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.


 
When asked to describe his biggest mistake as president since September 11, 2001, George W. Bush paused for a number of moments, stammered, looked at the ceiling, looked at the floor, and then said "I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer. But it hasn't yet." And then it didn't. Everybody knew George W. Bush was going to be asked this sort of question. And yet Mr. Bush didn't have an answer ready. At the very least, to come to such an important news conference unprepared shows a shocking lack of diligence that the nation cannot afford.

Worse, George W. Bush's inability to describe a single failing in a nearly three-year period of his presidency betrays a profound lack of self-reflection. Surely any president who was not profoundly shallow would have long, dark nights of the soul in which he reviewed his actions to date, tallied his mistakes and considered how to rectify them in the future. Most people report losing sleep in contemplation of a single hard day at their office jobs, yet George W. Bush has not been able to identify a single mistake of a two-war, job-loss presidency over the course of years? Inconceivable! A president who does not consider his mistakes cannot learn from them. George W. Bush has a lot to learn, but it doesn't look like he's doing the hard work necessary to even begin that process.

Posted by James Cook at 5:39 AM. # (permalink)




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