The "Millennium"

I don't read the "New York Times" everyday. Among New York City "intellectuals", this is tantamount to a confession which may forever lose me credibility. But it's just too long, and whenever I have it, I feel compelled to read every single article in every single section, which ends up taking up approximately two hours--time which could be spent much more constructively, like watching "Law and Order" re-runs on the A&E Channel. Plus, I love the "New York Post", even though I know it's a reactionary rag with crazed columnists. I was recently visiting friends in New Jersey, and I was amazed at the way in which the local newspaper actually printed, well, news. "The New York Post" has lost all pretenses to being anything other than what it is--a tabloid. For example, the tragedy of a bride being murdered by her ex-boyfriend on her wedding day was mentioned among many other articles in the "Times"; but I knew it would snag front page attention for almost a week in "The Post". On Sundays, it has unique little columns, like a single guy writing about his life of misery; I enjoy reading "Ask the Vet" even though I don't own any pets, but my favorite is "guy-gercounter", a weekly poll which might as well have been conceptualized by the late, great Ed Wood, Jr., The Eternal Master of Pure Lunacy. In it, an arbitrary man agrees to subject himself to be stopped on the street, photographed and rated by a selected panel of arbitrary women who work in professions ranging from salesclerk to music video producer, on his personal grooming and general sex appeal. They can categorize him anywhere from "No Chemistry", "Not Even Close" to "Oh, baby!". I'm glad the Numerology Lady is gone, however. In her entire year-long or so tenure, she gave only one cheerful weekly forecast. I used to send her e-mails saying, "Could you change your perspective and look on the sunny side of the street occasionally? You're depressing New Yorkers with these doom and gloom forecasts, and we tend to be depressed enough already."

I also love to hate "The New York Post", particularly it's right-wing, smarmy columnists. Some months back, I got into an e-mail catfight, the likes of which would have made Aaron Spelling proud, with Meredith Berkman, who appears to be distinguished only by the fact that other than having interviewed fellow braggart Kathie Lee Gifford for "Redbook", she is...Oh My God, Meredith, please tell us every single detail, just as if you, too, were a Hollywood celebrity...pregnant!

In her morally-bankrupt "Opinion" piece, "And Then I Heard the Heartbeat", Meredith "shares" the fact that she had been a life-long pro-choicer, until she became pregnant with her first child and heard the baby's heartbeat and saw it's image on a sonogram. Presented with this tangible evidence that the fetus was actually a person, she felt fiercely protective and wondered how she could ever even hypothetically contemplate aborting it! This epiphany, she claims, made her "pro-choice with an asterisk".

I maintain that you simply cannot be "pro-choice with an asterisk". You're either pro-choice or you're not, and if you write about your new-found ambivalences, you're giving fodder to Right-to-Lifers who will in all likelihood gleefully re-print your column in their literature and use it as an excuse to bomb more abortion clinics and murder more doctors, patients, employees and bystanders.

Furthermore, I felt like this article was a diss to the zillions of women throughout history who have had babies before technological advances like sonograms allowed them to see the image of their fetuses. Is Meredith saying that because previous generations of mothers didn't have access to state-of-the-art obstretical equipment, they couldn't "bond" as closely with their unborn children? Heck, my mother didn't even know she was having twins until after my older brother Alan was born, and then, ten minutes later, along came Jeff. Does this mean that she loved them any less, had less maternal instincts during those strategic nine months? Yet my mother, who gave birth to four children without acting like a martyr, saint, or movie star, has also remained a lifelong pro-choicer. Are adoptive or foster parents less loving parents, and should their love for their children influence their views on abortion? If a technological advance is enough to push someone out of the pro-choice camp, I'd say they were never too firmly entrenched in there to begin with.

