What a difference a day makes.

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Accepting Wikipedia as my authority here, it was on this day, in 1991, that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was officially dissolved. In other words, if my children hear me, by some slip of the tongue, refer to the USSR rather than to Russia, or more precisely the Commonwealth of Independent States, or the territory formerly known as ..., they have no idea what I'm talking about. An entity that was a tangible part of my consciousness throughout most of my life (and can still be found in print editions of encyclopedias) simply disappeared. But had I posted this column one day earlier, I would probably have noted that it was on this (that) day, in 1922, that the very same Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was formally established. And had I uploaded on some other day, I suppose that I wouldn't have given a second, or in this case even a first, thought to this particular coincidence.

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Go to: The internet and some of its discontents.