Farewell, the American Century

[marmar]

from TomDispatch:



Farewell, the American Century
Rewriting the Past by Adding In What's Been Left Out

By Andrew J. Bacevich


In a recent column, the Washington Post's Richard Cohen wrote, "What Henry Luce called 'the American Century' is over." Cohen is right. All that remains is to drive a stake through the heart of Luce's pernicious creation, lest it come back to life. This promises to take some doing.

When the Time-Life publisher coined his famous phrase, his intent was to prod his fellow citizens into action. Appearing in the February 7, 1941 issue of Life, his essay, "The American Century," hit the newsstands at a moment when the world was in the throes of a vast crisis. A war in Europe had gone disastrously awry. A second almost equally dangerous conflict was unfolding in the Far East. Aggressors were on the march.

With the fate of democracy hanging in the balance, Americans diddled. Luce urged them to get off the dime. More than that, he summoned them to "accept wholeheartedly our duty and our opportunity as the most powerful and vital nation in the world... to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit."

Read today, Luce's essay, with its strange mix of chauvinism, religiosity, and bombast ("We must now undertake to be the Good Samaritan to the entire world..."), does not stand up well. Yet the phrase "American Century" stuck and has enjoyed a remarkable run. It stands in relation to the contemporary era much as "Victorian Age" does to the nineteenth century. In one pithy phrase, it captures (or at least seems to capture) the essence of some defining truth: America as alpha and omega, source of salvation and sustenance, vanguard of history, guiding spirit and inspiration for all humankind. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175065 (scroll down a bit after clicking the link)

[BayouBengal07]

1. So what century comes next?

Sino Century?

[marmar]

2. the AMSTERDAM century

:smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke:

[pscot]

3. The century of the neon dog

Korean (mad) scientists clone glowing dogs. Why? Because they can.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10229739-1.html

You can't tell me someone didn't think of glowing red eyes. Or even glowing white eyes. Just glowing eyes in general is cooler than a glowing red body...under ultraviolet light.

The Associated Press is reporting that South Korean scientists have cloned four dogs with the "power" to glow under ultraviolet light.

By day, mild-mannered (assumed) beagles. By night, they glow red...Um, OK?



According to the AP article, this is a photo of one of the glowing dogs, but I honestly can't really discern what I'm looking at here. I guess I'll have to take the AP's word for it