In the old days, it seems to me, people went in far more for predicting the future. Whether it was Da Vinci’s foreseeing flying machines, Jules Verne’s envisioning Imagine if a modern-day Rip Van Winkle suddenly woke up after an extended snooze, and everywhere he turned, he’d be confronted with the frivolous, the inane and the downright goofy. It’s not just the fact that such complete ninnies as Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears, are serving as role models for young girls or that people as obnoxious and as contemptuous of America as Rosie O’Donnell, Michael Moore and Jimmy...