It is a time of freedom and fear, of Gaia and of borders, of many paths and the widening of
a universal toll road, emptying country and swelling cities, of the public bought into
privacy and the privacy of the public sold into invisible data banks and knowing
algorithms. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the
planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.
These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread. Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times. ![]() You Gotta Have BrainsIn today's New York Times, columnist Thomas Friedman writes from London, "To be sure, some people simply will never be winnable because they hate America above all else. (That may explain why you don't see any protesters here carrying signs saying, 'Death to bin Laden,' 'Saddam: How many Iraqis did you kill today?'...)"There's a simpler alternative, Mr. Friedman. Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are not members of the British Government or the American Government with which Blair has aligned himself. In a democracy, protests are traditionally centered on things that the protesters have some control over -- like the policies of the protesters' government or the the policies of a government which the protesters' government has endorsed. There's no sense in protesting something or someone over which one has no control. Please. Return to the Irregular Times Main Page
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