Y2K Revisited:

Americans generally avoid looking at the past, but now is the time of the year when media fills its space with retrospectives. (Remembering Elvis, the Beetles.) Denis Dutton revisits New Year's Eve 1999 and the morning after in today's New York Times, comparing, for instance, the billions spent to prevent "the End of the World as We Know It" by some nations, like the U. S. and Britain, compared with a country like South Korea that, for the most part, ignored it. For whatever reason, Dutton points out, we are infatuated with the concept that "It's Always the End of the World as We Know It."


Is History Repeating Itself?

A Washington Post editorial points out that back in September 1901 America suffered an act of terrorism comparable to this century's 9/11 strike: President McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist.

But that act brought the dynamic Teddy Roosevelt into office, beginning what has been called "the American century." In 2001, George W. Bush was president. Instead of a "can-do" philosophy, America was led by a can't-speak-in-public brand of leadership—from energy to ineptitude.