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. Mother Davis struggles to keep her eyes from popping out as she forwards the following news from Doctor Theopolis:It's spiraling fast. It's not just torture. It's killing. The Army just got around to telling us that the DEATHS of 25 "detainees" in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan are currently under investigation. Two of these, the Army itself considers homicides: One soldier shot a prisoner to death in Iraq. Another prisoner was killed in November at Abu Ghraib jail by a "private contractor who worked as an interrogator for the CIA." (Source: Financial Times, 5/5/04) That's right, kids. A private contractor doing "interrogations" for the CIA went a little too far and killed someone. Now, exactly what restraints are there on a private contractor, in a country without a sovereign government, "interrogating detainees" that the U.S. claims have neither legal rights nor rights under the Geneva Convention? I shudder to think. Oh, but it's OK, because Rummy says he's "stunned by it all." Don't know about you, but I'm LIVID! Letting Doctor Theopolis know that I'm livid too, Mother Davis Return to the Irregular Times Main Page
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