The title Birkenstock Era should
be perfectly descriptive of the era I'm talking about and easily
understandable. It started in 1964 with the early spread of rock music and a few
drugs and the arrival of Salli Rasberry in San Francisco. It ended
last week with the triumvirate of events: the discovery of vast natural
gas supplies for an abundant energy future (which happened over a year), Climategate which put an end to the latest Armageddon theory and the Oslo
speech of the most radical Lefty president in history declaiming
against pacifism and proclaiming the exceptionalist thesis of
Americanism.
I've called the demise of several past eras
correctly: the end of the population explosion, the end of
environmentalism and the end of the women's movement.
Now I
can call the end of the Birkenstock Era. Whatever the new era is it
will be an era where we waste energy, don't give a damn about producing
CO2 and start enjoying our astounding prosperity. Lets eat to joy (eat meals
with an average distance traveled for the food of over 600 miles) drink to joy
(drink the widest assortment of imaginative beverages humans have ever
tasted) and be merry (thanks to the bountiful world of diverse humans,
goods, ideas, technologies and services brought to us by commerce).