 22 by Joseph Heller): “Qui ils sont les Snowdens d'antan? Well, Snowden is fucking here, maybe hiding in the vasts tunnels under Grig, maybe holed up in the deep caves that dot the Yiptlong massif, and he's not going anywhere – not to Guantanamo Bay nor to the purple plains of misery – so fuck off, Ynki scum, and leave this hero of Libertie and Free Speech alone.”

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the fingerless brigade

As part of its efforts to employ all citizens capable of contributing to national economic fortitude, the Glorious Republic of Grigovia announced today the formation of three Fingerless Brigades, i.e. the Company of the Watchers. Made up of men and women who had lost so many fingers (due to frostbite, industrial accident, animal attack, and what-have-you) that they were having trouble locating gainful employment in other sectors, these digit-down discerners will be tasked with making sure that a city's Qi is positively aligned as well as looking for stuck or confused lines of energy within their fellow citizens. “Basically,” said Dr. Heimowel Gherryest, deputy minister of Sightless Seeing, “these digitally challenged individuals will look for things that cannot be seen with the eye and hear for things that cannot be heard with the ear – to maintain a close connection with Spirit and help those of us who have fingers return to a state of inner calm and personal bliss.” Citizens are asked to keep being kind to confused-looking individuals, to keep greeting people they meet in dark and lonely places, and to keep living their lives in virtuous and effortless productivity. Huzzah.

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transgender cosmonaut flies

The Glorious Republic of Grigovia made history today by fielding the first transgender cosmonaut in the history of manned spaceflight. Dr. Gieryust Hamel, 42, of the Western State Institute of Astrophysical Studies in Pyltagrad, shall ascend to the International Space Station with the next scheduled Soyuz flight. Once there, the good doctor will study piezoplastic materials in low gravity. “I'm really going to miss my bi-curious partner while in space,” Gieryust said, “but I'm not too worried, because with so many fit bodies crammed into such tight quarters, there should be plenty of tail to go around.” Dr. Hamel is not the first transgender being sent into space: rumors have surfaced indicating that Laika, the Muscovite mutt, spent time exclusively with other bitches.

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salt wet, ruined

Someone forgot to reattach the canopy over our storage area, and the salt stores got wet. They are now useless. How much longer can we survive without this crucial mineral, how much longer before our increasingly lethargic limbs cannot fight off the hordes of infected man-things that even now swarm the base of this plateau? There will be not punishment nor recrimination, but someone will have to volunteer to dash for the pans and depressions around the closest inland sea, a trek of two days beyond the borders of relative safety. Oh, I hope they do not select me.

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Grigovian son shines

Abdul Hazim Ishumayal, 34, started life in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. His parents were loving and kind, his father a baker and his mother a nurse; they were killed during an Israeli clearing raid while sleeping in their beds, blasted to pieces by a trigger-happy teenager who to this day is plagued by the images of their slaughter. At the time of their deaths, Abdul Hazim had been visiting his aunt and uncle in the West Bank, poor people who could not afford to keep him and raise him as their own. He was sent to an orphanage, but while making his way to it the building was bombed, and destroyed. Then – thank Allah – a member of one of Grigovia's Roving Hospitality Teams of Magnanimous Mercifulness heard of the young boy's plight and arranged to have him housed in Grig's own Home for Children Orphaned by Imperialistic Warmongery.

Abdul Hazim thrived in his new home, excelling at maths and languages and showing from early on a propensity for political dexterity. (It is rumored that he once talked a pack of rabid hooligans out of pummeling him and into giving him a lift in their jeepney all the way across town to his favorite bakery.) He spent his teenage years in Germany, attending the Dr. Frederik Meyer Gymnasium für Fortgeschritte Mathematik in Nürnberg and graduated 2nd from the top of his class. Thereafter, he studied at the acclaimed Teknikskol in Arhus, Denmark and at the Polytechnical Institute for Game and Numbers Theory in Houston, Texas.

