Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2009 12:34:05 -0800 (PST) From: Mervyn Lobo <[email protected]>
The decade started out inauspiciously with Y2K hysteria, followed by the election of George W. Bush in the U.S., 9/11, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the war on terror, George W. Bush's re-election, SARS, various financial scandals, a vicious recession, and seems to be ending with a swine flu pandemic. In 1999, I had thought that this decade might be remembered as the Noughties, but a more appropriate name might be the Oh-Ohs. By Arthur J. De Souza Mario observes: Oh, I don't know, Arthur. Perhaps it seemed like an Oh, Oh! decade to you sitting sipping a cold one in the safety of Canada - unless you needed surgery or to be seen by a family physician - and pontificating about how awful George Bush was to "cause" all that chaos. But from the point of view of a now-independent Kosovan, a tsunami survivor in Indonesia, an HIV/AIDS patient in Africa, a liberated Shia or Kurd in Iraq, a liberated Afghan citizen, especially the women and girls, all grateful that someone risked and gave their lives to give tham a real shot at the freedom and democracy that you already enjoy, perhaps it has been a "Thank You God!" decade.
