Come the end of a year and every pundit and soapboxer will want to tell
you the "best and worst of 1997." Thankfully, I'm different. I won't bore
you with a set of events heavily skewed toward the things that happened
after July. I will instead worry about how those self-same pundits will
react when the millenium finally rolls around. Will they do the highlights
of the century or will they do the highlights of the millenium? Something
tells me the two will not be very different, since everything chosen will
tend to have happened after the World Wars anyway.
This is like the poll that asked Americans who their choice for the best
ever president was. The majority view? Not Jefferson, not Washington,
not Lincoln, not Roosevelt. It was Kennedy and Reagan slugging it out
for the honors. Maybe it is because the public's memory is so short that
the punditry decide to play it safe. Note that I mentioned Roosevelt but
didn't mention Wilson. Maybe, I was figuring, my readers won't know who
he was ... Sorry about underestimating you, folks.
If folks were asked to choose the defining event of this millenium,
how many would choose one of the following:
The doctrine of the separation of church and state in Europe.
