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.


 

Paul Krugman and E.J. Dionne Channel Each Other

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and E.J. Dionne appear to be channeling each other today, if not out-and-out sharing notes. If they were two of my students, I'd be suspicious. Uncanny similarities follow:

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Krugman's Title: "Other People's Sacrifice"
Dionne's Title: "Whose Sacrifice?"
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Krugman: "It's now clear that the Iraq war was the mother of all bait-and-switch operations."
Dionne: "Was this just a big bait-and-switch operation?"
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Krugman: "Yet, as always, what he means by unity is that he should receive a blank check, and it turns out that what he means by sacrifice is sacrifice by other people."
Dionne: "President Bush's address on Iraq was unpersuasive because he asked nothing of himself. "
=========
Krugman: "Is he prepared to roll back some of those tax cuts, now that the costs of war loom so large?"
Dionne: "If Bush wants us to believe that this war is as important as he says it is, he needs to ask something from himself and something from Americans who can most afford it. That means rescinding some of his tax cuts for the most well-off even if his campaign contributors squawk."
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Krugman: "Then they insisted that the costs of occupation and reconstruction would be minimal, and used the initial glow of battlefield victory to push through yet another round of irresponsible tax cuts."
Dionne: "Bush might at least have offered a wink or a nod to the fact that he did nothing to prepare Americans for the full cost of this enterprise -- perhaps because being too explicit too early about the burdens might have made it harder to pass his dividends tax cut."
=========

I'm looking to hear an explanation -- maybe they spoke on the phone or over lunch, or maybe it's that left-wing conspiracy thing after all. ;)

Posted by James Cook at 12:48 PM. # (permalink)




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