The Millennium

by Hariette Surovell

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.

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