It seems to me that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on this day in 1941 was long enough ago to be forgotten by most people alive today, but not far enough in the past to be considered history, and thus worth remembering.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it "the day that will live in infamy." Not only has the day not lived in infamy; it seems not to be living at all.

Can you imagine any current day politician daring to use the word "infamy"? She or he would be accused of elitism and I'd be willing to bet that 95% of his audience wouldn't know what the word meant (or how to pronounce it) out of context.

The world, my world, has changed a lot in these 68 years. Being patted down or wanded for weapons would have been inconceivable then--and there was a war on. Oh. I forgot. The "war" on terror. The one unilaterally declared by a President and not confirmed by Congress, because the Constitution is an out-of-date document, to be kicked to the curb (if there is any familiarity with it at all).

And a lot of things haven't changed. Then it was the Japanese; today it's the Muslims.

I wonder how historians will tell our times in a century or two?