Jules Crittenden & Reflections On The End Of A Decade

With today marking both the end of an interesting year and the end of an interesting decade ("interesting" used here as in the ancient Chinese curse, "may you live in interesting times"), we will see many a retrospective penned in the coming days. The first one very worthy of note comes from the master of sarcasm, Jules Crittenden, though sarcasm is notably absent from his reflective piece this day. He started this decade - and the turn of the millenium - in the Holy Land. Here is a small portion from his post decrying a decade that began with hope, and ended with change for the worse, "God Damn The Naughts:"

. . . Up on the ancient mound of Armageddon, we could see Nazareth to the east, Mount Tabor, and the pass down to the Mediterranean. We were surrounded by, in fact atop the scene of many ancient and terrible battles. It wasn’t for nothing John of Patmos in his cave settled on Armageddon as the place where the world would end. It had been doing that on a regular basis there for centuries.

The sky was afire, blood red and terrible overhead. It looked great, very apocalyptic. But Garo needed someone to shoot amid the ancient wreckage of 16 cities, and I needed someone to quote. I caught a flash of black in the corner of my eye, a caped figure bounding across the old fallen stones at some distance.

“Look, it’s the Angel of Death,” I said. “Let’s go get him. . . .

Do read his whole post. It is an excellent essay.