Sit your place in heaven at once.

[blackiestark]

When does a decade begin?

No, this is not the old millennium argument. What I want to know is when the decade starts culturally -- when, in the future, we look back and agree on what event really made the new decade start to feel new. We can agree, for example, that the Thirties as we understand them began with the Great Depression, kicked off by

Comments

[dorothy_android]

I had a difficult time choosing the "Naughties" But in the end I went with Sept. 11th.

That really changed the world as I knew it.

Katrina was another tragedy but it seemed to only affect a handful of people compared with 9/11.

[blackiestark]

Well, I don't want to start a Katrina vs 9/11 flame war here, but let's do the math:

Deaths directly attributed to Katrina: about 2,500
Deaths directly attributed to 9/11: about 3,000

So now this brings up an interesting point: how far out do the ripples spread in the way a tragedy affects people? Because something like 200,000 troops have been sent to Afghanistan and Iraq because (cough) of 9/11. And we have to factor their families into the equation, too. Yet about 2,000,000 people along the Gulf Coast were affected by Katrina directly and profoundly. Then again, there are the civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan to consider.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this, especially the "handful" part, mainly because I've already listed Iraq and Bush as separate disasters here. ;) However, FWIW, I thought the 9/11 choice was so obvious I didn't even know if I should MAKE an entry for this decade. Shows you how differently people see the world.

[myrthrilmercury]

The way I see it, a decade begins and ends with something that shapes thinking and actions. Jon Stewart said it best with the implementation of Tom Ridge's color-bar chart: Code green, or pre-9/11, is when we were acting like music downloads, affairs with interns (he meant Chandra Levy, oddly enough), and what's happening on "Friends" is the end of the goddamned world.

Speaking of the Seventies, we do have the Kent State official inquiry sitting in the library. I really should check it out and read it before I move.

[blackiestark]

No, you should have it "disappear" and then send it to me. ;)

[ertchin]

My tongue-in-cheek delineation of the '70s is "that time period when the version of Match Game with Brett Somers was on the air". That is, mid-1973 to mid-1982.

[blackiestark]

You know what? That's not bad.

(I mean, the whole goddamn set was done up in shag carpeting. That and Tattletales.)