What a Difference 80 Years Can Make

It has been some time since I've compared front pages of the New York Times from eighty years apart. The eighty year cycle is key to the whole Strauss-Howe framework for history, as you know--but because we haven't gone through and successfully resolved a great crisis in 2026, as we had in 1946, this comparison illuminates the enormous differences between that time and ours. Yesterday's front page, which I will get to in due course, seemed such an acute portrayal of where we now that I was moved to do the comparison again. The first thing to note, as in other comparisons, is how much more news the 1946 front page contained. It includes fifteen different news stories and a world news summary in eight columns; yesterday's six-column page has six stories, and teases for twelve more at the bottom of the page.Two three-column headlines dominate the October 5 page. On the left, inflation, fueled above all by skyrocketing meat prices and shortages, is the story. Mayor O'Dwyer of New York has…