Decade 1

[in_parentheses]

I just watched the Y2K episode of Sports Night, in which Jeremy claims that the complete system failure during his Y2K test is "a metaphor for the new millenium

Comments

[imminently]

Black president. BLACK PRESIDENT!
Woman Speaker of the House of Representatives (and another woman was a legitimate candidate for the presidency)
Gardacil approved and sold
The Lord of the Rings movies
First black and first woman president of an Ivy league university
The price of computers is waaaaaaay down (and way smaller)
The iPod was invented
The West Wing
Nearly everyone, everywhere is living longer
Al Gore changing the way everyone thinks about climate change
Rise of locavorism, and happy meat
Pretty much everything except for housing getting cheaper (in constant dollars)
The Internet got waaay better (Youtube, gmail, rss, web comics)
High Definition TVs
Rapid improvement in the Human Development Index pretty much everywhere
Mapping the human genome, personalized genetic tests
Birth control ring
Improvements in health: 40% fewer deaths from heart disease, living so much longer with AIDS that we worry about problems of living with AIDS, fMRI

[tahnan]

I'd feel better about a lot of these things if they felt, I don't know, more deep and less, I don't know, cosmetic. I'm reminded of the line from comedian Bill Santiago that one black president doesn't counter 43 white presidents. Now, 43 white presidents in a row, that might count for something ("And even if we get to 42, if one white guy gets elected, we have to start all over

[imminently]

You wouldn't? I'm sorry Obama hasn't achieved everything we wanted him to achieve in his first 9 months in office (and btw, Don't Ask, Don't Tell would require congressional approval) but the election of our first black president is inherently a good thing, almost regardless of what he does in office. Same with having the second most powerful government official in the country be a woman. These are barrier-breaking events, regardless of the individual.

Also, I'm going to stand by the growth in average lifespan, HDI, the HPV vaccine and the reduction in heart disease as Good Things. And iPods. iPods are awesome.

[tahnan]

Obama hasn't achieved anything we wanted him to achieve (and while rescinding Don't Ask Don't Tell might require congressional approval, he hasn't taken any steps at all in that direction, and there's a lot he could do unilaterally). And barrier-breaking events could, I suppose, be considered good things, but not if the barrier is then rebuilt right behind the breaker.

The other things might in fact be good. Except iPods. iPods are awesome if you can afford them, perhaps.

[imminently]

He ended the policy of mountain top mining. He lifted the ban on stem cell research. That's two, right off the top of my head. If you don't see the election of our first person of color as president of the United States as an inherent good thing, if all you can see is that there are still racists in the world, if the only way breaking that barrier is significant to you is if the next president is also black, then there's no point in debating you. We just see the world too differently.

[tahnan]

You know, I've been mulling it over, and I think I figured out what it is about this that's been bothering me. Why is "our first person of color as president" an inherent good thing? I mean, it's clearly not an inherently bad thing, and I'll admit that it's a minorly good thing, but why is it an Inherent Good Thing, something good enough that it bears mentioning as one of the decade's Good Things?

[jangler_npl]

Last I heard, DADT repeal would occur in conjunction with the passage of next year's DoD appropriations bill. At least, that's the plan.

[tahnan]

Next year. Um, swell? Do you mind if I say "I'll believe it when I see it"? (I know, I know, I've gotten pessimistic. It's probably a result of (a) a crappy year and (b) paying attention to reality. The health care bill has sucked a lot of my faith in politics.)