Tom Walker wrote:
>
> Ditto. New world. Must travel without baggage for now.
Perhaps -- but it remains to be seen. The world changed, _for me_, in the weeks after the landing of troops in the Dominican Republic. But it was the same old world after all. Those points where the world 'really' changes are recognized only after some period of time. I doubt that the world has changed as much as it did (say) with the guns of August in 1914. Also, the claim that the world has "changed," that it is a new world, can come simply from recognizing how much change there has been all along. People keep comparing it to Pearl Harbor -- but those making the comparison are mostly those who only know Pearl Harbor through the memories of others. Had the Russians not turned back the German armies at Stalingrad, had the British not won the battle of El Alamein, Pearl Harbor would be but a small footnote in the history books. It is what happens afterwards that makes a "new world" new.
People do absorb disasters. If they are repeated in short order disaster as such becomes the norm; if they are not repeated, they dim in memory.
Carrol