But enough about Meredith, because, frankly, I think the whole column was just an excuse to boast about her pregnancy, (hopefully, she can creatively one-up her fellow columnarcissist, Susan Brady Konig, who "pre-wrote" the birth to her third child a week before the event actually occurred--making the infant somewhat akin to Jesus Christ, who was born before his birthday--see later reference in rant. Well, Susan, that was so very thoughtful of you because all The "Post" readers, especially yours truly, were ever so fascinated!!! A woman giving birth--call Eyewitness News, this has never happened in N.Y.C. before!). Can I stand the suspense of waiting for Meredith to apprise readers of the birth, the early days of motherhood, yadda, yadda, simply because it's Rule Number One in The Narcissist's Handbook? I recommend that both Berkman and Brady Konig call Burrelle's and purchase a tape of George Carlin's memorable HBO Special, "You Are All Diseased", so they can listen raptly to his brilliant take on yuppie parenting in the 90's. But, like with the remote control, which enables me to change channels, with Meredith, I also have an option...I can stop reading her. And if I ever stop being addicted to "The Post", I can always get my share of sleaze from "Salon". A top news story entitled "You've Got Male", in which author Michael Alvear asks the question, "How did AOL become the bathhouse of the Internet? (Size Matters)" treats us to a quote from a public relations expert and AOL chatroom devotee who proclaims, "I can have dick delivered to my door faster than a pizza." (One hopes there is a person attached.)

More compelling even than the "Post's" triumph in finding men who will permit themselves to be dissected by a panel of vicious, merciless and plain-out meanie-headed women judges: "he needs to work out more to be able to pull off wearing those tight pants--he looks flabby"; "his jaw is too square for that funky buzz-cut--looks pretentious", (are the guys overly optimistic, exhibitionistic, do they secretly suffer low self-esteem, or are they just looking for fashion tips from chicks?) was the random poll they conducted about the "Millennium", which is basically the subject of my rant. The question posed was whether the recent spate of earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters was related to the upcoming "Millennium". Every single person (ranging from college kids to middle-aged professionals) replied "yes". Many otherwise smart people I know also believe that "The X-Files" is not merely a creation of network television, but a prophecy: come the Year 2,000, aliens will land. To which I always reply, "Then why didn't they arrive in 1,000 A.D.?"

But this is disingenuous on my part, since I don't believe in a "Millennium". For starters, there's the issue of why anyone who isn't a Christian should consider the birth of Christ as the beginning of "the first calendar". Why shouldn't time have officially begun when the first hominids appeared on the earth? Why would the birth of Christ have any relevance to the millions of Atheists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists--or any other religious or non-religious group? And supposing that everyone agrees to use this Christian calendar nonetheless: I called the New York Public Library Information Service and was informed of the following facts: The Random House Dictionary states that the Christian Calendar is based on the Birth of Christ (B.C.), and yet, according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, Christ was born from between four to seven years BC Excuse me? He was born before his birth? Okay, since he was ostensibly born to a virgin mother, this, too, seems feasible. But here's my point: if there is a scientific discrepancy over exactly WHEN Christ was born; how accurate is our calendar? It seems like the evidence is overwhelming that the "Millennium" already occurred sometime between 1993 to 1996. Who knows? My point is: If this is the case, would everybody just CHILL OUT already? If the Aliens are disguised in the form of Meredith Berkmans, you can just send them a series of logical e-mails and trust me, they will back off.

The Meredith Berkman Pregnancy Watch and the Biblical Literalists

Don't you think the trend of www.everything-on-earth-becoming-a.com is making people more nervous than they already are? It reminds me of elementary school, where they would show us educational films in "assembly" about how, in the future, automation would make human labor obsolete, making us all wonder, 'Then, why bother growing up?' Perhaps the Internet has already taken over our lives, but must we be reminded of this fact 24/7? In any event, never let it be said that I do not live on-line, so kindly check out my bi-monthly rants at: http://www.Matahariette.com.

