2015 got off to an early start here at the Global Headquarters of Wrong, when the smoke alarm system went off at 5:45 am. Naturally, our guest revelers were still tucked in their beds, trying to sleep off too much Vueve Clicot and caviar, and there was no smoke. It fell to Wrongo to disarm the system, change a smoke detector battery, and subsequently explain to the human who called from the central alarm call center that indeed, there was no fire.
So, despite Wrongo’s plan to avoid posts until his company leaves, here, for your amusement is a quote that describes a point in the past, and that might yet be prophetic for 2015:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
The opening paragraph of “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens. The two cities referred to were London and Paris during the French Revolution that lasted 10 years, from 1789 to 1799. The book was written in 1859, seventy years after the start of the revolution.
Today, the two cities could be Washington DC and any one (or more) of the following: Teheran, Beijing, Moscow, Mumbai, or Riyadh.
But the domestic problems and burgeoning turmoil in the US today is loosely analogous to what France was going through in the 18th Century.
What are the chances that the outcome will be similar?
This was such a good opening that when i first tried to read this, i was so taken that i stayed up half the night to finish in one round. Did not quite do so, but probably read 2/3s in one sitting.
I was much younger then. Probably a summer night in college years.