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. On December 28, 2001, George W. Bush stood in front of a gaggle of reporters and told the American people that he had called together his top aides and generals -- Major General Gene Renuart, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and CIA Director George Tenet -- to talk about the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Now it has come out that the actual focus of the meeting was a briefing on plans for a war against Iraq. Why won't George W. Bush tell the American people the truth? (Source: Associated Press April 17, 2004) ![]() ![]() ![]() |