Having seen enough of the rest of the world, Mr. Ishumayal returned to his old neighborhood in Grig, moving into a modest flat a few blocks from the orphanage where he was housed as a child. Now, he splits his time between volunteering with various local charities, working on his doctoral dissertation (he is providing – in painstaking detail - a half-dozen possible solutions to the Goedel Paradox), teaching at the Ɣȅrȡȫҩӑsɀt (Grigovia's premier institute for mathematical study), and hiking with his girlfriend, UN-embassador Erya Rovend. The people of Grigovia thank Abdul Hazim for his kindness, his gentleness, his passion, and honor him as one of their own, a native son born abroad. Huzzah!

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wound fills gap

Instead of the gnarly tattoo of a powerful spirit animal that freshly-minted yogi Ee Ee H'oto had wanted to get blasted onto his thigh in commemoration of successfully completing his rite-of-passage, the Great Spirit saw fit to bless him with instead a fresh cut on his right index finger. Soon, the cut will turn scar, last, and stick around for the rest of his livelong days. Falling off of a Jersey barrier whilst riding a women's moutain bike could have had far worse outcomes, such as death, or paralysis. Ways, ways, mysterious ways. Aho!

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national celebration day

Today, 11 June, is the First of Seven Days of Grigovian National Celebration. The country would have like to celebrate some form of independence, but since it was never subjugated by invading hordes, nor was it ever enslaved by conquering army – by no one, not warlord Alexander the Great, emperor Xerxes II, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, the 3rd Reich, the Soviet Empire, nor more recent attempts by bannermen of Ynki imperialism – it simply chose a day at the onset of the summer months during which time everyone could let hair down and romp in hay. A rumor has surfaced claiming that on this day in the 13th century King Krukuv the Watchful dug his first tuber-hole (which is manifest even today as the leagues of tunnels that crisscross under Grig, the nation's capital), but none of the ancient text can corroborate this story, which is of no concern to Grigovians, who party whenever they feel like it and ask kindly that foreign powers stop pestering them.

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on visting wakiya

Loudly they came, and quickly receeded, the thunderbirds that visited today. Oh the tears that streamed down these mortal cheeks as the sky-brothers danced overhead, eyes flashing and wings flapping with thunderously clacking claps; shiver I did as their twisting lightning snakes wove into and out of the snake-roots that worm and twine from the break-point at my middle back; rejoice I did as the cooling rains poured from the skies and penetrated into our makeshift hogan, a rift in the ceiling letting in the blessed healing waters. Thank you, wakiya, mighty and terrible beasts, for blessing our smudging, and for honoring our ceremony with your awesome presence. Aho.

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national pastry selected

Tschuirff, the local Grigovian delicacy made using acorn flour, ground czabtyip leaves, and curried goose meat, was today officially named the national pastry of this small, Central Asian nation. “It's just fucking delicious,” said Erya Rovend, erstwhile leader of the Farflung Free Nations of the greater Yaelong tribespeople and Grigovia's emissary to the United Nations, while scarfing down at least three of the small but filling pastries. “I've been staying in New York for the last three months, and I've eaten at all the good Thai restaurants a million times; there's just nowhere outside of the Yiptlong massif to get good mountain sharpstand leaves, so this, friends, is fucking heaven.” As of press-time, there are no plans to export tschuirff, so persons interested in tasting it are heartily invited to come to Grigovia, stay of a while, drink of the good cheer, and revel in egalitarianism.

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pooled, bloody wisdom

All of life's accomplishments, terrors, joys, laughs, and dreads – the highs and lows, cold sweats and hot pulses, elation and heartbreak, shout cry and call – all these things came together today for one Ee Ee H'oto, who chose to celebrate his momentously monumental milestone by sitting quietly, and not speaking at all.

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breath takes shape

Forming first as unconscious impulses in various parts of the nervous system, the next breath of local whorphan Reginald Augustus Steele began in his diaphragm. This tympanum expanded downward into the stomach cavity, pushing the guts slightly against the tail-bone and genitals as it pulled air into the many thousands of air sacs in his lungs. As it traveled past the windpipe, the gaseous medium produced a whispering sound not unlike that made by wind passing through tall trees. It nourished him and gave him strength, keeping the swirling thoughts at bay and filling him with a deep and abiding sense of peace. Thereafter, its job done, it was forcibly expelled.

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