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.


 
Sad news for democracy in Louisiana.

Conservative creep Rodney Alexander, a member of the House of Representatives for Louisiana, will not have to bother campaigning for re-election. He'll automatically be returned to the House for another 2 year term, and voters in his district will not have any opportunity to choose someone else.

How has Rodney Alexander managed to get such privileges? It's easy, if you're willing to deceive the people you've been elected to serve. You see, first Alexander pretended to be a Democrat. Then, with almost no time left before the automatic filing deadline for congressional candidates, Alexander switched parties, giving the Democrats practically no time at all to find someone to represent their party in the campaign.

There was some hope, for a time, that democracy would survive this vicious attack by Rodney Alexander, but unfortunately, democracy has been officially declared extinct in his election district. At first, a lower court ruled that the Democrats must be given adequate time to find a candidate, given that Rodney Alexander's dishonesty was designed in order to rob voters of democratic choice. However, a more conservative higher court has overturned that ruling, and so Rodney Alexander is going to sneak his little oily way on by.

It's official. Rodney Alexander is Louisiana's snake in the grass. Unfortunately, we have to wait until 2006 to chase him out of our national yard...

Posted by J. Clifford Cook at 8:55 PM. # (permalink)  




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