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Happy New (Sorta) Decade

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2010 has begun and we’re inundated with Top Ten Lists: Movies, Sports, Political Trends, What-Have-You. To be different, I thought about compiling a Top Ten List of the Decade’s Best Top Ten Lists, but then I realized . . .

This isn’t the first year of the decade, it’s the last.

A decade, proper, begins with the numeral 1 at the end, not the numeral 0. You see, our Gregorian Calendar does not figure the Current Era as starting with a Year Zero; it was constructed to start with a 1. And just as the first decade of the first millennium started with 1 and ended with 10, just so the first decade of the third millennium started with 2001 and will end with 2010.

Don’t jump the gun.

“Mere technicality”? Most ignore the true construction of the calendar. In the same way, even though Sunday is listed as the first day of the week, many working people think of Monday as the week’s first day.

But hey: “Mere” shmere. I don’t have a Best of the Decade list for you, and I’ll take what excuse I can find.

Besides, wouldn’t it be good to have another year to come up with something really great for our Top Ten Best of the Decade list?

For instance: Could 2010 be the year citizens themselves took control and corrected course?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

4 replies on “Happy New (Sorta) Decade”

This just depends on what you mean by “decade”. In our culture it is common to talk about the decades like the Roaring 20’s or the Swinging 60’s, etc. If so, we are now into the Teens (Tweens?). I think this is much more relevant than the fact that some Pope started the calendar with the year 1 A.D. instead of year 0.

Dan: Some say that decades are not really determinant, eg, the 60s are said by some to have lasted from ’64 to ’72 (a golden era for rock, soul, and country music). My anarchist streak only extends to my writing, so I go with whatever someone else says. “All men are frauds…I myself deny it.”

Re the article at hand: In the same light, 2000 was called “the people’s” beginning of the next century/millennium by the anchor of ABC or NBC news. (I don’t get my news from either, but read it on Drudge, probably.)

Perhaps we could have a “people’s point at which water freezes”? FINALLY round off that annoying value of pi and let it be three? (Now and forever, let it be three. Jerry Butler fans?)

The *only* thing I read along these lines in the year 2000 was that “Chinese scientists” *claimed* that 2000 was not the beginning of the next decade etc.

The Chinese and Indians are educating their children, while we are not. At some point in time, freshmen and sophomores at our colleges will be in remedial reading, writing, and arithmetic (“The proper use of a pocket calculator”) programs.

The privileged might avoid this “education” (how quaint!), so eventually our politicians might be deficient in the 3 R’s (possibly unable to figure out how to pay taxes)… or the militia leaders with the largest support groups. I doubt that either class of “leaders” would be one of my first half dozen choices.

Time-Warner cable (what I have, so not a plug) is currently showing a Ben Stein documentary on HBO, “Intelligent Design: No Intelligence Allowed.” Even the mere mention of ID by a university scientist is a firing offense, tenure or not, while no research grant money will be forthcoming. Ben Stein is consistently great (okay, his commercials are still commercials…but they have Ben Stein, not some rotund person “getting down” to boring rap, so…), always worthy of an audience.

When Clinton-Gore took over in ’93, scientists who didn’t buy into Global Warming hook, line, and sinker were shown the door, while “believers” were given grant money and jobs. So, Al Gore is no amateur at being a slimy jerk. Gore is the victim of a rich childhood.

We have the best politicians and scientists that money can buy!

See Wikipedia’s “Inherit the Wind” entry, THEN watch the movie. Still a great movie, but not a documentary by any wild stretch, name changes or not.

Also, run a google (not right this instant, but when you have a free mome) on “HL Mencken quotes” (quote marks unnecessary; Mencken was a giant). You won’t be disappointed if your IQ breaks into triple figures. (Apologies to those who know about Mencken already.)

Happy New Year, y’all. Take your shoes off, set a spell. (Banjo roll…)

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