BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
No doubt about it, America, we have a problem.
The '90s are about to pass into the '00s, and we still don't have a name for the decade.
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YOU NAME THE '90S
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Latest update from Northern Ireland by Associated Press
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Other decades had their names: The Roarin' '20s, Depressed '30s and Turbulent '60s. The Me Decade in the '70s and the Greed Decade in the '80s.
Now we have the Nameless '90s and little more.
Maybe they don't have a name because nothing happened that deserves a name, said Peter Lloyd, founder of Right Brain Works, a Newport-based think tank that arranges brainstorming workshops for local and national businesses.
"I might go with the Null '90s," he said, "because they're just, well, here. That's all. They aren't peaceful, but they aren't terribly warlike. They aren't gentle, but they aren't brutal, either. It's almost like the new '50s, we've gotten so darn straight." Dr. Ray Browne, chairman emeritus of Bowling Green State University's department of pop culture, thinks something happened, but it was inside of us.
"If anything, we should call it the Doubting Decade" Dr. Browne said. "We doubt the president now. We doubt $1,000-an-hour lawyers. "Computers were supposed to save the world, but now we find they can't even transition into 2000, so we doubt them. We doubt science. Every other week medicine comes out with something that used to be good for you but isn't anymore, so we doubt.
"This kind of doubt, this unsureness of ourselves and our world, hasn't happened before, and it's something that I think defines the times."
