The View from Number 80

The century date change seems not to have been the disaster that many were predicting/looking forward to. (The first week of the new century was the ideal time to buy bottled water at giveaway prices as stores tried to clear unsold stock.) Apart from grumpy survivalists holed up in caves and basements the rest of us were happy or at least relieved, that it was business as usual, thanks to the updating and renewing of old software. (Some people are now moaning at the cost of this, apparently unaware of the concept of insurance. As my house hasn’t burnt down can I have a premium refund………….?) Note that I have not said millennium bug as of course the millennium had nothing to do with it and the century change everything. It was the jump from 19 to 20 in the first two date digits that was the worry.

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Profit

Prophesying anything has always had its risks – particularly if the prophecy fails to come true within your lifetime – you might have to explain yourself. Which brings me after a longer than usual preamble to the first website. Ed Yourdon was one of many who seemed to turn "Y2K" warnings into a veritable industry (he was co-author of the catchily titled "Time Bomb 2000"). The Netropolitan column of New Scientist magazine said of Yourdon recently, referring to the date rollover "….the author concedes that the problem may not have been as bad as expected…." in a letter posted on his website. Naturally I went to the website but perhaps through my own ineptitude could not find this letter. What I did find was a statement that all the "Y2K" articles and essays have been removed from the site and would soon be issued in book form. Thanks to the public library system at least I won’t have to fork out for a copy to find out what might have happened and perhaps why it didn’t. Ed Yourdon certainly deserves the View’s Turning Adversity into Profit (Prophet?) Award. (Further perusal of his site shows Yourdon’s credentials are impressive but I worry about anyone who says the movie The Matrix "….had a pretty clever plot line." - human beings as energy sources for a malevolent computer – oh please.

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Ed Cayce

Still with prophecy  is Morgana’s Observatory, an attractively put together site of prophecies and myths from around the world. The attitude here is very "open minded" and generally interpretations are not offered so that you can make up your own mind. All the usual suspects are present including Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce but there is at least a change from the usual "Western-centric" point of view on other pages as many cultures get a look in.. Also covered are  so-called mysteries such as the Shroud of Turin. I said the site was open minded but when I found a page entitled "The Fulfilled Prophecies of Nostradamus" the word gullible sprang to my mind. As has been said before, an open mind is a good thing so long as it is not so open that it fills up with garbage. I cannot resist quoting a piece from Morgana’s page on the Sphinx. "…the most interesting item I'd found concerning the Sphinx was what Edgar Cayce had uttered while in trance: that there were hidden areas below the Sphinx and that a Hall of Records would be discovered near the end of this century. All of the other resources were dry, uninteresting, and relegated this great, ancient structure to a minor existence -- constructed only as a memorial to one egomaniacal pharaoh or another. To me, this theory lacked common sense." Common sense indeed - Morgana’s Observatory is well worth a visit – for entertainment.

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Rapture Capture

Another prophecy site about foretellings of the end of the world is called It’s The End Of The World As We Know It……..Again . This is the perfect place to visit after you have had your fill of Morgana’s Observatory – a witty, funny and thorough debunking of the whole prophecy business. (And it certainly IS a business – Morgana lists 23 books and 7 videos on Nostradamus alone – it would be funny if the corruption of the sense of wonder was a subject for humor – though to be sure ridicule certainly has its place.) The equal or better of Morgana in layout and ease of navigation the content is… well, let the site speak for itself. "The following pages contain the most comprehensive collection of apocalyptic prophecies I could compile. Plus, discussion about the various types of Doomsday warnings and obsessions, quirks of the calendar, predictions of apocalypse from around the world and assorted other related stuff. So, if you think you have time to look them over before the Big One hits, the UV rays fry you, the nuclear winter freezes you, the Rapture captures you, the aliens abduct you, the earth opens up to swallow you, the black helicopters come to get you or the Satanic Y2K bug crashes your computer and plunges the world into commie-pinko conspiracy chaos, then, by all means, enjoy!" There, I couldn’t have put it better myself. I have as yet only visited a few of the pages from It’s End of The World…. but this is definitely one for my Favorites folder – highly recommended.

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Calling all Cretins

There should be little in the previous site to offend unless you are a prophet yourself but I am sure The Cretin Coalition  will do it for some people. Cretin is of course an acronym for Christian Republican Evangelical Teaching International Network – what else? The site is fairly basic compared to the two just mentioned but you will find here entertaining and, I hope, enlightening sections on God and Biology, Math and The Bible, and an interesting slant on Presidential hopeful George W. Bush. On reflection if you are a right-wing fundamentalist The Cretin Coalition is probably OK to visit as you wouldn’t get it anyway.

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Bunyips

The last site is an excellent resource for those interested in claims of the paranormal, supernatural and occult. The Skeptic’s Dictionary – A Guide for the New Millennium gives the opportunity to turn a critical spotlight on the extraordinary claims made by websites, magazines and TV programs. Even if your open-mindedness sits at the gullible end of the spectrum you owe yourself a chance to see things from a more, dare I say it, rational point of view as demonstrated here "from abracadabra to zombies". Professor Robert T. Carroll is to be congratulated on this well presented collection of over 338 articles with sections on Suburban Myths (NOT the same as Urban Legends), Mass Media and Internet Bunk, plus website reviews and much more. As with It’s the End of the World…. this is one for bookmarking. I leave the last word to the Skeptic’s Dictionary itself. " What you won’t find here is a sympathetic ear for psychics, gurus, prophets or bunyips." Hear, hear.