As I predicted in Rant #1, "The 'Millennium'", in a recent column, "I'll Take That Epidural", Meredith Berkman, the "New York Post"'s silliest columnist, (a Herculean feat), "shared" with her readers by updating us on her pregnancy. The gist of her "opinion piece" was that women oppress other women by pressuring them to have natural childbirth and by guilt-tripping them if they opt for painless deliveries. Oh, poor, sensitive Meredith, so vulnerable to peer pressure!!! If anyone I knew, was related to, or anyone anywhere had the incredible audacity and rudeness to even suggest the method in which I should deliver my unborn child, you can be assured I'd tell them to www.mind-your-own-fucking-business.com! Isn't the goal to actually HAVE THE KID, not to focus obsessively over its delivery?

I think an old episode of the classic t.v. show "Northern Exposure" summed up Lamaze. In it, Maggie O'Connell (Janine Turner), the well-meaning optimist, tricks Dr. Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow), the pragmatic man of medicine, into lecturing at a clinic for expectant mothers and their mates. Joel says, "Ladies, here are the four words you'll need to know when you go into labor: I WANT MY EPIDURAL!" Irritated, Maggie tries to teach everyone Lamaze breathing techniques, but later in the episode, a woman's contractions begin, and despite Maggie's patronizing New Age Advice, the incipient Mom screams out, "I want my epidural!" Case fucking closed.

Perhaps you are thinking, 'How can this Hariette Ranter find time to write if she watches so much television?' Maybe I'm adept at "multi-tasking", as long as I'm given a "head's-up" that a project I'm working on is "green-lit". I proudly espouse the position that well-written television shows (current and on reruns) are superior in quality to anything I read in all the generic j-school glossy magazines (see upcoming J-School Rant) which proliferate like roaches, or most webzines, with exceptions, like Cyber Corpse. Let me not even discuss the cinematic atrocities of 1999, which may be rant-worthy if I can force myself to recall all those tedious, ludicrous, wasted hours. No, I refer specifically to "Oz", "Law and Order", "Sex and the City", "The Sopranos", "The X-Files"...and in reruns, "Homicide", "Northern Exposure", "Seinfeld", "The Equalizer" (wouldn't we all like to be Robert McCall for a day and tell someone, "My name is Robert McCall. You are going to do exactly what I tell you to do in the next five minutes or you will be very, very sorry, indeed"And everyone always does it!). And since Saul Bellow's son is writing a book about nepotism, might I plug my cousin Jonathan Katz's animated comedy, "Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist"? I wish "Wiseguy", "Miami Vice", "Crime Story", "E-Z Streets" and "thirtysomething" were still on. I was nothing less than devastated when Patricia Kalember said in "TV Guide" (hey, it's a better read than "Esquire") that she had always hated her role as the cranky Susannah Hart from "thirtysomething". I worshipped Susannah and her refusal ever to capitulate to other people's expectations and behave politely, or even moderately socially, even when she was an (infrequent) guest in their homes. In "Beauty and the Beast", under-utilized but consistently compelling actress Jo Anderson, playing Detective Diana Bennett, who lived alone in a secretly-located loft, was constantly breaking dates with her boyfriend, even forgot her own niece's birthday, and was generally rude and unaccommodating, gave everybody a hard time. When she finally agreed to take on the case of who killed Catherine Chandler (Linda Hamilton), I was jazzed. Every week, I wondered giddily, 'When will Diana discover that Catherine's mystery love, Vincent, was actually half-lion?' More importantly, 'Is Vincent and Catherine's baby leonine or human?' Now, THERE was a celebrity baby I actually gave two shits about.

