Hemingway once said that good writing begins with the simple production of but one true sentence. OK. Here's something that's true. Hemingway is dead.
And not only him. Marilyn Monroe is dead. Lady Di. James Dean. Albert Einstein. Bruce Lee. Even John Wayne. In fact, a whole century of people are dead. The millennium creeps up on us, ringing in, at the stroke of midnight this Dec. 31, not only a crisp, new century but an entire carton of new centuries.
Or, if you are a literalist, make that a year later, on Dec. 31, 2000. And what a century it has been. Some may recall it as the bloodiest 100 years in recorded history. The shadowy time of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and oodles of other bad guys.