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. In the wake of the 9/11 Commission's finding that there was no collaborative relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq, Bush mouthpiece John Lehman sprang to the rescue, proclaiming to as many media outlets as would listen that "there is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda." Now it turns out that Lehman's "evidence" was a matter of mistaken identity. The Lieutenant Colonel's name: Hikmat Shakir Ahmad, resident of Iraq The Al Qaeda Member's name: Ahmad Hikmat Shakir Azzawi, resident of Malaysia Well, hey, you know all those Ayrab names sound alike, anyway: kind of like Bob Smith and Rob Smith, but with weird vowels and flailing tongues and oily hair and stuff. (Source: Washington Post) ![]() ![]() ![]() |