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. The Bush Administration has announced that in contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq, companies of French, German or Russian nationality need not apply because to do so would be against "the essential security interests of the United States." That's no way to treat two long-time and one fledgling ally of the United States simply because they (along with the vast majority of countries of the world) opposed a single policy decision of a particular American President. This is another indication that the Bush Administration is diplomatically incompetent. This would all be silly if it didn't matter so much to those getting ground down and picked off in Iraq. (Source: New York Times December 10, 2003) Return to the Irregular Times Main Page
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