Clever remembers the best and the brightest, the funniest and the
bleakest events, moments, things and people of this soon-to-be-late,
great century.
Events:
Best Decade: the Nineties,
and we predict that the Clinton Era will go down in history as one of
our best.
Second Best: a tie between the Twenties and the Fifties
Worst Decade: the Thirties
Our finest Moment: World War
II Normandy Invasion
and V-E Day,
followed closely by our worst moment: the bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki
People:
Dead before their time: Prince Di, JFK, MLK, Elvis,
Marilyn Monroe and James Dean
Smartest: Albert Einstein
Worst person of the century: a tie between Hitler and Stalin
Scariest: Freddie Kruger, the Boogie Man
Most amazing Athletes: Jessie Owens, Babe
Dedrickson
Most beloved Actors: Spencer Tracy and Kathryn
Hepburn
Greatest voices: Enrico Caruso, Frank Sinatra,
Maria Callas, and Barbra Streisand
Dancer of the century: Fred Astaire
Funniest: Bob Hope, Jack Benny, 3 stooges, Fanny
Brice, George Carlin
Saddest: Emit Kelly
Lost:
People: Amelia
Ehrheart, D. B. Cooper
Lost & Found: Livingston, the Titanic, the Hope
Diamond
Still Lost: The check that's in the mail, luggage,
my umbrella, reading glasses, City of Atlantis
Movies:
All time greatest: Gone with the Wind,
Casablanca, Wizard of Oz
Best thrillers: Day the Earth Stood Still,
Deliverance
Best movies with a social conscience: Schindler's
List, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, El Norte
Bleeding-edge movies: the 3-D Movies, Rocky
Horror Picture Show, 2001-A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third
Kind
Best girl-friend movies:
Grease, Dirty Dancing
Best kid movie: ET, any Disney animated
movie
Funniest movies: the Charlie Chaplin movies, the
Abbot & Costello movies, the Marx Brothers movies, Animal House,
Fish Called Wanda, Full Monte
Best movie Directors: Alfred Hitchcock, Steven
Spielberg
Most famous food fight: Animal House, the Cheers
Thanksgiving
Music:
Most romantic era: the Forties wartime music
Followed in the late forties by the music that
killed the era, represented by such examples as How Much is that Doggie
in the Window and Mockingbird Hill (Tra-la-la Twiddly-de-de). The voices
most responsible for this music: Patti Page, Snooky Lanson, Gisele
Mackenzie, and the orchestra, of course, was Lawrence Welk.
This sugar-coated Baroque period of trite music was
probably responsible for ushering in the rock'n'roll revolution. After
listening to Down By the Station Early in the Morning, it's no wonder
the teenagers of the early fifties went nuts for ShaBoom, Rock Around
the Clock and Heartbreak Hotel. When Elvis came on the scene there was
no turning back, no matter how much the adults howled and condemned him.
Post rock and roll,
music becomes edgier, nastier, louder. Does our music reflect our culture, or what?
Writing: (the editor's personal favorites)
Books: Grapes of Wrath, Gone With the Wind,
Alice in Wonderland, Feminine Mystique, Cider House Rules
Authors-Novelists: John Steinbeck, John
Irving
Mystery writers: Sue Grafton, Graham Greene
Thrillers: John Grisham
Travel Essay: Paul Theroux, Jan Morris
Intellectuals (dead): C. Wright Mills, Simone de
Beauvoir
Artists: Pablo Picasso, Andy Worhall,
Georgia O'Keefe
TV
Most Unforgettable moments: JFK's funeral, the Moon
Walk, the Ed Sullivan Elvis & Beetles Shows, the sixties riots, the
Vietnam body counts on the nightly news, Rodney King, CNN's Baghdad
bombing broadcast, OJ, Diana's Funeral
Best TV drama: Twilight Zone, Gunsmoke, The Law and Order Series
Best Comedy Series: I Love Lucy, All in the Family,
M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Cheers, Saturday Night Live, Are You
Being Served
Best Comedy Shows: Milton Berle Show, Jackie
Gleason
Talk: Oprah
Mini Series: Roots
News Broadcaster: Walter Cronkite
Comedy Host: Johnny Carson
Voice: Rod Serling, Mike Wallace
Magazine: 60 Minutes
Talent Show: Ed Sullivan
Game Show: Jeopardy
Kid show: Sesame Street
Worst moments: the endless commercials, the
gratuitous violence, and the fact that there's not enough of the good
stuff to watch, even though TV has proven itself capable of presenting
the very finest entertainment the world has known, and despite the fact that
the actors are ready and willing to work and people are writing like
mad, and there are plenty of stations in desperate need of something to
fill up the broadcast waves. What are you waiting for?
Medicine:
Greatest Achievements: Penicillin, the Salk Polio
Vaccine, Transplants
Biggest problems: AIDS, Cancer, the so-called
Health-care costs
The stupidest things we do:
Environmental damage
Smoking
Taking illegal drugs
Shooting each other
Hurting our women and children
Discriminating against people of color, women,
children, the aged, those with disabilities
Covering up the bad stuff
Believing conspiracy theories
Making war
The best things we do:
Exercise, Laugh, Volunteer, Give money to charity,
Keep Trying to Get Along, Working on our country's problems using the
democratic process, education, reforms and social protests, appreciating
good or even bad humor
And Finally, in this century our country produced
the most amazing agricultural, mechanical, industrial and technological
miracles ever in the history of the world, from the horseless carriage
to the computer. And I believe it is the computer that is poised to
produce the most astonishing and revolutionary changes during the next
century. The usual suspects have already been mentioned and honored
whenever computers are honored. But
let us not overlook the inventions and the concepts that were created
and jammed altogether into these boxes that we call computers. Who would know what to do with those transistors, wafers,
microprocessors, hard drives and all the rest of that geeky stuff if it
weren't for the following:
First and foremost is the Content: Our culture, our
history, and the need to store, retrieve and share it.
Technology:
Pony Express: for giving us the first notion of
fast mail delivery
Edison for the light bulb and photography and
moving pictures
Alexander Graham Bell for the telephone.
Hello?
Underwood & Smith-Corona for keyboards and
QUERTY for the key arrangement
Base Two mathematics, the foundation I/O Technology
And you put it all together and Viola! Le Computer!
Bravo!
Well done, Everybody. Now, let's all get back to
work. I just can't wait to
see what comes next! Happy
New 2000!