Which brings us back to the "New York Post", and mediocre columnists trying to transform themselves into celebrities by tediously telling us about their pregnancies. Meredith Berkman's fellow columnarcissist, Susan Brady Konig, recently wrote about how strangers make rude comments to her because she has more than two children (this pre-dated her riotous account of cleaning up an old house she's moving into to accommodate her brood). Did someone recently pass a journalism law mandating that women are only permitted to write about maternity? "Like, duh, hello", I seem to remember a rather wide-spread feminist movement, spurred on by the publication of Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" in 1963. No wonder a Lesbian friend recently called me a "breeder". At the time, I pissily retorted, "I don't cast aspersions on your sexual preferences, so would kindly not criticize mine using terminology derived from the Aryan Nations." Upon reflection, perhaps "homegirl" just reads more newspapers and magazines than yours truly: what else are women writing about other than "breeding"? "Girlfriends", It's a "Ladies Home Journal" World! In an edition of the Sunday "New York Post", there was an interview with Marilu Henner, which I read because I was in an Ed Wood, Jr. kind of mood. In it, I learned this fact: "A few years ago, she also hosted a documentary, 'We're Having a Baby', that followed her second pregnancy right through the 4 a.m. delivery - all of which was televised." Coincidentally, I saw that there was going to be an e! cable t.v. special on the perky actress in "TV Guide". In it, Marilu, filled with what she called "Hennergy", said (not verbatim, but this was the general idea): that she had decided to make the documentary so that other women could observe the processes of pregnancy and childbirth, thus de-mystifying them. Liar! She just wanted to brag about her baby like every other Narcissist in America. While she did not reveal what John Leguizamo refers to as the "vaginga" in his Emmy-winning HBO Special, "Freak", there was a scary moment when the baby's head began to crown while Ms. Hennergy sat on the toilet. "Oh my God!" she screamed. Now I'm worried that if I have a baby, I might not make it to the hospital in time and it will fall into the toilet bowel and drown!

READERS, PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME WHY WOULD ANYONE CARE ABOUT ONE SINGLE DETAIL OF MARILU HENNERGY'S PREGNANCY? In the e! special, I also discovered that she wrote a book "sharing" her very own parenting techniques. Since the majority of American women can barely afford to pay for decent day care for their children because they're underpaid and overtaxed, why would they listen to the advice of a zero-charisma former television sitcom actress who can afford countless nannies, elite private schools, organic produce... The Narcissism disease is knocking off women with the intensity of the Body-Snatchers. But, wait, I'm being www.unfair-to-my-sisters.com. In the November 8th issue of "The New Yorker", a new father, John Seabrook, published an opus defending the practice of his ten-month-old son "co-sleeping" in his marital bed. This oppressive drivel could have been contained in a mere paragraph: "The United States Consumer Products Safety Commission's chairwoman, Ann Brown, published a study in October, 1999, saying that 64 infant deaths are caused yearly by babies sleeping in their parent's bed (they either get smothered, strangle in the bedding, or drown in waterbeds). Yet in 1997, 2,705 infants died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and many experts, such as James J. McKenna, a biological anthropologist at Notre Dame University, suggest that 'solitariness may conspire with infantile deficits to increase infant risks.'" Case fucking closed! If you want your baby to sleep in your bed, the percentages justify that you can do so without feeling guilty about it. But that's not what Seabrook REALLY wanted to write about (and write...and write...and write). He wanted to wow us with his closing paragraph, about how, despite the sleep deprivation "co-sleeping" has induced, he continues to practice it because otherwise "...what I would miss is the sight of my son's face just as he is waking up...And then there is this smile, a big, radiant grin provoked by nothing more than the mere presence of another day." What killer Anne Lamottian-calibre imagery!!! What a unique and original concept! Perhaps salon.com really is "The New Yorker of the Internet", because the creatively-challenged John Seabrook would be a perfect pick to start a new column, "Fathers Who Don't Think". LADIES AND GENTLEMEN ALIKE, I IMPLORE YOU, PLEASE STOP BRAGGING ABOUT YOUR CHILDREN RIGHT NOW BECAUSE NO ONE CARES!!! WE DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK, BECAUSE WE DON'T KNOW YOU OR YOUR BABIES!!! We care about our own children, our friend's children, our nieces and nephews, but not about your anonymous offspring. All babies smile, coo, gurgle, throw up, spit up...maybe Baby Seabrook wakes up feeling happy because he has just moved his bowels. It only takes a village to raise a child when you're living on a kibbutz. (Even Hillary Rodham Clinton, Esq., First Lady and superstar lawyer wrote a book about "breeding", not a tome of brilliant legal insights, damnit.) The giant peapods are stacking up in the backs of trucks across the land, inspired by Anne Lamott, whose child-rearing frustrations she candidly discusses in salon.com, even though she outs herself as an emotional and physical child abuser according to the statutes of the California Legislative Analyst's Office; Seabrook; Henner; Demi Moore's "controversial" "Vanity Fair" pregnancy photo; Brady Konig and of course, Meredith "Call Eyewitness News, I'm Pregnant" Berkman. Could Meredith's attempt at breederly wit conceivably be lamer: "I'm convinced that mothers are pregnant for nine months so they have time to organize their closets." In her most illogical column (so far), "Not the Usual Celebrity Split" she analyzes the decision to divorce by Howard and Alison Stern, noting that her husband was wisely unfazed when she tearfully informed him, "Howard's getting a divorce!" while eating a bowl of soggy Cap'n Crunch. "Now I'm not saying that Howard and Alison Stern were role models," Berkman muses, "I've never met them, so I wouldn't know." Gee, Meredith, I sometimes enjoy Howard Stern's radio show and agree with his contrary takes on current events, but I think you would have to be www.totally-out-in-the-ozone.com to even speculate on whether the Sterns were "marital role models". Howard Stern grew livid and spewed vitriol to the press when Kathie Lee Gifford wrote him a letter of condolence--he'd probably jerk off on Meredith's tree-waster. Let's examine Howard Stern, alias Fartman, who in all probability would not describe himself as "compassionate". He hosts a nightly television show on e! in which he encourages an assortment of not terribly bright but always desperate and pathetic young women to disrobe on national television, telling them how much he'd like to sleep with them, insulting their intelligence while complimenting or criticizing their physical attributes...in-between constantly complaining about the unsatisfying sex life he had with his wife and how he had to use a vibrator to get her off. (I can only imagine the hellish school experiences of the three Stern daughters: "Eww, gross, your daddy talked about finger-fucking your mommy in the dedication to his book!") When I try to conjure up marital role models, the Sterns would rate about as highly as John and Patricia Ramsey. Yet Berkman actually continues on this train of thought, "But the public death of a private marriage is a sad spectacle with a ripple effect that has very little to do with fame: We feel for the broken family in question, and cherish the family we have at home." Yes, hearing the news of Howard Stern's marital break-up made me weep profusely!!! I could barely bring myself to surf the Net, which I do more than ever since I've cancelled all my magazine subscriptions, except for "T.V. Guide".

