2011 is not off to a good start

Time periods are arbitrary, and just because December 31st ended giving way to January 1st does not mean a whole lot of change, yes.  But, we have been conditioned into thinking in terms of discrete time units, and we usually think of a new year as something that will be different, and better, than the old year.

So far, things have not looked promising.  Violence in the US--with the Tucson incident foremost on lots of minds--and abroad, increase in food prices and street protests, instability in Sudan, Ivory Coast and many other parts of Africa, ... and earlier this morning, a huge bomb explosion in Moscow's airport, ...

Well, ... Michael T. Klare, who is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, thinks that things might not turn out well, in his essay "welcome to the year of living dangerously"
Over at The Daily Beast, Leslie Gelb has his own list--of the profound and the silly

Me?  Some time ago I had blogged that we are due for another game-changing geopolitical event.  I think this might be the year for that.

in recent years the dramatic game changers in global history have been quite regular, about a decade apart:
1968: the Tet Offensive
1979: annus horribilis
1989: The Berlin Wall tumbles down
2001: 9/11

2011?