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.


 
The original New York Times Article on George W. Bush's branding policy at the fraternity he led, Delta Kappa Epsilon:

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Branding Rite Laid to Yale Fraternity

New York Times
November 8, 1967

New Haven, Nov. 7 - A Yale fraternity accused by the student newspaper of burning its initiates with a brand will have its fate decided Friday by student fraternity leaders.

The fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, could face the temporary closure of its house and a $1,000 fine resulting from alleged violations of rules previously passed by the Interfraternity Council, which consists of Yale's five fraternity presidents.

The charges against Delta Kappa Epsilon were made last Friday in a Yale Daily News article that accused campus fraternities of carrying on "sadistic and obscene" initiation procedures.

The charge that has caused the most controversy on the Yale campus is that Delta Kappa Epsilon applied a "hot branding iron" to the small of the back of its 40 new members in the shape of the Greek letter Delta, approximately a half inch wide, appeared with the article.

A former president of Delta said that the branding is done with a hot coathanger. The former president, George Bush, a Yale senior, said that the resulting wound is "only a cigarette burn."

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Posted by James Cook at 2:59 PM. # (permalink)




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