While pretending to diss "our culture of celebrity worship", Meredith Berkman proves again that she's the biggest autograph hound around.

Because I believe that Ed Wood, Jr. is hiring "New York Post" columnists from Planet Solaranite, along comes the www.not-as-attractive-as-she-claims-she-is-according-to-her-photo.com Amy Sohn (oooh, catfight...down, boys!) who formerly had a column in the "New York Press" where she constantly whined about how she could never get laid, yet somehow failed to inspire my empathy, since it's really not that difficult a task, and who completely alienated me as a reader when she meticulously "shared" all the details of expelling a large turd at a potential lover's apartment (sorry, Amy, I just personally really "didn't want to go there"). It was not her lackluster yet megalomaniacal prose that occasioned my infrequent readings of Sohn's "Gee I Met Another Cute Guy But He Didn't Want to Fuck Me" columns, nor the fact that "New York Press" is free: no, it was pure fascination on my part that someone so eager to give up the vaginga could be so consistently "clueless" about succeeding in her quest. Also fixating on Howard and Alison Stern's break-up, in one of her "New York Post" columns "Stern's Not-So Private Parting" (perhaps it was a typo that should have read "Farting"?) Amy quoted an anonymous woman who said that "whenever she and her boyfriend fought, she took refuge in the fact that Howard and Alison stayed together, but now she felt hopeless." Yet the newest columnarcissist never explored the obvious issue: why should anyone compare her own relationship to that of a celebrity's? And if they do so, shouldn't she go get: an ego, a shrink, "a life", a "reality check"?

