That Was the Year That Was

George Will looks back at 2009. An excerpt:

America's most portentous domestic event of 2009 was California's deepening crisis, which may prefigure the nation's trajectory. Abroad, Montblanc, the Swiss penmaker, with its eye on the potential buyers in India, commemorated Mahatma Gandhi with a $23,000 pen engraved with the ascetic's image. In the mall beneath the Louvre, culture mavens now can dine at a McDonald's. Brown University's faculty voted to rename Columbus Day "Fall Weekend," presumably to punish the explorer for spoiling the Western Hemisphere paradise where human sacrifices were still happening when he arrived. The Empire State Building was bathed in red and yellow light to honor the 60th anniversary of China's regime, which is responsible for more deaths than Hitler and Stalin combined.

[HT: Robinson and Long]