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Show TUESDAY, JA4UARY 11, THE DAILY UTAH CHRONICLE cortilul Are We Really Glad Nothing Happened? 93 trow. Trivial Pursvlt everywhere) will know when they pass by his g!ass-&cio; sneakers and jersey. I can ust see it 30 ytari frork now, some little kid will be walking down ths hallowed halls of basketball fame and spot taose g!oriouc speakers and $y to his dad, Vcw, there $re umine Jones' saesJusru Tiurik: dad, ior tfcjng me tc see tJbcC" t dok't hate you c; GARDNER semi-celebri- Chronicle Feature Columnist ADMIT IT. CIVILIZATION through the millennium mark and with as much sputter as party favor; and you're disapYou wanted pointed. something catastrophic, earth shattering, arid why not? biblical to happen. No one can blame you. We were promised so much. YaK computer giiiches were going to choke power worldwide, terrorists were going to blow up Times Square, nuclear missiles were to be launched accidentally, a.d a diminishing water supply was to cause JUST muaaluJedJo." - th at'-rMa- a tkao W M u&t m imZw i fi&fof ;MJI e America, ibiaSteBitivc slobs turned to' thek iw$,:.lrienil on an. j ami 01 ftie Hrsi' bcwi of c I I A V jiurnbing conc'itions. "The first thought of the raiUearJuP-- I eyfr had wydid J drini so Mm oh my god, whr is sua chienagne petoiafced wither Instead, the TV fed you cheesy programming all night from New York'S'neon apple core, the missiles stayed cradled snugly in their silos, and toilets flushed with precision " - . Of coslwe, ih WJls is doing what it dees fet3t"':Perpe&&ttng the stupidity (seeiftK panic a while back). poor tucker sets shot in israel as aormafa gettkg out of bed it's "the fix st time-ieach jrooraingr-sn- d WW a poor ?ucVer millennium the "v got shot iii Israel' Shortly after midnight 03 Jan. 1, the first hat light in New York City took placeand th ndia jumped all over it, fusing tht re$Krt with as many rnillenniumlicijtnii barbed critiques of Mayor Sjtdolph GhilhiHas Some' 'V, possible, moron in La Vegas became the first moron of the miUeici tJ5jI feipself whea bs asxit'electrontd on a light pole and thee fell ox? headfirst about ten seconds after the "a&l- A ' Sotat-e- ; uaLered in lenciv.m '.. &Sll iJEr"-i J repdttfcr mtrror&J tfce j3rnea;jpe . everyone Jid tbirtas vegas would have been incinerated by cither Jesus or Algtran tenorisu. I luejs this sew ir iilfenniua is gocd -- j , everywhere. It is hardly a debatable fact that we thrive on tragedy. Rubbernecks to the core, we leer at every car crash, slow down at every house wrapped in police tape. Learning about a potential catastrophe, such. as a hurricane aimed for Florida, we pray that nothing tragic happens. And then, when the hurricane passes peacefully, we're disappointed. It's not that we want bad things to happen to people; it's just that, well, we want bad things to happen to other people. n tlTjiijsir of the man4it" for 6 saddealy hava siniftr things caucc. Suddenly, oing to the grocjfy and byeftl b store tosck meanirgfui. Suddehty, thoss cnf$y iobs we all ha?e arei 50; the jots of tlie new taiilehnjum Surjve aren't ointo work in Syibg ., ca:s cr btsying m& from robot cashier, but hell, I think tne ntiik does faste dif ferent, isd staring at my ccmpwtci screen ds& seem a little more exciting now i:hat ii's the first time in the new millennium I"v stared at my computer bad--they- ,r9 . screen for :6 straight hours. zero, ushering in a new era of egaiitarianism and the temporary suspension of ownership. associIt's possible then, that the ated with the peaceful new year is nothing new at all, but rather the classic revolutionary's lament for an unfulfilled dream that vacillates between chaos and Utopia, But of course, nothing happened. No falling planes, no bank accounts at zero; there weren't even locusts. Three years ago, the original predictions spoke of a global, undiscriminating crisis. However, by midday on Dec. 31, 1999, officials were merely advising citizens, to "drive carefully". The book on this issue is by no means closed. It's nearly a certainty that within the sparks of fear as they welded away at the circuitry. The second group was a conglomeration of politicians, authors, retail hacks and radio personalities, ail benefiting from the scare. Few outside of Utah knew who Bob Bennett was before he tooted his clarion horn of Y2K preparedness. In early 1999, he released JAMES ed or ner&in 2000 9 However, the Y2K scare added an interesting dimension to this clinical condition. This time, ugly things might have happened to us too. Images of universal doom were painted. And yet, many of us were still disappointed when nothing went