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Latest update #Kunduz: 12 MSF staff killed (same as previous update) + 10 patients (up from 7 yesterday): image via MSF International @MSF, 4 October 2015
The desert moves, then stops. It is a museum made of light.
Its mighty magnitude goes on and on.
It blasts the sleeping woman in her bed. It
Blasts the sleeping man. They are made clean.
Then the wind moves off to Afghanistan.
These are millennial figures.
The tank sits upon the white sand.
The men are away from home for the first time.
Beyond them the great lonely peaks glisten.
They will hear familiar songs in the night wind.
Over to the east the great fires will burn
And burn. Something moves restlessly along the sand.
The wind picks it up and blows it away over the desert.
The desert opens, then closes. It is gone into another dimension.
It hardens into a memory. An artifact in a museum made of light.
The light of the desert washes everything clean.
A bright dog runs from Kabul to Albuquerque.
![Afghan youths pose as they ride a donkey]()
Kabul, Afghanistan. Youths pose as they ride a donkey on the outskirts of the capital: photo by Aref Karimi/AFP, 8 September 2012
![File:Mountains of Kabul.jpg]()
Snow mountains of Kabul: photo by Joe Burger, 2007
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Alex Lopez plays baseball with his sister Sugey while smoke generated by the Las Conchas fire covers the sky in Espanola, New Mexico. As crews fight to keep the wildfire from reaching the country's premier nuclear-weapons laboratory and the surrounding community, scientists are busy sampling the air for chemicals and radiological materials: photo by Jae C. Hong/Associated Press, 29 June 2011
I've been suffering greatly from the noise in my room.
Last night my dream recorded this.
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Smoke from the Las Conchas fire turns the setting sun red over the Jemez Mountains behind the town of Los Alamos, New Mexico: photo by Jim Thompson/Albuquerque Journal via Associated Press, 28 June 2011
The bridge that separates the town of Los Alamos, New Mexico, from Los Alamos National Laboratory is shrouded in smoke from the Las Conchas wildfire: photo by Craig Fritz/Reuters, 28 June 2011
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Kandahar, Afghanistan: PFC William Berczik from Houston, Texas with 4th Squadron 2d Cavalry Regiment stands on top of a Stryker vehicle following a live-fire exercise with 120mm mortars in the desert: photo by Scott Olson via The Guardian, 8 March 2015
#USA General says Afghan National Army requested strike on #Kunduz hospital that killed 22 including 8 doctors: image via Times of Islamabad @TimesofIslamabad, 5 October 2015
BREAKING: US says Afghans requested airstrike that struck #Kunduz hospital: image via RT @RT_com, 5 October 2015
A Kunduz, les médecins de l’hôpital de MSF pleurent des «larmes de sang»: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 3 October 2015
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Doctors Without Borders staff members at a hospital in Kunduz that was badly damaged in an airstrike on Saturday: photo by Doctors Without Borders via New York Times, 3 October 2015
While we mourn the loss of our colleagues and patients, @MSF demands an independent enquiry #Kunduz: image via Dr Joanne Liu @JoanneLiu, 4 October 2015
Read MSF nurse Lajos Zoltan Jecs' harrowing eyewitness account of last night’s #KunduzAttack: image via MSF Canada @MSF_canada, 3 October 2015
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Aftermath of the bombing that left 3 staff dead & many ppl wounded. #Afghanistan: image via MSF UK Press Office @MSF_Press, 3 October 2015
This is how we remember our #Kunduz hospital. 3-year-old Tamim plays with a balloon. (C MSF/Nora Guicheney): image via MSF UK @MSF_uk, 3 October 2015
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At 2:08AM our hospital in #Kunduz repeatedly hit by air strikes at roughly 15 min intervals: image via MSF Canada @MSF_canada, 3 October 2015
#USA General says Afghan National Army requested strike on #Kunduz hospital that killed 22 including 8 doctors: image via Times of Islamabad @TimesofIslamabad, 5 October 2015
![http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/White_sands_soldiers2.jpg]()
Military personnel at WhiteSandsNationalMonument: photo by Daniel Schwen, 4 April 2004
![http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/White_sands_vegetation.jpg]()
Sparse vegetation in the gypsum dunes of White Sands National Monument: photo by Daniel Schwen, 4 April 2004
![http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/White_sands_sunset.JPG]()
Sunset over White Sands National Monument, New Mexico: photo by Franzinho, 22 August 2009
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Khost, Afghanistan. An Afghan girl reaches out to help her brother down from a security barrier set up outside the Independent Election Commission office. Anja Niedringhaus, a courageous and immensely talented Associated Press photographer who has covered everything from sports to war, was killed while covering elections in Afghanistan on Friday: photo by Anja Niedringhaus/AP via the Guardian, 5 April 2014
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Badakhshan, Afghanistan. A villager looks on at the scene where a landslide in Argo district buried and killed hundreds of people under a tide of rocks and mud. The death toll could reach 2,000: photo by Shah Marai/AFP via The Guardian, 5 May 2014
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A relative carried Madina, 8, wounded in an airstrike in Kunduz, into an emergency room in Kabul: photo by Victor J. Blue for The New York Times, 3 October 2015
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Georgia Novello, a nurse in Kabul, comforted an 8-year-old girl wounded, along with her mother, in an airstrike in Kunduz: photo by Victor J. Blue for The New York Times, 3 October 2015
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Kabul, Afghanistan. A girl plays with a toy gun during celebrations for Nowruz, the Iranian new year, which marks the first day of spring and the start of the year in the Persian calendar: photo by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters via The Guardian, 22 March 2015
Latest update #Kunduz: 12 MSF staff killed (same as previous update) + 10 patients (up from 7 yesterday): image via MSF International @MSF, 4 October 2015
The desert moves, then stops. It is a museum made of light.
