In the nation's biggest news weekly, the final headline of 1999 posed a question that preoccupies many journalists these days: "A Second American Century?"

Providing some answers on the last page of Time's Dec. 27 issue, pundit Charles Krauthammer was upbeat. "The world at the turn of the 21st century is not multipolar but unipolar," he wrote. "America bestrides the world like a colossus." We are supposed to see this as a very good situation.

"The main reason for the absence of a serious challenge to American hegemony is that it is so benign," Krauthammer went on. "It does not extract tribute. It does not seek military occupation. It is not interested in acquiring territory." With such declarations, Time magazine echoes its founder, Henry Luce, who coined the "American Century" maxim six decades ago.

Like his colleagues in the punditocracy, Krauthammer recognizes that foreign rivals are restless. ("The world is stirring.") Yet the outlook is favorable: "None have the power to challenge America now. The unipolar moment will surely last for at least a generation."

The arrival of 2000 reminds us that life is short. Deadening routines often squander our time, while evasions take unnecessary tolls in human suffering. But much better possibilities remain.

Every day, a nationwide media barrage encourages us to be cynical and passive. Endless dramas of politics and grand commerce -- amorality plays -- are performed with great zeal. We're supposed to cheer. But many of us find the glorified spectacles to be dispiriting rather than uplifting.

The words of America's leading politicians reverberate through a national echo chamber. They tout global supremacy and higher market share as ultimate virtues. Dissenting voices are mostly circumspect. Pundits debate how -- but not whether -- the U.S. government should use such measures as diplomatic arm-twisting, financial blackmail and military might to impose its will on the world.

In June 1900, troops of the Western powers broke the Boxer siege of the embassies in Peking, looted the Empress Dowager's summer palace, and thus, destroyed for a time the valiant nationalist effort to halt colonial exploitation of China. And now, here we are at the other end of the century, listening to leading lights of progressive American politics, from Nader's fair-trade campaign, from the AFL-CIO and assorted NGOs, plus, leading lights of right-wing American politics, all calling for China to be denied admission to the WTO. What happened in between? Oh, it's an old story now. China had a revolution, a series of revolutions, in fact. Other poor countries did, too. They tried to redistribute land and wealth, build an industrial base, foster internal demand, get a fair price for the commodities they needed to sell abroad. The Western powers didn't care for that any more than they liked the Boxers. They mustered armies to crush these revolutions, hired mercenaries, saboteurs and spies. They never relented, never forgave.

Some revolutions struggled on for several decades, in varying states of siege, boycotts, embargoes, economic sabotage. One survives.

It's one of the marvels of the season that Bill Bradley has been able to muster to his cause such bankable liberal names as Senator Paul Wellstone, Prof. Cornel West, Robert Reich and the editor of The Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel. This passion for Bradley is strange. After all, Bradley is a man who flirted with the idea of running for the presidency in l996 on an independent ticket, with Colin Powell.

Lately, Al Gore has been tagging Bill Bradley as a free-spending liberal of the kind that the vice president and Bill Clinton have worked so tirelessly to extirpate from the party. There isn't much substance to the charge. Indeed, on the big issues, trade, labor, defense, crime, health care and the environment, Bradley and Gore are pretty much indistinguishable. Both sedulously follow the neo-liberal line charted by the Democratic Leadership Council back in the late 1980s.

        In a media world with few bright spots, I'm thankful for "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."

        Every day, people of all ages are watching hyped-up and commercialized TV programs that emphasize surface appearances. Sitcoms often brandish put-downs as cutting edges of humor. When aiming at children, many shows rely on computer-generated glitz.

        But for half an hour, five days a week, Fred Rogers looks into the camera and into the hearts of viewers -- mostly preschoolers -- who hear about simple and humanistic values. Mister Rogers explores how feelings matter. He doesn't talk down. He doesn't dodge tangled emotions. And he engages in plenty of fun.

        There are recurrent moments of whimsy, like saying "Hi fish" to the occupants of a little aquarium. The other day, Rogers devoted a few minutes to playing with brightly colored paper cups, building pyramids. And there are always interludes in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, a kind of parallel mini-universe mainly populated by puppets (who seem more real than most of what passes for reality on television).