Arthur C.Clarke says 2001 is "real" party time
Reuters
2000-12-27 23:56
COLOMBO, 27 Dec (Reuters) - Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, author
of "2001: A Space Odyssey," urged the world in a New Year message on
Wednesday to celebrate "the real beginning" of the new millennium on January
1.
"The intelligent minority of this world will mark 1 January 2001 as the real
beginning of the 21 century and the Third Millennium," British-born Clarke
said in a statement from his home in Colombo.
"Those who celebrated the twin events a year too soon are also invited to
join in the celebrations," said Clarke, who has been deluged with requests
for media interviews ahead of the New Year.
Clarke felt so strongly about people calling the year 2000 the beginning of
the new millennium that he issued a statement in 1999 to try and correct
them.
"Though some people have great difficulty in grasping this... we'll have had
only 99 years of this century by January 1 2000," he said at the time.
EAGER ANTICIPATION
Clarke thanked late film director Stanley Kubrick, who made a movie based on
"2001 A Space Odyssey," for the almost universally acknowledged association
between himself and the year 2001.
"Perhaps no other year before or since 1984 has been awaited with such eager
anticipation (and I like to think, with far less apprehension)," Clarke
said, referring to George Orwell's book "1984," which was written in the
1940s and predicted a grim, totalitarian world by 1984.
Clarke also made a New Year wish for peace in Sri Lanka, the war-torn
country in which he has lived for more than 30 years.
Clarke, who turned 83 last month, has lived to see many of his predictions
come true including a then controversial theory in 1945 which forecast a
world linked by a network of geo-stationary satellites.
Reuters/Variety
John
Keiner ist hoffnungsloser versklavt als derjenige, der irrt�mlich glaubt
frei zu sein.
There are none more hopelessly enslaved then those who falsely believe they
are free!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