Its mighty magnitude goes on and on.
It blasts the sleeping woman in her bed. It
Blasts the sleeping man. They are made clean.
Then the wind moves off to Afghanistan.
These are millennial figures.
The tank sits upon the white sand.
The men are away from home for the first time.
Beyond them the great lonely peaks glisten.
They will hear familiar songs in the night wind.
Over to the east the great fires will burn
And burn. Something moves restlessly along the sand.
The wind picks it up and blows it away over the desert.
The desert opens, then closes. It is gone into another dimension.
It hardens into a memory. An artifact in a museum made of light.
The light of the desert washes everything clean.
A bright dog runs from Kabul to Albuquerque.
Kabul, Afghanistan. Youths pose as they ride a donkey on the outskirts of the capital: photo by Aref Karimi/AFP, 8 September 2012
Snow mountains of Kabul: photo by Joe Burger, 2007
Walter Benjamin: A Map of Hell
I've been suffering greatly from the noise in my room.
Last night my dream recorded this.
I found myself standing in front of a map and, simultaneously, standing in the landscape which it depicted. The landscape was terrifyingly dreary and bare; I couldn't have said whether its desolation was that of a rocky wasteland or that on an empty ground populated only by capital letters. These letters writhed and curved upon their terrain as if following mountain ranges; I knew or learned that I was in the labyrinth of my auditory canal. But the map was, at the same time, a map of hell.
Walter Benjamin: Diary Entries, 1938 (excerpt), translated by Gerhard Richter and Michael W. Jennings in Selected Writings, Volume 3 (1935-1938), 2002
The bridge that separates the town of Los Alamos, New Mexico, from Los Alamos National Laboratory is shrouded in smoke from the Las Conchas wildfire: photo by Craig Fritz/Reuters, 28 June 2011
Kandahar, Afghanistan: PFC William Berczik from Houston, Texas with 4th Squadron 2d Cavalry Regiment stands on top of a Stryker vehicle following a live-fire exercise with 120mm mortars in the desert: photo by Scott Olson via The Guardian, 8 March 2015
#USA General says Afghan National Army requested strike on #Kunduz hospital that killed 22 including 8 doctors: image via Times of Islamabad @TimesofIslamabad, 5 October 2015
BREAKING: US says Afghans requested airstrike that struck #Kunduz hospital: image via RT @RT_com, 5 October 2015
A Kunduz, les médecins de l’hôpital de MSF pleurent des «larmes de sang»: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 3 October 2015
Doctors Without Borders staff members at a hospital in Kunduz that was badly damaged in an airstrike on Saturday: photo by Doctors Without Borders via New York Times, 3 October 2015
While we mourn the loss of our colleagues and patients, @MSF demands an independent enquiry #Kunduz: image via Dr Joanne Liu @JoanneLiu, 4 October 2015
Read MSF nurse Lajos Zoltan Jecs' harrowing eyewitness account of last night’s #KunduzAttack: image via MSF Canada @MSF_canada, 3 October 2015
Aftermath of the bombing that left 3 staff dead & many ppl wounded. #Afghanistan: image via MSF UK Press Office @MSF_Press, 3 October 2015
This is how we remember our #Kunduz hospital. 3-year-old Tamim plays with a balloon. (C MSF/Nora Guicheney): image via MSF UK @MSF_uk, 3 October 2015
At 2:08AM our hospital in #Kunduz repeatedly hit by air strikes at roughly 15 min intervals: image via MSF Canada @MSF_canada, 3 October 2015
#USA General says Afghan National Army requested strike on #Kunduz hospital that killed 22 including 8 doctors: image via Times of Islamabad @TimesofIslamabad, 5 October 2015
Afghan forces asked for air strike at Kunduz hospital: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 5 October 2015
Military personnel at WhiteSandsNationalMonument: photo by Daniel Schwen, 4 April 2004
Sparse vegetation in the gypsum dunes of White Sands National Monument: photo by Daniel Schwen, 4 April 2004
Sunset over White Sands National Monument, New Mexico: photo by Franzinho, 22 August 2009
Khost, Afghanistan. An Afghan girl reaches out to help her brother down from a security barrier set up outside the Independent Election Commission office. Anja Niedringhaus, a courageous and immensely talented Associated Press photographer who has covered everything from sports to war, was killed while covering elections in Afghanistan on Friday: photo by Anja Niedringhaus/AP via the Guardian, 5 April 2014
Badakhshan, Afghanistan. A villager looks on at the scene where a landslide in Argo district buried and killed hundreds of people under a tide of rocks and mud. The death toll could reach 2,000: photo by Shah Marai/AFP via The Guardian, 5 May 2014
A relative carried Madina, 8, wounded in an airstrike in Kunduz, into an emergency room in Kabul: photo by Victor J. Blue for The New York Times, 3 October 2015
Georgia Novello, a nurse in Kabul, comforted an 8-year-old girl wounded, along with her mother, in an airstrike in Kunduz: photo by Victor J. Blue for The New York Times, 3 October 2015
Kabul, Afghanistan. A girl plays with a toy gun during celebrations for Nowruz, the Iranian new year, which marks the first day of spring and the start of the year in the Persian calendar: photo by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters via The Guardian, 22 March 2015