C'mon, Wacko Jacko, publish a book about "parenting"...a 20% discount to all NAMBLA members!!!

I often ask myself which is more frightening; salon.com; Anne Lamott; Meredith Berkman; the world in general; people who believe in The Millennium (according to a recent "Newsweek" article, this encompasses most Americans, who are convinced that the world will end in the year 2,000) or The Biblical Literalists.

On October 10th, 1999, "N.Y. Times" reporter James Glanz, in an article "Science vs. Bible: Debate Moves to the Cosmos" revealed that last August, a furor occurred over the Kansas School Board's vote to "remove evolution from its education standards." This decision was apparently influenced by "a handful of SCIENTISTS whose literal faith in the Bible has helped convince them that the universe is only a few thousand years old." (On October 17th, an international team of REAL scientists airlifted an unearthed almost fully intact, frozen woolly mammoth, from the Siberian tundra, estimated to be 23,000 years old. They were co-funded by television's The Discovery Channel...hmmm, what was their agenda? On November 1st, 1999, a a dead coelacanth fish was discovered in a fish market in Indonesia, fascinating the fossil folks, since the original coelacanths originated approximately 16 million years ago. The discoveries keep coming: on November 4th, paleontologists found the bones of a previously unknown dinosaur, a 60-ton giraffe-like creature 110 million years old.) But if the earth is only several thousand years old, then all these sneaky scientists must be zealously inventing these facts, and clandestinely manufacturing these fossils, bones, humongous footprints, etc., collectively conspiring through the decades, utilizing the same creative verve and intensity with which Holocaust deniers claim that Nazi death camp photos are faked and Holocaust survivors are liars. And all those college courses I avoided because I thought science teachers were geeks--little did I know that they are the true artists of our age! Re-create a fake T-Rex? I couldn't even come up with a decent Halloween costume!

"Young Earth Creationists", as they are also called, have invented their own theories to explain how cosmic history could be condensed into mere thousands of years.

"Beyond the expunging of the Big Bang Theory", wrote Glanz, "the board also took out references to the hundreds of millions of years of Earth's geologic ages and modified sections on using the slow decay of radioactive elements to measure the age of fossils and other rocks."

"The theory relies on a peculiar feature of Einstein's equations which predict that powerful gravitational fields can speed the progress of time (as in, time seems to go faster when you're having fun?) and, in effect, makes clocks run at different rates in different places."

So Dr. Russell Humphreys (a nuclear weapons engineer at Sandia National Laboratory) has concluded that "the earth is close to the center of a structure related to a black hole, in which gravity is especially intense, so that billions of years could pass in deep space while only a few thousand years went by on Earth."

"Hello?" "Dr." Humphries makes NUKES? Sandia is a U.S. Department of Energy National Security Laboratory. Humphries believes the world is only 2,000 years old, but he's using the most advanced technologies ever invented to zestfully help destroy this new, young, fresh planet. Sandia, a Lockheed Martin Company, leads the market in manufacturing supercomputers, an intrinsic component of nuclear weapons. Incidentally, the Lab was investigated by Congress when nuclear secrets were leaked to the Chinese. A techno-wizard who has decided to reject all rational scientific evidence because of his religious "beliefs"? Does anyone else find this dichotomous? Monotheist extremists should not be allowed to create weapons of mass destruction!!! A certifiable schizophrenic responsible for my "national security"? Are we all feeling as nervous as yours truly?

"This theory can even be reconciled with the existence of the Bible," writes Glanz. ("Even"? Wouldn't that be the whole point of creating such an imbecilic and delusional concept?) "According to another 'scientist', Dr. Hugh Ross,"... six days of Genesis could stand for six long periods of time." (Like six periods of 776 million years, "Doc"?)