wrong. Why? Could it be that anythingdeath, famine or pestilence is preferable to our current state of couch potato-hood- ? If ihe latter half of the 20th century taught us anything, it was how to be good spectators. Cable television alone offered us effort- less shifts through hundreds of square worlds, endless programming filled with stuff designed just for watching. After decades of hypnotic stasis on the couch, we were ready to be budged from the butt 16-in- ch grooves. Ihe drama leading to the most peculiar, n sense of let down unspoken and in history has many players. Aside from various religions that have for centuries whispered of an imminent apocalypse, two other factions fueled Y2K paranoia. First, there was the technological sector. Genuinely concerned about the myopic guilt-ridde- actions of their industry forefathers, computer scientists and other technicians worked rigorously to correct the situation, shooting let-do- ty United States Senate report cataloging everything that could turn sour when the microchips tried to make sense of all those a zeros. Late-nigradio talk show host Art Bell, whose program is a forum for conspiracy theorists, pseudo scientists, UFO and paranormal activity specialists, has kept his audience paranoid for over a decade. Bell proudly espouses a millen-nialiphilosophy which insists that the current state of worldly affairs and the unprecedented fast course of history are leading up to some cataclysmic event that will change civilization forever. This event, Bell and his colleagues have suggested in recent years, was to be the Y2K comput er bug. In fact, Bell, and his frequent guest, Gary North, were two of the first people to publicly address the possible glitch. Ug The timing, of course, fit nicely with miilennialism in general.'Not only would computers crash, but us! the Four Horsemen of the Apocaht a - - st -- ' -k Of the hundreds cf calamities that were slated to disrupt life as we know it, the erasing of financial records carried the most appeal Every student with a hefty student loan on their shoulders could appreciate the implications. In deviant moments, one fantasized, "What if I suddenly owed nothing?" Perhaps with all debt and all bank accounts erased, one thought, we would start anew at zeros wedgseemingly computer-menacin- g ing and swelling like glacial ice in the hard drives, the population just isn't going to be as worked up. Nonetheless, some of us, during the second chorus of "Auld Lang Syne" on Dec. 31, 2000, will hear in cur own playing of the plastic and cardboard party horn a futile, muffled call for chaos and change. 1 SET PAID nn v ...... ...r. ............... a e V o I lypse were due for arrival. Almost versa! doom were no one listened to historians who painted. And yetf correctly explained that the new millennium begins the first day of next few months the cf us were many and not 2001 2000. prophets of doom will circle a new spot on the calstill disappointed Fueled by the antics of Senator Bell and a handful of endar as the day the world Bennett, when nothing ends. savvy spokespeople, a lucrative fear industry emerged. With minimal acknowledgwent wrong. Why? The J. Michael Stevens Group, a ment of their calendrical ,. food storage company based in boo boo, Art Bell and his Salt Lake City, was able io expand its market minions will exhale, "Ahhh,..200i begins the new millennium after all. Heaven falls at prebeyond its priinarily Mormon customer base. Retail sales on emergency preparedness cisely midnight on Dec. 31, 2000. Bell has more catastrophes up his sleeve. items predictably skyrocketed. Dozens of Y2K preparedness books flooded newsHis latest book, The Coming Global Super-stcrstands. Many of ihe authors are featured anticipates the next ice age as an Bell's show. on almost immediate phenomenon. And there guests These entities tapped right into our are always the black helicopters dropping ambiguous sense of terror and latent desire anthrsx. The Four Horsemen are still waiting for catastrophe. Somewhere in the foggy preto trod us under hoof. dictions of the doornsayers, we saw a chance Two thousand and one, however, will be a for the air to be stirred. harder apocalypse to sell Without all those GET PUBLISHED. T i t mom wvott v x- w m & internet Bankino 4t 1 check your balances transfer money V verify if a check has cleared V make a loan payment V and so much more! V I The Chronicle Seeks Feature Writers. UNet is a snap to use,, and it's FREE to members! With UhJet, you caa do transactions and find out account information safely and securely right over the Internet. 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