Oakland Tribune Outtakes

3 Responses to “Naughty Aughties”

1. Luke Murphy Says:
   November 19th, 2008 at 10:15 am

   We’ll I am myself am looking forward to when this decade is as much the past as the 60s, 70s, 80s & 90s. I am looking forward to seeing what people think of it. So we called the 20s the Roaring 20s, the 50s the fabulous 50s, the 60s is called the sexy 60s & the 70s is called the Super-70s. I wonder if there’s any title for the eighties & 90s. Basically Terrorism will be to the to 2000s what Communism was to the 1950s. I wonder if there will be any social-movement in the Naughty-Aughties. What the greasers were to the fifties & the hippies were to the sixties

2. Angela Woodall Says:
   November 19th, 2008 at 10:51 am

   Amen. I will be glad to see the first decade of this new century become history, as in OVER. The dread and impotent anger that was a constant companion in these eight years crept up on me when I heard that Obama tapped Tom Daschle for health secretary. His ouster from Congress was a dirty, a dirty trick and far too common under the rapacious Republican dominance that marked 2000-08. I really felt like shame on U.S. voters for having let that happen. I am as fond of this decade as I was of the 80s, which is to say not at all. From the fashion to the politics, the 80s were one big mistake in my book and kind of uglied my youth.

3. Alan Hagedorn Says:
   May 2nd, 2009 at 6:10 pm

   Zeroties Ze • rot • ies
   • This decade (2000-2009) needs a name and Zeroties is it.
   • Like the Twenties, Thirties, Forties, Fifties, Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties, Zeroties follows the pattern.
   • Zeroties is up against one other candidate name – Aughties/Oughties. This British word “aught” means zero and does not appeal to Americans. (As a hidden bonus, when you say Zeroties, you hear “Aughties” in the middle.)
   • Zeroties makes sense because zero has been a very dominant idea and word in this decade.
   • Zeroties “says” zero ties the decade together… …and it really does.
   • Once everyone sees the need for and usefulness of the word Zeroties, it will win their hearts and minds.
   • Zero has been my hero ever since School House Rocks declared it so. Ever since kindergarten, zero has rolled off our rounded lips.
   • “The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. For centuries, the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the most important tool in mathematics. Today, zero lies at the heart of one of the biggest controversies of all time, the quest for the theory of everything.” Charles Seife (2000) “Infinity is zero with a twist.” Alan Hagedorn
   • Zero is both the lowest and the mightiest number. It is a value of none, but it makes the place-value system work. 1 is 1 until 12 zeros follow it. Then, it jumps all the way to a trillion…1,000,000,000,000 Wow! That is going to be a “looo,ooo,ooo,ooot” to pay back.
   Y2K (Year 2000) The world panicked about how computer programs might crash because they didn’t have 4 spaces for dealing with years. Computers registered the year 2000 as 00 and thought it is before 1999, which they recorded as 99.
   Zero major world crisis caused by Y2K
   Zero airplanes in the air on New Year’s night for most airlines
   Since there is no year 0 in the calendar, the new millennium didn’t even start on January 1, 2000…feeling duped we learn it starts on January 1, 2001 –but just like with odometers we love to see the 9’s turn into 0’s (we prefer zeros over new millenniums)
   Zero center – the Internet was conceived in the 60’s-90’s it was designed to be nuclear attack proof or to have no destroyable center, thus it is a center less network or a net…this decade it dominated the world
   Ground Zero — The catastrophe of the 9/11(01) – The anchor of this decade and this proposal
   Zero Tolerance Policies – get IU’s Bobby Knight fired and Swiss Army knife carrying Kindergarteners expelled
   Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation — blockbuster book published in 2003
   Marine “motto” Leave No Man Behind goes to education No Child Left Behind
   Zero percent – the US household savings rate in 2005 and 2006
   Zero Grams of Sugar rather than Sugar Free
   CocaColaZero (and Pepsi One – how perfect for the digital age)…Coke runs commercials about how CocaColaZero steals the recipe of Coke …Powerade Zero
   Pure Zer0 — Diet Rite’s name for its — 0calories 0carbs 0caffeine 0sodium colas
   Diet Pepsi packaging – 0 Cal Carb Sug
   Zero Caolories… …Zero Calorie Sweetener – Pure Via
   Zero Down … Zero Interest … Zero Payments
   Zero, Zero, Zero Sales by GM …and everyone else
   “Hurricane Katrina Zeros in on New Orleans” – as many stories read
   Zero costs [Free music, free Internet, free web pages, free computers] — the “Napsterification” of media (like the Wal-Mart Effect) — Napster 1999 (Metallica lawsuit 2000), NetZero 1998 (charges $ in 2001), Facemash/Facebook Oct. 28 2003, MySpace Aug 2003, Free laptop programs, YouTube (free on-line video space), Limewire … “Naption” is a good short form of “Napsterification” [“nap” (to steal as in kidnap) + “tion” the process of]
