It's been quite a year in America. First, there was the 'millennium' (remember that?), then there was the tech-bust, and then (of course) September 11, Afghanistan, the Taliban, and one Osama Bin Laden.
In some ways, you might be forgiven for feeling if you lived in America that despite all this nothing has changed at all. Shopping is still the national sport. Pundits are still predicting a soft-landing for the economy. Microsoft is still selling Apple Mac's software cunningly disguised as Windows.
Survey
But then again, then again, things have changed. One of the most startling pieces of information I came across recently was the survey of the opinions of professors and students at America's universities about the war in Afghanistan. Survey, you say, that sounds interesting. Ah yes, but this survey had a spin. And its spin was the recording of any and all anti-war statements and comments from the universities. Macarthyistic black listing it may not be - but a list of casual, perhaps off the record, comments which do not toe the national party line is a little bit startling in the land of the free.
