Chuckles. Needed that.

Diane

Have a safe and happy last Fourth
ROB MORSE
EXAMINER COLUMNIST
July 1, 1999
)1999 San Francisco Examiner

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/archive/1999/07/01/NEWS14981.dtl

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

JUST WHEN I was getting used to a real summer in San Francisco, the idea of dueling Clintons in the Senate and a guy named George Bush wowing conservatives by pretending to be Bill Clinton, I learn the world is going to end on Sunday.

Damn that Nostradamus, spoiling all the fun. On the other hand, I won't have to fix that retaining wall.

Nostradamus, a 16th century French apothecary, astrologer and the second-best-selling author in history after God, used to make his predictions by sitting on a brass pole in a trance and staring into a bowl of water.

That's as good a methodology as anything used by pollsters, pundits, weathermen or Alan Greenspan.

The one prediction Nostradamus gave us with an actual date on it is, according to a standard translation: "In the seventh month of 1999, from the sky will come a great King of Terror."

It's Y2K too soon. Maybe all those computer designers weren't so dumb to make room for only two digits in their computer clocks.

On July 4 (or 17, or 24, or 28, depending which Nostradamus buff you believe), the "King of Terror" will appear in the sky and 27 years of world war will ensue, killing a third of the world's population.

Obviously, this will not be a NATO war using smart bombs. The Lawrence Livermore Lab might want to check its inventory to see what's missing.

As for this "King of Terror" appearing in the sky on the Fourth of July, he'll probably be obscured by the fog just like San Francisco's fireworks.

Here we live in the New Age cult capital of America, and we probably won't even get a good end of the world.

Maybe the King of Terror will appear over Jesse Helms' home state and we can watch on CNN.

Sunday's end of the world hasn't received much publicity in this country. We're too busy living the good life to repent.

In Japan, Nostradamus is the biggest hit since Hello Kitty, with thousands of Web sites and celebrity chat shows devoted to his predicted apocalypse.

The end of the world provides a certain relief from recession and bank failures. Doom is the ultimate Chapter 11.

The United States has a red-hot economy, and frankly we don't want to be distracted. Nostradamus is just another bear - or 500-year-old Y2K bug - who'd have us invest in freeze-dried food and batteries.

The problem with Nostradamus is that his words are as slippery as Bill Clinton's. He played games with language, mixing French, Latin and anagrams, perhaps even redefining est - the verb, not the encounter group.

This left him open to much interpretation and translation, and he always gained something in translation. Napoleon found a prediction of his glory. Goebbels found a prediction of the thousand-year Reich.

Others have found predictions of everything from Princess Diana's death and the Gulf War to the success of Adam Sandler's movies. Well, they could, if they worked hard enough at it.

Now we have a prediction of a King of Terror - coming soon, to a sky near you, replacing the grand finale of the fireworks show.

So what if it comes with a date, "the seventh month of 1999" ? Already the interpreters, debunkers and New Age bunko artists are hard at work on Nostradamus' text.

Why plan the end of the world for the busy Fourth of July weekend?

In another part of his book Nostradamus supposedly said something about bad things happening on "the Day of the Eagle," which believers interpret to mean the Fourth of July.

It also could have something to do with a moon landing, Budweiser snack food or priority mail.

There's another problem here. Sunday's end of the world may have to be postponed 13 days because Nostradamus was working with the Julian calendar.

And here's another problem. According to scholars, Nostradamus' texts have been corrupted over the years. The "King of Terror" Nostradamus refers to is un grand Roy d'effraieur in recent texts, but in the original editions of his book the word was deffraieur. The lack of apostrophe makes a big difference. It turns the predicted Big Guy in the Sky from a terror to "one who defrays, buys off, appeases or is a spendthrift."

Thus, come Fourth of July, a King of Terror may not appear in the sky, but a politician.

Big deal. They're always appearing in our sky, flying into town to collect campaign donations.

As much as anyone, I'd like to see the end of the world come Sunday. I wouldn't have to pay my vacation Visa bill, vacuum the house, figure out the difference between "compassionate conservatism" and "practical idealism" (leave that to the Nostradamus scholars) or write my Sunday column.

I was going to run this one Sunday, but I'm running it now, just in case.

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), July 04, 1999

Answers

I've always thought that predicition meant SEPTember.

peace, Dan

-- Dan G (thepcguru@hotmail.com), July 04, 1999.

We were curious about Nostradamus so did our own research. Guess what? The 7th month of 1999 quatrain is NOT the only one which specifies a date! There are at least two others which are being interpreted in many different ways. The "feast of eagles" reference was nowhere near the 1999 quatrain. We don't see that as July 4th anyway.

What we did find were some eerie exact odd predictions that came exactly true. So we're still looking up in the sky through October, just in case ...

Y2K is a definite zinger, technically documented and barrelling directly at the world omnipresently.

Something to keep everybody on their toes these days.

xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxx

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), July 04, 1999.

yup- keep watching for that blue-green thing up there......

-- farmer (hillsidefarm@drbs.net), July 04, 1999.

I saw a movie back in the 70's about his predictions.

I don't want to guess who produced it, but the gist was the ninth day of the seventh month, fire will reign from the sky upon the "New City" (New York)? By the light of a newly discovered comet. (LEE?).

The movie depicted a middle eastern ruler sending a volley of nukes toward the NEW CITY, all but one of which will be destroyed. The last one will make it through.

The interpretation went on to say that Mars(God of war?) will reign before and after.

There is also a question as to the calander he was using was Julian or not. He may have been reffering to the month of September. (99/09/09/)

For more info, try this site http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/saturn.htm

-- christa (christamike@hotmail.com), July 04, 1999.

I had a strange idea ... if you believe in psychic predictions, or prophecies, can they be fallible? What was Nostradamus "receiving"? Could it be movies. All sorts of fictional material could become part of "prophecies".

-- Bruce (bwebber@ameritech.net), July 05, 1999.