-Caveat Lector-
Headline: Save the millennium party hats for next year
Byline: Laurent Belsie , Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Date: 12/30/1999
(ST. LOUIS)
Sorry to be a poop, but this isn't the dawn of a new millennium. It's not
the beginning of a new century or anybody's fin de siecle. When the clock
ticks past midnight on Friday, you will still find yourself confined to the
20th century.
Deep down most people know this. But there's so much hype suggesting
otherwise that it's easy to go Y2Krazy. The populace can't escape the daily
bombardment of millennial news, millennial celebrations (London is the
"millennial city"), millennial perfume - even millennial camping equipment
and a Web site to nominate a millennial cat.
But don't despair. A band of number-crunching naysayers is pricking the
millennial bubble with letter-writing campaigns and exposing it for what it
is: hype without history. A few people are actually listening.
"I just want to educate people about it," says Jim Bergevin, general
manager of a Slocum's Bowl-O-Drome in Ewing, N.J., and founder of the Real
Millennium Group (www.realmillenniumgroup.com).
"They're creating their own history, and they don't have the right to do
it," adds Michael Bucella, a 2001 holdout in Lima, Pa., who has written 150
letters to President Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and many
others trying to set the record straight.
No less than Arthur C. Clarke, the famous science-fiction author, has
weighed in on the side of Y2K+1. Of course, you might suspect the author of
"2001: A Space Odyssey" to be a little prejudiced. But his math seems
irrefutable. Since a millennium covers 1,000 years and the first "year of
our Lord" started with year 1, the last year of the first millennium had to
be 1000; the last year of the second, 2000. The same logic applies to
centuries: Dec. 31, 2000, marks end of the 20th century.
Even officialdom agrees, if it would just stop waffling. For example, you'd
think the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) would get
it right. After all, it runs an official atomic clock that doesn't miss a
second in 6 million years.
"It probably should be Jan. 1, 2001, because historically there's no year
zero," says NIST spokesman Michael Newman. But "there's no one that
mandates that [the millennium] ends on a certain date.... If you want
advice from NIST: Have a party now and a party then."
The US Naval Observatory, which keeps the nation's master clock, also backs
1/1/01 on paper. But on Friday, it will host a party to celebrate the
beginning of what it calls the "Millennial Year 2000."
Confused? Don't ask the scholarly Millennium Institute in Arlington, Va.,
for help. It offers three answers to the question: 1/1/01, 1/1/00, and
"Now!" ("Whatever date you pick to celebrate, consider that we are already
in a "Millennial Moment.")
So if your family has trouble picking its "Millennial Moment," don't
despair. Families bickered about the centennial moment in 1900, 1800, and
indeed, all the way back to 1300. Before that, so few people used this
calendar it hardly made any difference. (Bit of trivia: No one cared a hoot
about when this millennium began because almost no one knew it was
happening.)
Today's 2001 holdouts realize they face an uphill battle. "A lot of people
say: 'Why are you getting so excited? It's not important anyway.' I think
it is important," says Hilliard Lubin, a date-stickler in Camden, Maine.
"Think of the number of kids who are walking around thinking it's the new
millennium!"
"If you don't know when you are, how do you expect to know who you are?"
adds Mr. Bucella. For this New Year's Eve, "I tell everybody I'm going to
watch a Peter Sellars movie called 'Being There.' I'm not going to read a
newspaper because I know I'd be too upset."
Alan Dechert, founder of the Go2zero Committee (www.go2zero.com), wants to
start a new calendar and name 2000 "Year Zero" of the "New Era." The
Christian Right has criticized him for "zeroing out" Christ, but he claims
zero would merely level the playing field for other religions. It would
also defuse the coming brouhaha 100 years from now because Year 100 would
indeed mark a new century.
"It seems like the calendar has always been this way," he says. But come
Jan. 1, "I'm going to write 'Year Zero' on my checks."
To read this story online
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/12/30/fp2s2-csm.shtml
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