The Cohen's List

NYT Op-Ed Columnist Roger Cohen's list:

With apologies to Billy Joel, who’s more of a chronologist, and in tribute to a president, Barack Hussein Obama, representing a new post-cold-war generation of 21st-century Americans.

We Didn’t Start the Fire (2)

Bill Clinton, Tina Fey, capitalist China, O.J.,
Asia rising, Facebook, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ugg boots, Seinfeld
West Bank, Gaza City, Tupac Amaru Shakur
Mohamed Atta, W.M.D., Harry Potter, Reality TV
Tom Cruise, American Beauty, MP3, Oprah Winfrey
Schwarzenegger, YouTube, America’s got organic food
Armstrong, blogosphere, Monica Lewinsky

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Vlad Putin, Medvedev, Assad, Posh-and-Becks
The West Wing, Y2K, massacre in Falluja
Britney Spears, Spike Lee, Kurt Cobain, Sarkozy
Mia Hamm, Heath Ledger, Viagra, Napster
Lindsay Lohan, skinny jeans, Boston’s got a winning team
Lehman Brothers, A.I.G., subprime, Ponzi scheme
Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia, and a billion poor,
Tehran, Hezbollah, trouble with the jihadis

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

New Orleans, Bolaño, Sarah Palin no-go
TiVo, Hu Jintao, and the vegan-eco crowd
Tony Blair, Paris Hilton, Princess Di, Bin Laden
Pyongyang, the renditions gang, Roger Clemens in a cloud
ACT UP, Infinite Jest, O.J. Part Two, Johnny Depp
iPhones, Federer, Who Let the Dogs Out?
Halle Berry, cloned Dolly, and another Kennedy
Jon Stewart, American Psycho, tsunami, Danger Mouse

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Sedaris, Unabomber, Girls Gone Wild, Nasrallah
Jay-Z, Shanghai, shock and awe in Baghdad
Amy Winehouse, Imus, gases of the greenhouse
Kelly Ripa, Maureen Dowd, Ted Williams gone mad
Outsourcing, Mumbai, so many didn’t have to die
David Blaine, human rights, and Napoleon Dynamite
Mandela, Madonna’s ex, abstinence, safe sex
Rabin blown away, what else do I have to say?

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

BlackBerry, global mall, Hillary Clinton standing tall
Tiger Woods, Barry Bonds, MySpace, The Corrections
Rushdie, Starbucks, Channel Tunnel, Spurlock
American Idol, Black Hawk Down, Miracle on the Hudson
Sopranos, Cougars, Da Vinci Code, life on Mars
Saddam hung, Mugabe, traumatic stress, mission creep
Social networks, match.com, iChat, Amazon,
Terror cells, endless war, I can’t take it anymore

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Hawaii, Kenya, Kansas and Jakarta
Harvard, finding God, social work, Axelrod
Red state, blue state, unity can no longer wait,
A time to reap, a time to sow, we will close Guantánamo
Iowa, Yes We Can, McCain was just an also-ran
I Have a Dream, Bush out, a black man in the White House

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire ...

The New York Times, January 18, 2009