WHAT a wonderful anticlimax the turning of the year, decade, century and millennium (or at least calendar) turned out to be.
The world did not end. That's the main thing. The power stayed on. Everything worked. No bombs at celebrations, not even a panic. The Inner Harbor, Times Square, the Mall were all splendidly joyful.
What impressed the most people everywhere was the television portrayal of celebrations hour by hour in such places as Tonga, Sydney, Beijing, Moscow, Bethlehem, Rome, Paris, London, New York and Baltimore.
It was the global village, one world, everything that visionaries have been talking about for a half-century. People of many cultures, political systems, religions and languages were celebrating the same thing more or less the same way. It was also television doing what it can do best.
No one should lament the money spent warding off Y2K concerns. That problem was real.
The worldwide effort to deal with it was a major step in globalization for the common good. People may not all speak the same languages, but their computers do.
Similarly with the counter-terrorism vigilance that resulted in arrests in such places as Jordan and Washington state. The threats were genuine.
All told, it has been a successful transition, made all the more impressive by the smooth, uneventful, inexorable progress into years beginning with 2.
Congratulations to us all.
