I'm a big fan of new beginnings.  Over the past twenty years I have had no qualms about rebooting my hairstyle when my life froze up. I am one of those people who makes New Year's resolutions and considers birthdays and anniversaries motivation for establishing forward momentum, too.  It's nothing mystical or magical, but they do present us with a useful way to conceptualize passing time, and give us benchmarks for the future.  People say our calendar is arbitrary, but what isn't?  Use your illusion, baby.

Because the decade drawing to a close coincided, give or take a few months, with my thirties, I have been, in a way, lamenting and celebrating its passing for half a year or so already.  My thirties were about as action-packed as it's bound to get for me.  But my decade opened unassumingly: drinking Ouzo with my dear friend Csaba and staying out of the summer rain. The dawn of the new decade — the new millennium — by contrast, found me cowering under my desk, waiting for the world to end.  Remember Y2K?  I had a Mac back then, but still.

When I think back on how mine opened, it was calm, clear, and hopeful. Though it seems improbable now, I could be forgiven, back in 1999, for looking ahead with optimism. The collapse of the Soviet Union had opened up a new world of possibility.  The EC was moving Europe forward (and my own career was tied to this inevitable evolution).  The dollar was strong.  Despite their faults, there were politicians in the nineties who were young, dashing, whip-smart, and articulate.  And they were talking about Third Way politics and the challenges of Open Societies.

Within a year, all that was ancient history. 

The decade — the new century — opened with the Heist of the Century: a brazenly — spectacularly — stolen election in the heart of the "free world" while the whole world watched. 

Which brings me to my list. 

My personal list of worsts will have to wait for posthumous publication.  This one is dedicated to less personal atrocities — which were somehow no less keenly felt. 

I know it's easier to make a ten worst list than a ten best, but as I thought back on the decade that was, and the one that might have been, I felt wronged, and like the world was wronged.  Not only in the political arena, but in the promise of science and technology to advance culture, too.  It was, for me, a decade that lost the vital sense of civility, in every sense of the word.  From cellphones, which became the new smoking, to civil liberties, which went up in smoke. 

History rarely offers redress, so a top-ten list will have to do.


1. The U.S. Presidential Election of 2000.  Those who stole this election characterize those who remain appalled by it as partisans and sore losers.  But I think what happened was appalling in its own right, regardless of your political persuasion.  Stolen elections are like that.  And it opened an era of lawlessness that laid waste to our civil institutions, any vestige of sense and civility in our national dialogue, and — last but not least — ravaged our economy.  The Bush-Cheney regime heaped class war on culture war.  What was destroyed in eight short years will not be rebuilt for generations, if ever, especially given Bush's Supreme Court appointments.  The American Century was not just over, it was obliterated.  Just. Like. That.

2. 9/11.  Like everyone who witnessed it I remember it like yesterday, but I can't even imagine how history will view September 11, 2001. The tragedy of it is so profound and so layered, the reality of it so obscured, that those of us who actually witnessed it will never be able to put it in any kind of perspective.  It exposed species of evil almost unimaginable at the time to many of us — from the blind nihilism of Jihadis, to the bald-faced economic and political opportunism of the GOP. Human life was not only totally expendable to the terrorists, it was also totally expendable to those in office who brazenly exploited terror for political gain and profit.

3. The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Afghanistan continues to be a losing proposition.  And while many — Obama foremost among them — distinguish between the "good war" in Afghanistan and the bad war in Iraq, neither war was really justified and neither can be won.  Together, over the past eight interminable years, they have cost us nearly a trillion dollars (billions lost or stolen), not to mention the cost in blood and honor.  These wars, which both rage on, are completely illogical and immoral.

4. Gitmo.  It's a gulag, people. This type of facility, along with practices like "extreme rendition" and provisions in the Patriot Act which allow for the suspension of Habeas corpus and indefinite detention based on secret evidence, will haunt the US legal system for decades to come.

5. The Rise of the Radical Right and the Culture of Fear.  It's hard to believe we're still arguing over Creationism and quoting Bible verses on the abomination of homosexuality.  Unfortunately, there is no burden of proof for fanatics.  The cultivation of ignorance as a legitimate argument against scientific inquiry in our public discourse was perfected under the Bush-Cheney Regime.  It allowed them to rely on fear as the sole legitimation for policy, foreign and domestic. 

6. Total Media Meltdown.  These guys obviously play a huge role in advancing and promulgating this Culture of Fear in the sensationalistic approach to everything from terrorism and flu pandemics to gay marriage and the health care debate.  Reality TV (a term commonly used to describe "reality" programs produced since 2000) has become a kind of cancer, spreading all over the dial.  Meanwhile the merger of news and entertainment perfected by Fox has been adopted as the industry standard.  As newspapers lose their footing, they, too, have started peddling schlock, trying to keep up with internet rivals.  

7. The Obesity Epidemic.  Interestingly, recent studies have linked the Culture of Fear with epidemic obesity.  Stress and fear elevate cortisol levels, triggering a glucocorticoid effect — excess glucose is then used for lipogenesis.  Likely only one piece of a very complex puzzle, Americans' reaction to increased obesity rates has, true to form — and much like the climate change debate — ranged from utter hysteria to outright denial. 

Um, something's going on, people.  That's all I'm gonna say.

8. The Economy, Stupid.  People are acting like they're still baffled how we ended up in the financial quagmire we're in. Here's a simple explanation: it's the assholes.  The same assholes that always lead you into a quagmire.  And we're assholes to follow them there and jump in like it's a friggin pool party in the Hollywood Hills.  Just sayin.

9. The Colonization of the Real World by the Virtual.  While social networking and online dating sites played a role in preparing us psychologically for the dawn of transhumanism, the colonization that had begun with cell phones — weapons that obliterated the sanctity of public spaces — and portable DVD players and ipods — which shielded users from interaction with others — was finally complete when the internet went fully mobile in '07 with the introduction of the iphone, a merging of cellphone, ipod, and internet technology.  The mothership has finally landed. 

Not to mention the texting zombies. Twitter got a lot of good press out of the Iranian uprisings earlier this year, but texting, while useful in a revolution, apparently, is getting out of hand everywhere else.  Americans now text more than they talk.  Is it really easier?  I mean, what's going on here?  If it were an answer to loud, obnoxious "Can ya hear me now?" type phone calls in public I'd applaud, but it's a behavior with its own host of equally obnoxious offshoots.  People stumbling around like zombies while they text, walking into traffic, and running people over in their cars. 

10. Bennifer.  I mean, WTF?