![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/cohen.190-150x150.jpg\")
<\/div>\nStart the Fire By ROGER COHEN (NY Times)<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
We Didn’t Start the Fire (2)<\/b><\/p>\n
Bill Clinton, Tina Fey, capitalist China, O.J., <\/p>\n
Asia rising, Facebook, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar <\/p>\n
Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ugg boots, Seinfeld <\/p>\n
West Bank, Gaza City, Tupac Amaru Shakur <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mohamed Atta, W.M.D., Harry Potter, Reality TV <\/p>\n
Tom Cruise, American Beauty, MP3, Oprah Winfrey <\/p>\n
Schwarzenegger, YouTube, America’s got organic food <\/p>\n
Armstrong, blogosphere, Monica Lewinsky <\/p>\n
We didn’t start the fire <\/p>\n
It was always burning <\/p>\n
Since the world’s been turning <\/p>\n
We didn’t start the fire <\/p>\n
No we didn’t light it <\/p>\n
But we tried to fight it <\/p>\n
Vlad Putin, Medvedev, Assad, Posh-and-Becks <\/p>\n
The West Wing, Y2K, massacre in Falluja <\/p>\n
Britney Spears, Spike Lee, Kurt Cobain, Sarkozy <\/p>\n
Mia Hamm, Heath Ledger, Viagra, Napster <\/p>\n
Lindsay Lohan, skinny jeans, Boston’s got a winning team <\/p>\n
Lehman Brothers, A.I.G., subprime, Ponzi scheme <\/p>\n
Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia, and a billion poor, <\/p>\n
Tehran, Hezbollah, trouble with the jihadis <\/p>\n
We didn’t start the fire <\/p>\n
It was always burning <\/p>\n
Since the world’s been turning <\/p>\n
We didn’t start the fire <\/p>\n
No we didn’t light it <\/p>\n
But we tried to fight it <\/p>\n
New Orleans, Bola\u00f1o, Sarah Palin no-go <\/p>\n
TiVo, Hu Jintao, and the vegan-eco crowd <\/p>\n
Tony Blair, Paris Hilton, Princess Di, Bin Laden <\/p>\n
Pyongyang, the renditions gang, Roger Clemens in a cloud <\/p>\n
ACT UP, Infinite Jest, O.J. Part Two, Johnny Depp <\/p>\n
iPhones, Federer, Who Let the Dogs Out? <\/p>\n
Halle Berry, cloned Dolly, and another Kennedy <\/p>\n
Jon Stewart, American Psycho, tsunami, Danger Mouse <\/p>\n
We didn’t start the fire <\/p>\n
It was always burning <\/p>\n
Since the world’s been turning <\/p>\n
We didn’t start the fire <\/p>\n
No we didn’t light it <\/p>\n
But we tried to fight it <\/p>\n
Sedaris, Unabomber, Girls Gone Wild, Nasrallah <\/p>\n
Jay-Z, Shanghai, shock and awe in Baghdad <\/p>\n
Amy Winehouse, Imus, gases of the greenhouse <\/p>\n
Kelly Ripa, Maureen Dowd, Ted Williams gone mad <\/p>\n
Outsourcing, Mumbai, so many didn’t have to die <\/p>\n
David Blaine, human rights, and Napoleon Dynamite <\/p>\n
Mandela, Madonna’s ex, abstinence, safe sex <\/p>\n
Rabin blown away, what else do I have to say? <\/p>\n
We didn’t start the fire <\/p>\n
It was always burning <\/p>\n
Since the world’s been turning <\/p>\n
We didn’t start the fire <\/p>\n
No we didn’t light it <\/p>\n
But we tried to fight it <\/p>\n
BlackBerry, global mall, Hillary Clinton standing tall <\/p>\n
Tiger Woods, Barry Bonds, MySpace, The Corrections <\/p>\n
Rushdie, Starbucks, Channel Tunnel, Spurlock <\/p>\n
American Idol, Black Hawk Down, Miracle on the Hudson <\/p>\n
Sopranos, Cougars, Da Vinci Code, life on Mars <\/p>\n
Saddam hung, Mugabe, traumatic stress, mission creep <\/p>\n
Social networks, match.com, iChat, Amazon, <\/p>\n
Terror cells, endless war, I can’t take it anymore <\/p>\n
We didn’t start the fire <\/p>\n
It was always burning <\/p>\n
Since the world’s been turning <\/p>\n
We didn’t start the fire <\/p>\n
No we didn’t light it <\/p>\n
But we tried to fight it <\/p>\n
Hawaii, Kenya, Kansas and Jakarta <\/p>\n
Harvard, finding God, social work, Axelrod <\/p>\n
Red state, blue state, unity can no longer wait, <\/p>\n
A time to reap, a time to sow, we will close Guant\u00e1namo <\/p>\n
Iowa, Yes We Can, McCain was just an also-ran <\/p>\n
I Have a Dream, Bush out, a black man in the White House <\/p>\n
We didn’t start the fire <\/p>\n
It was always burning <\/p>\n
Since the world’s been turning <\/p>\n
We didn’t start the fire <\/p>\n
No we didn’t light it <\/p>\n
But we tried to fight it <\/p>\n
We didn’t start the fire <\/p>\n
It was always burning <\/p>\n
Since the world’s been turning <\/p>\n
We didn’t start the fire …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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