Kaleidoscope Chapter: She Doesn't Take Sugar

Killer-Kate and Luke Lackland: 300 words. Speaking of big explodey things, I got the synchronization wrong with the BET over the hills from last chapter: the Langdalers hear it in Luke's segment, not Fiery Younger Sister's. This timing lets him use it to improve the Blancmange Army's morale rather than flopping it further. From the avid speculation that follows:
 

"I didn't know she could borrow Jove's thunders to spank [devils] with!"

"She wouldn't borrow a cup of sugar from a god. That one was her own!" 
 

Neither speaker really knows what the hell just happened, but I love the Fairfielders' attitude to such matters! 

They aren't, as may be apparent, the blancmangey part of the army.

The Poetic Courage of Abdirashid Omar

The BBC's carrying a story today about the Somali poet Abdirashid Omar, who is in hiding from the al-Shabaab militias after scourging them in his widely-circulated work Fatwo, or the Decree.  They would like him to recant it: he would like them to shove it. 

"A person who contradicts his own poem will never be taken [seriously] again in Somali society - something they knew because they are Somalis."

Read, read, read the full story here. 

My own thoughts at larger length, on my main blog here.

The author's musical recitation of the whole piece (in Somali) on YouTube is linked to from both, or you can find it directly here.  Though wholly ignorant of the language, I found it well worth the listen.

And his making and his upholding of it, well worth an honourable toast, and a few minutes' humble contemplation.