Posted 1:09 PM by Gene

As The TWO BILLS go off hand-in-hand into the sunset, curing all the world's ills, there is still time for joking:

Did you hear the one about Bill Gates at the Pearly Gates? Of course you didn't, because I just made it up.

It goes like this: Some years in the future, Bill heads for his final reward. He pulls up at the reception desk, where all his earthly deeds are placed in the balance.

"In the last few decades, I've been solving humanity's biggest problems," he explains modestly. "Through my foundation, I've wiped out malaria and AIDS, cured cancer, ended Third World malnutrition, and sent a billion poor children to school."

"Hmmm, very good," replies the gatekeeper, peering closely at the heavenly scales. "Your charitable works are most impressive. On balance, they just about make up for Microsoft Word."

The TWO BILLS are Boomers to the core, and in reflecting on their profound work we must ask, what will they leave behind? IE and the meaning of IS. They should reflect that they wouldn't be around but for global cataclysm. Who had more impact? Hitler and Tojo for starting a war -- and FDR for finishing it? Or the TWO BILLS with their blend of monomania and bathos, forcing people every day into their trivial pursuits?

Moreover this is the 37th year of THE ME DECADE, which Boomers have dominated utterly. Who can ponder any year of the decade without cringing? The Twenties (to give an example) were a majestic time, and those who lived through it can point to dozens of lasting achievements of the mind and the spirit with pride -- Lindbergh's heroism, for one. What can we look back to in this age? Disco? Leisure suits? Dallas? Friends? Oprah? [C]RAP?? Tonya and Nancy? Reality TV? Please! How apt that the defining moments of the decade have been abject catastrophes: the great national nervous breakdown of the seventies, 9/11 toward the end. Only the late eighties, with their false hope of world liberation, broke the trend, and no one saw Islam coming. We can look back to the Revolution and the Civil War and see heroes. When the future looks back at us, with swine like Nixon and cowards like Carter and caricatures like The TWO BILLS leading it, it will laugh, and sneer.