I don't have a science or engineering degree, but wouldn't this imply that the ancient Africans, Mesopotamians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Mayans, Jews, Romans never existed...or that they only existed in the past 2,000 years? I'm currently reading a book about ancient Mesopotamia, but according to the Biblical Literalist Boys, its author, who examined all those artifacts discovered in archaeological digs must be demonically possessed, because he claims that their culture existed in The Fourth Millennium, B.C. Somehow..."I don't think so"... "I'm down with his program." This author seems rational and his evidence--"ancient art, from temple architecture and palace reliefs to cylinder seals and filigree jewellery", as well as "accurate and readable modern translations of the extensive Sumerian and Babylonian literature" is persuasive. My pick for "Nutjobs of the Year" would be Humphries and Ross. Since we know these anti-evolutionists don't accept the evolution of the hominids dating back 5 to 6 million years ago, expliquez-moi the almost-but-not-quite-human-looking skull of The Tautavel Man, (too large for him to wear zee beret) discovered in France in 1941, and estimated to be 450,000 years old. Oh, je comprend! Since he was French, he must have had joie de vivre, and les cloches et horologes must run really fast in that hedonistic country, making Monsieur Tautavel about 500 years old (?) on the Biblical Literalist timeline.

Legitimate scientists everywhere: mainstream scientists, physicists, astronomers, cosmologists, etc., such as Dr. Jerome Friedman, a physicist at M.I.T. who won the Nobel Prize in 1990 for collaborating in the discovery of "quarks", are understandably appalled, infuriated and distraught over the potential spread of such unadulterated idiocy, according to Glanz. But Kansas City Board Member Steve Abrams, a VETERINARIAN is blase, saying there were "legitimate scientific doubts about whether the universe is more than several thousand years old." A Nobel winner's views versus a vet's? Hey: No contest!!!

Another Board Member, John W. Bacon, profession not disclosed, said, "I don't understand what they're squealing (like...pigs?) about. Millions or billions of years ago...I wasn't there, and neither were they."

Clearly, they gave the Nobel to the wrong man! Dr. Jerome Friedman, please surrender yours to John W. Bacon, who has invented an entirely new system of logical thought process. NOBODY WAS THERE, SO NOBODY KNOWS NOTHIN'! Therefore, the earth could well be anywhere from 130 (the approximate age of the world's oldest survivor) to infinity years old!!!

Are these Fruit Loop fanatics really so far removed from the mainstream, with national polls showing that the majority of American citizens not only believe in biblical millennial revelations, but also in the existence of angels and devils? I never thought of "Reader's Digest" as the contemporary "Ramparts", but in its final issue of "The Millennium" a "noted historian", Paul Johnson re-assures his readers that Christian churches currently have one billion followers, and possibly two, so that if Jesus Christ were to re-surface in the "Third Millennium" he would "Hear the same injunctions he addressed to the common people of Judea almost 2,000 years ago." Thanks, Mr. Johnson, and the relevance of your soothing remarks to the non-Christian world is...?

Most American adults were taught the Bible when they were children. As Johnson remarks, "nearly half of all Americans attend places of worship." Why continue believing it as if it were The Gospel as adults? They are onto Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny (hopefully) so why, why, why are they still convinced that Adam and Eve were in a garden, and a TALKING SNAKE (which language did it use?) told Eve to tell Adam to eat an apple? Every time I try to read the Bible, I just skip over to the Corinthians, which is so gorgeously poetic, but nonetheless, I obsess, 'What about the dinosaurs? How come the Bible never mentions the dinosaurs?' Did Adam and Eve look around and realize they were naked and surrounded by dinosaur corpses? Are the Biblical Literalists saying that all those dinosaur footprints, bones, and re-constructed skeletons are only 2,000 years old, or that the only dinosaurs that ever existed were the digitalized creations in the movie "Jurassic Park" and its sequel? Drs. Russell and Ross, I must insist that this seems www.highly-unlikely-to-the-point-of-you-should-have-your- degrees-retracted.com. But maybe Call Eyewitness News, I'm Pregnant Meredith Berkman, whose brains have clearly become addled by eating too much Cap'n Crunch, might become a convert.