Tag Archives: truth

Of The Future George Orwell Wrote About

I read George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 years ago, back when the words freedom and free speech, to me simply meant freedom to choose who would accompany me to school at the beginning of the school term and freedom of expression meant in an literature exam, the only wrong answer was to leave blank where an answer should have been, some answers scored more points than others but all of them were correct.

I find it, lets call it interesting to note how books published almost 7 decades ago seem to be about the totalitarian states of today and the need to control the narratives

“Do not believe anything,you see or hear, especially on the internet, believe only what we tell you”

In the wake of violent protest, an internet shutdown and a military blitz, which the state blamed on “rouge elements” who wore stolen military Sky News reporter John Sparks did a report which showed security forces beating a handcuffed man

The President’s official Twitter account issued the following response:

And a bit later in the state newspaper, the Secretary For Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services was reported saying how the country is under coordinated media attack and that the Sky News team were not accredited to be reporting on events in Zimbabwe and had not given the police or army a chance to respond

Zim under coordinted media attack

Later still, during a press conference the police spokeswoman had a chance to respond on the Sky News report, that their investigations showed the footage was from an incident in July 2016 and further investigations were underway….

The Sky News team stood by their story

Clearly someone was definitely telling “altenative facts” state media, government officials, the police or an unaccredited news team?

Further scrutiny of the video by “analysts” showed two distinct telltale signs

  • The registration particulars of vehicle which passes in camera range shows it to have a registration number sequence which could not have been reached in 2016 since the central vehicle registry follows a sequential system
  • A plain clothed officer wearing the Chelsea FC Third Kit for the season 2017/2018
Chelsea Third kit 2017-18

Without actually acknowledging making an about turn the police released a new statement which cited a police officer was arrested for misconduct

This story is simply a tip of the iceberg, but it does leave one questioning everything; can we believe anything, if there’s no truth where do transparency and accountability even begin……

The internet and social media might be a hot bed of fake news, cyber bullying and all manner of misinformation and anti social behaviour, but with it the future from the book 1984 might not necessarily have to be an instruction manual….

Newspeak

Of The Surfer

Genre: Mystery 

SoulSurfer.jpg

I am Soul Surfer.

That’s what I tell people who are not only curious but brave enough to ask.

I sit on a mat with my eyes closed and slow down my breathing till almost imperceptible, because you see every time you breathe out, you breathe away a little bit of your life away, until you exhale for the last time and then never again.

That is where I come in, when I breathe out I leave myself behind but by sheer will power alone I maintain my consciousness and can so travel far and wide and find a host whose body I will enter when they take a sudden deep breath, be careful next time you find yourself taking a deep breath, that just might be me. Later when I am done I return back to my own body back on that mat my eyes open and they are filled with that look of one who knows more than they are telling.

I open my eyes and I tell stories of places on whose shores I have never walked, where water turns to rock when it is cold and the sky bleeds white fluffy pebbles that fall on your lashes and they tickle, they are cool on the tongue but do not eat the yellow coloured ones. I tell stories of people whom I have never met with strange names and eyes the colour of gas flames that sizzle.

I stare searchingly into the distant sky and suddenly proclaim, “Today it will be cloudy with a chance of rain, carry an umbrella. It is a wonderful day to have a birthday today, your favourite team won the Champions league last night”; I see the awe in your eyes as you wonder how I know all these things I know or where I make them up from, “Stare into my eyes at your own peril I am a Soul Surfer.” I dare.

I am a Soul Surfer, at least that’s what I tell people. I am a Surfer indeed but neither of souls or oceans but of the information super highway. I surf vast streams of the internet, I catch high speed waves of bits and bytes; I surf the vast internet ocean that separates us at the click of a button.

The answers to almost any question you can think of are there, well at least what someone somewhere thinks is the answer, all the things man was meant to know available on a search engine.

Without taking a step I share cups of coffee with friends I have never met across the globe in sunny Ireland one instant, Tokyo the next, watching the sunrise of cold winter’s morning in Cape Town and spend a summer’s evening in California.Across time zones and seasons so different, they might as well as be from made up places, with made up people of made up names and handles, with a screen for a face, a keyboard for hands typing, always typing words, or maybe that’s what I am; simply a display photo and a user name. Never believe anything you read on the internet, ironically I read that on the internet.

There is a law that states:

 Sufficiently developed technology is indistinguishable from magic.

I am a Soul Surfer, that’s what I tell people, brave enough to stare into my eyes and ask me how I know all the things I know.

~B

#Blogbattle theme Surfer

P.S never believe all I tell it just might be true.