“History will judge, but I know enough to know – myself as an historian – that today's headlines are rarely the same as history's judgment and I think that's going to be the case here as well.” – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
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It’s the year 2102 and tenth-grade students at George W. Bush High School in Bush City, Missouri, (formerly Jefferson City) are in history class, learning about the early 21st century, a period that has come to be known as the Golden Age of American Politics.

“Can anyone name the greatest president in American history?” teacher Juanita Lopez asks the class.

A boy in the front row named Ranjit raises his hand and shouts, “Me, me, me. Ask me!”

The girl behind him, Chantal, giggles and whispers to her friend Selena, “Does he have to answer EVERY question? Isn’t it enough that he won the Spelling Bee?”

“Stop whispering, Chantal,” Lopez says. “Do you know the answer to my question?”

“Doesn’t everyone? It’s George W. Bush. Everything in this city is named after him: the school, the stadium, the stem cell lab.”

“If you knew the answer, why didn’t you raise your hand?”

“Uh … well … I’ve got a reputation.”

“Speaking of reputations, what is Bush remembered for?”

“Me, me, me. Ask me!” Ranjit shouts.

“Mark, do you know?” Lopez asks, calling on the half-asleep boy in the corner.

“He was a true conservationist.”

“Conservative, Mark, the word is ‘conservative.’ Yes, Bush believed strongly in conservative values. He was opposed to abortion, same-sex marriage, and anything on TV after 9 p.m. What else is he remembered for, Mark?”

“Uh … he was the most vacuous president.”

“Virtuous, Mark, the word is ‘virtuous.’ Yes, a couple of decades after Bush left office, some historians gave him the nickname ‘Honest George.’ Others dubbed him ‘Decent Dubya.’ Does anyone know what historians believe ‘Dubya’ stands for?”

“Me, me, me. Ask me!” Ranjit shouts.

“What about you, Selena?”

“D-U-B-Y-A,” Selena says, scratching her head. “I think it stands for ‘Democracy Under Bush Yielded Amusement.’”

“Pretty close,” Lopez says, smiling. “It stands for ‘Democracy Under Bush Yielded Affluence.’ America was a land of great prosperity under Bush. What else is Bush remembered for?”

“Me, me, me. Ask me!” Ranjit shouts.

“Gilbert, you haven’t answered any questions,” Lopez says, looking to the side of the classroom, where a curly haired boy is skimming a section in the history textbook entitled ‘Three Great Leaders of the Past: Gandhi, Mandela and Bush.’

“He saved the world from Saddam bin Laden.”

“Yes, just as Franklin D. Roosevelt helped save the world from Adolf Hitler, Bush saved the world from Saddam. He sent American troops to Iraq to remove the WMD: Wicked, Mean Dictator. Because of the Iraq War, millions of lives were saved. What else did he do, Gilbert?”

“He brought democracy to the Middle East.”

“Not just the Middle East, but the whole world. It took a little while for Democracy to catch on – all the natives had to be killed or tortured first – but once it did, it spread like a computer virus. It started in Iraq, then made its way to Iran, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, North Korea, and eventually to Florida. What else is Bush remembered for?”

“Me, me, me. Ask me!” Ranjit shouts.

“Mark, do you know?”

"He was a very divisive leader."

"Decisive, Mark, the word is 'decisive.' Once he made a decision, he stuck to it. He didn’t waver on the Iraq War, even though casualties were mounting. He believed in the mission, believed that the war would eventually be won, and he was proven right in the fall of 2032. Does anyone know why Bush wasn’t still in office then?”

“Me, me, me. Ask me!” Ranjit shouts.

“Chantal, do you know?”

“Uh … he died?”

“No, they had term limits back then. A few years after Bush left office, Congress voted to eliminate term limits for the presidency, realizing that America and the rest of the world had been deprived of many more years of Bush’s wise leadership. Ranjit, it looks like you’re dying to answer a question."

"Yes, yes. Please!"

"Can you name the president who preceded Bush?”

Ranjit closes his eyes and drops his head in shame. "No, I can't," he says. "There’s not a word about him in my textbook.”

Learn a New Word in a Femtosecond

Every now and then, I come across a word I wish I had learned in college, because I would have used it many times. “Callipygian” is one such word. It means “having shapely buttocks” and if you’ve never been called “callipygian,” trust me, it’s only because you refused to go on that date with the former Spelling Bee champion. You missed out on a chance to receive the compliment of your life. It’s something you’d want to put on your tombstone. “Here lies Fatima Khan: She was as callipygian as J. Lo and Beyoncé.”

“Callipygian” is one of many great words in the dictionary that only a few people use. Such words are doomed to obscurity and perhaps extinction, partly because the younger generation, communicating through email and text messaging, tend to prefer short words like “u” and “r.” Those may not seem like real words to you and I, but that’s probably because, well, “u n I r old.”

That’s why I had mixed feelings when a reader named Robert J. Baumann of New York City introduced me to an important word. Robert and I, incidentally, have something in common. On his website, he lists his favorite vacation as “anywhere my wife is.” That’s my favorite vacation too – anywhere his wife is.

I just got into trouble with both Robert and my wife and it happened in a femtosecond. “Femtosecond” is the word Robert wrote to me about, hoping I would expose it to my readers, so they can start using it in their daily conversations, perhaps as often as they use other F-words.

A femtosecond is one billionth of one millionth of a second. Ahmed Hassan Zewail, the Egyptian American chemist, used femtoseconds to measure certain chemical reactions. For his great pioneering work, Zewail won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1999, as well as the right to go through airport security one femtosecond faster than other people named Ahmed.

A femtosecond may seem like an inconceivably short time, but it does have applications outside science. If you’re a married man, you know all about femtoseconds. You experience them every day. A femtosecond is the amount of time it takes your wife to:

---glare at you when you look at another woman at the beach.

---start giving you a lecture when you make a wrong turn.

---switch channels after accidentally landing on ESPN.

---figure out if anyone at a party is wearing the same dress.

---decide what to buy when she receives a new credit card.

If you’re a married woman, you don’t need Dr. Zewail to explain femtoseconds to you. You’ve already got them down pat. A femtosecond is the amount of time it takes your husband to:

---glance at the instructions that came with the furniture assembly kit.

---figure out where the beer is kept at a party.

---switch channels after accidentally landing on Oprah.

---jump off the couch when you say, “I’m in the mood tonight …”

---groan when you add, “… for chocolate ice cream.”

Femtoseconds are not just for married people, of course. Almost everyone encounters them now and then. It takes only a femtosecond for:

---The short line at the post office to turn into a long line.

---Bill Gates to make a buck.

---George Foreman to eat a pizza.

---The New York cabdriver to honk when the light turns green.

---The drunk at the bar to notice that you’re definitely, most certainly, callipygian.