As Predicted, 'Tis the Season

'Tis the season to be jolly. 'Tis the season, too, for making all those resolutions we vow to keep, but seldom do. 'Tis also the season for predictions. Astrologers, psychics and those who study crystal balls are eager to tell us what the year ahead will bring.

They are everywhere, these modern day prophets - in the tabloids, and astrology, women's and general interest magazines. You'll see them on television, and many daily and weekly newspapers boast an astrology column. Now the psychics are using the Internet, and here, too, you can learn what lies ahead.

These seers offer information on many different levels. Personal astrology offers monthly or weekly or even daily advice on what the year has planned for each of the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The stock market, the world of sports and the world of finance all have pages devoted to predictions of the future. Almanacs carry long-range weather predictions.

And let us not forget the astrologers and psychics who study the stars. Not the Heavenly stars, but the Hollywood stars. These people claim to know who will become successful and who will disappear a dismal failure. They also know that Liz Lovely and Clyde Robust will be seeking the divorce courts later on in the year. Well, of course they will, Darling. This is Hollywood, after all.

I'm not saying that all psychics and astrologers are fakes or even that they are unreliable. Many of these people are very gifted and their predictions are often right on the nose. Others, however, especially at this time of the year, seek a few moments of fame by making outrageous predictions that are bound to attract the notice of the reader. Even if the prediction doesn't come true, at least the teller has been momentarily in the public eye.

Other so-called psychics make dozens of predictions, so many that the law of averages almost guarantees one or two hits. Then they can brag about their few successes and forget the many failures. Some predictions are vague or worded in such a way they are almost impossible to prove wrong.

If you gathered together a half dozen magazines carrying predictions and compared them, you would find them full of contradictions. It only follows, then, that if one magazine predicts a rise in the price of tea in China, another predicts the price will fall, and yet a third says there will be no change in said beverage price, then naturally, one of these predictions is going to be true.

Many of the predictions this year are filled with the gloom and doom of the approaching millennium. Earth changes - earthquakes,

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