The Earth has aged nearly 700 years since we left it, while we’ve aged hardly at all
There are 46 days left in 2009, which means it is just about time to commence the beloved and enduring parlor game known as “Name That Decade.”
You know the rules — coin a pithy, reductive phrase that somehow encapsulates the multitude of events, trends, triumphs and calamities of the past 10 years. If you can also rope in some of the big personalities and consumer obsessions, that’s a bonus.
For the ’00s, it seems the trick will be finding a small package sturdy and flexible enough to capture so much upheaval and change. And worry — although in hindsight, it sure seems like we kept worrying about the wrong menace.
The decade began with a frenzy of fear about the Y2k millennium bug, which many technology experts said would sunder computers, crash jets and wreak havoc in every corner of the globe. As that non-emergency passed, a genuine threat quietly gathered in the form of a plot to fell the twin towers.
Later, we scoured Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, which we did not find. As we searched, we built weapons of financial chaos right here at home, with home mortgages, leverage and something called Collateralized Debt Obligations.
Fortunes and a staggering number of jobs have vanished, inflicting misery in this country and others on a scale that would surely have exceeded the most garish of Saddam’s fantasies.
So: The Era of Misplaced Anxiety?
