Nostradamus- N.O.

Let me first start off by saying that My internet has been funny for a while and I haven't been online in months. Second, the few chances I had online were usually spent deleting hundreds of junk e-mails. So I come to you with a smile on my face and a song in my heart which I pound out for you in chaotic taps of a keyboard. Whatever.

Now, I don't read the Weekly World News, the National Enquirer, or the Star, but all of them have one thing in common... They see dead people.

Not just any dead people mind you, Nostradamus.
For those who don't know, Nostradamus was a French Philosopher/prophet born in the early 16th Century. He published 10 Centuries of Quatrains (4 line poems) which "predict" future events. It is said that his quatrains show either 1. Nostradamus was even more insightful than anyone can imagine, or 2. The quatrains are obscure enough that they can be connected to any topic.

Now these weekly news publications are always spouting that they have Newly told prophicies from Nostradamus. Do not believe this. Nostradamus wrote 942 quatrains about future events. Their "new prophicies" are really "Intern Jenny taking a shot at relating one of them to a possible future event" But my favorite are when they link them to events in the past. Princess Diana's death, September 11th attacks, Cabbage Patch craze of '85. They can't tell us these things ahead of time because they might be wrong. It's always, "Nostradamus predicted children would go crazy over plastic headed veggitable kids with yarn hair and some guys signature on their butt. He saw the whole thing happen, but we didn't, so we couldn't tell you to buy the things in October when they may have been cheaper and you wouldn't have had to beat up that lady in front of you. Read about it inside" Then they proceed to make up how 430 years ago he knew what he was talking about.

I would like to see the fired list of Interns who messed up though. Sometimes internes get inventive, crazy, even step out of line. THEY PREDICT (using Nostradamus's quatrains) FUTURE EVENTS. Sometimes (all the time) the interns are wrong. Like how the world was going to end in 1999. Or how the world was going to end in 2000. Or how the world was going to end in September of 2004. From what i can tell, the world hasn't ended yet. And Corrections are never made... EVER! No "we made a mistake," No"We Siked you fools out!... SIIIIKKKKEEE!" They just fire an intern and move on with the daily falsifying of current events.

The "new prophecy" IS that there is going to be a stock market crash in 2005. Now the problem i have with this is that i don't think Nostradamus knew what a stock market is/was going to be in the 20th century let alone that it would "Crash." Could you see that Conversation of Nostradamus with whoever
N.- In 2005, the stock market will crash
Who- the what
N. Stock market
Who- the meat market will fall over
N. - No, not the meat market, the stock market. people put money in companies, thus owning a piece of them. well there are thousands of companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Intel, all of which's stocks are publicly traded in the Stock market.
Who- Coca what?
N.-never mind.
Maybe market indicators say that the market will go down, but crash, i don't think.

But hey... maybe i'm wrong. Maybe all this is in hindsight. we don't quite know what's going to hppen, but Nostradamus has a good idea. He uses vague symbolism to point us in the right direction. He was a Jew who was converted to Catholicism in the Inquisition. Maybe this is his way at getting back at the world.

The way I see it, Nostradamus' quatrains are the writings of a crazy man who lost his wife and children to the Black Plague. He Published his first set in 1555, and with 942 of them (one for every year) that puts us at... let's see 7, 9, 4, carry the 1, the year 2497. Hmm. 2497. How old will you be in 2497? That's right. Dead, that's how old. So as long as I don't live to be 516, I think i'm pretty safe. So until the next "New prophecy" comes out, be it the end of the world on March 15th, 2011, or volcanos erupting and filling in the Mississippi River, just remember, if the world gets you down by killing your family and making you change your religion, you too can write crazy poems and have centuries of people call you a prophet.

Buenos Aires
Ben