Word: secularization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Anathema to snooty WASPs, Berlin was the anthemist of Christian holy days ("White Christmas," "Easter Parade") and had a lot to do with turning them into secular holidays. The wandering Jew had embraced middle-America in his songs and his life, agreeing that his and Ellin's three daughters should be raised as Protestants. Whatever temptations celebrity and chorines might offer, Berlin was a doting and apparently faithful husband for 62 years; Ellin died in 1988, he a year later. Yet, when their first child Irving Jr., died after only 25 days - on Christmas - some of Ellin's friends supposedly...
...instant nostalgia items, some actual oldies (Les Brown's 1949 version of the 1937 "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm"), some that only seemed that way ("White Christmas"). "Annie Get Your Gin" spawned three top-10 songs but no #1's. His last charter was another secular spiritual, "Count Your Blessings" - #5 for Eddie Fisher...
...secular West no longer thinks in those terms. But radical Islam does. Which is why the Osama tape, reveling in the success of Sept. 11, is such an orgy of religious triumphalism: so many dead, so much fame, so much joy, so many new recruits--God is great...
...What the secular West fails to understand is that in fighting religious fanaticism the issue--for the fanatic--is not grievance but ascendancy. What must be decided is not who is right and wrong--one can never appease the grievances of the religious fanatic--but whose God is greater. After Afghanistan there can be no doubt. In the land of jihad, the fall of the Taliban and the flight of al-Qaeda are testimony to the god that failed...
...Camp David peace talks in the summer of 2000. After rejecting Israel's offer for a final settlement, Arafat returned home to encourage a new intifadeh, or uprising. Once the promise of a negotiated settlement with Israel faded, there was no longer a major ideological division between Arafat's secular nationalists and the Islamists, who reject any accommodation with Israel...