   Zero Grams of Fat… Zero Grams of Trans Fat – from McDonald’s fries to Girl Scout cookies
   0.???? second Google searches
   16-0 Patriots (2007) 0-16 Lions (2008)
   Oprah O Magazine, Obama O Logo
   Globalization 3.0 from The World is Flat (the 10 world flatteners converge in 2000)(Today, we say 3.0, rather than version 3)
   The Oval is the logo shape of the decade – look at car company logos…
   Zero Weapons of Mass Destruction found
   Michael Phelps wins his 7th of 8 Gold Medals by .01 seconds…effectively zero
   Chinese Olympics “Bird’s Nest” a big Zero
   Zero percent net gain for the NY Stock Market from 1998 to 2008
   Zero new large malls built in America in 2007, 2008, and 2009
   Zero or No Income Verification Loans
   Zero principal payment loans
   Zero Degrees – or a Credit Freeze
   Zero Dollar is mockingly passed out on Wall Street
   Zero International banks were willing to make interbank loans at the global interbank clearinghouse in New York City at the height of the meltdown — this was the official credit freeze 10/10/2008 – this bank-to-bank loan exchange is in-between Ground Zero and Wall Street…which are themselves less than 10 blocks apart –this event is the key part of
   …the “Economic Ground Zero”
   Salary Freezes – Home Depot leads the way
   Zero raises in many governments
   Pay freeze for top 100 White House Officials
   Digital TV (Digital information is all coded as Zero’s and One’s) – digital everything – binary bliss
   2009 in binary is 00110010001100000011000000111001
   Zero Percent Federal Funds rate – many things in the list like this, insiders would see as rare absurdities
   Already with no calories, Diet Mountain Dew changes its label from “Low Calorie” to Zero Calories
   NASA’s new fascination is studying Dark Matter — the nothing in outer space
   Zero Environmental Footprint
   Zero Carbon Emissions
   Zero Pollution … Zero Waste Factories
   Commissioned in 2005 and finished in 2008 the world’s largest particle accelerator CERN is located between France and Switzerland – it is going to be used to crash particles at the fastest speed ever (near the speed of light) in order to recreate the Big Bang like at the “Zero Hour at Ground Zero” or the creation of everything from the center
   “Zero cocaine, not zero coca” US and Bolivia official anti-cocaine policy in 2006
   Restaurant growth may be below 1% (or 0%) for the first time since it was measured in 1970
   For a time Citi (Citigroup/Citibank) – Citibank was the US’s largest bank in May 2008 and Citigroup is the world’s largest financial network — trades on Wall Street for less than a dollar $0.?? … …threatening its listing status
   41 Companies trimmed or eliminated their dividends by $40 Billion – Blue Chip Stocks with Zero dividends? … GE, JP Morgan, Dow Chemical
   Treasury Bills sold for “Zero” percent returns – during the economic collapse foreigners battle to buy safe US debt
   During this last year Federal Funds of about 1 Trillion have been created and distributed — this trillion dollars is merely digits in a computer – literally nothing
   $ 165 million given to AIG execs as bonuses, 3/17/09 members of Congress propose a 100% tax to get the money back – AIG chairman is only earning $1 a year
   In Pontiac, Michigan the school system gave every employee a pink slip – potentially all employees could lose their job…or Zero keep them
   Zero production – GM to shut down most factories for 9 weeks
   Zero percent inflation in US 1/08 to 1/09
   Sub-Zero percent growth — US Gross Domestic Product will show a decline this year of about 5%
   Sub-Zero percent growth of Gross World Product (the first time that total world output has declined on record) IMF predicts -1.3%
   “O CRDT CHKS” (Zero Credit Checks) Billboard by SafeAuto
   Zero Tolerance — for ocean pirates – a policy adopted by EU and France (and US)
   Zero Negotiations — a new way that we are saying we won’t negotiate with pirates/terrorist
   Zero Tolerance – the new policy of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation (and PTC) to stop electronic piracy of copyrighted materials
   Just for fun and a sign of what we can all uncover if we look at this decade through our very gr00vy New Year’s Double Zero glasses 2009:
   Zero people claiming fault for the world financial mess
   Zero middle ground between those who loved and those who hated George W. Bush
   Claims of “zero attacks on US soil” since 9/11
   Effectively, zero net jobs created by Bush Administration — losing them at about 20,000 jobs per day by the Inaugural
   There is no doubt in business, advertisement, government programming, popular culture, language development, digital advancement and historic circles that ZERO dominates or TIES the landscape of this decade and has left its footprint everywhere. As the decade closes out, Zero’s momentum grows and now is the time for us to adopt common use of the name and capture the collective experience of everyone. “Zeroties” on a BBC graphic 4/28/09… http://www.languagemonitor.com/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8013859.stm Zer☺ties

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