Millennial musing from editorial writers.

The NCEW listserv millennium debate

What I'm curious about is how everyone is going to handle the Jan. 1 editorials? Dare we be wet blankets on the editorial pages? Do we go along with the hoopla -- because, after all, what is a year or two among friends after a couple thousand years?

Shirley Ragsdale, editorial page editor, Argus

Leader, Sioux Falls, S.D.

A new millennium begins on Jan. 1, 2000. And Jan. 1, 2001. And March 13, 2004. And today. And tomorrow. Every moment is 1,000 years from another moment, backwards and forwards. This is all an arbitrary division of infinity.

George Pyle, editorial page editor,

The Saline Journal

Aren't people going to be celebrating the end of the 1900s? Discussions about in which century that the end dates of the 1800s and 1900s really fall miss the larger point, I think.

John Fulton, opinion editor,

Bridge News

Of course, there is no debate, scientifically, about when decades, centuries and millennia start and end. People who have told me that the issue is debatable have not, as I subsequently determined in every case, researched it.

Frank Partsch, editor, editorial pages,

Omaha World-Herald 

Why not do what common sense dictates and point out that, technically speaking, 2000 is the last year of the 20th century and that most of humanity has decided to celebrate it as the first year of the 21st century and then get on with the business of writing about the significance of the last 100 years? This whole business of centuries is itself an arbitrary convention to start with.

Jay Ambrose, director of editorial policy,

Scripps Howard News Bureau

Amen to Jay Ambrose. Numerical nitpicking is just silly. [ldot] Why not just agree that the first century had 99 years in it -- and the first decade nine years and the first millennium 999 years -- and every one since, ending on Dec. 31 of a nice round years, has had an even 100?

Danny Glover, associate editor,

Intellectual Capital

Why should we, as purveyors of fact, ignore the truth just because the majority of the world believes it to be true? I say we hold fast and defend facts even when it may seem like nitpicking.

Thomas J. Lucente Jr., editorial page editor,

The Lima News in Ohio

Although they are certainly a minority, many people are intense about this question. To suggest that they are silly nitpickers feeds the fire of their anger that the rest of us don't get. They will not be silenced, much less mollified, by appeals to the majority agreement that the millennium and century end this month [December].

D. Michael Heywood, editorial page editor,

The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.

I direct your attention to the December issue of American Heritage, which includes a short summary of how the great century debate raged in 1899 and even in 1799. The difference, of course, is that newspapers of that day were united with "educated" people in recognizing both 1801 and 1901 as the start of new centuries.

-- Jay Evensen, editorial page editor, The Deseret News

I've been very careful all year not to call 1999 the last year of the century or the millennium in editorials and I've even rejected columns (but not letters) that use it as a premise.

-- Birmingham Post-Herald in Alabama

While we're at it, we ought to set our readers straight regarding Dec. 25 -- that it's actually a pagan celebration of the winter solstice and, many biblical scholars agree, bears no relation to the actual birth date of Jesus Christ.

-- Michael Zuzel, editorial writer, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.

I recently looked up The New York Times for the turn of the century. On Jan. 1, 1900, the Times editorially said, basically: Happy New Year. Several articles reflected on what happened in 1899. On Jan. 1, 1901, the lead story on Page 1 was the celebration of the new century at City Hall Park.

-- David Schultz, editorial page editor, the Ledger, Lakeland, Fla.

I've decided that people who believe that the millennium starts 18 days from now are celebrating the "notional millennium." It's one of those things that looks and sounds OK if you don't examine it closely.

-- Charley Reinken, editorial writer, Omaha World-Herald

I found a previously unpublished Mark Twain sketch called "History 1,000 Years from Now," probably written in January 1901, which purports to look back from the 29th century: "Today, no subject but the one -- the past -- can get much attention," says the narrator. "We began, a couple years ago, with a quarrel as to whether the dying century closed with the 31st of December 2899, or whether it would close with the last day of last year, and it took the entire world the best part of a year to settle it."

-- Bernard L. Stein, editor and co-publisher, The Riverdale Press

Predictions from the book 'Prophecies 2000' by Matthew Brunson

Soon the Earth will shake and will tumble down and people will say, "Oh my God! Oh my God!" But the great Spirit will say. "They're not praying to me, they're saying "All my Gold! All my Gold!"

-- Wallace Black Elk, Lakota Souix

In the year 1999 and seven months

From the sky will come the great King of Terror

He shall resurrect the leader of the Mongols

Before and after Mars shall reign happily

-- Nostradamus

When a man walks upon the lamp of the night [the moon], Islam shall fall

-- Muhammad

When pictures look alive, with movement free,

When ships like fish swim beneath the sea,

When man outstripping birds can soar the sky,

Then half the world deep drenched in blood shall die.

-- Tombstone inscription, Kirby Cemetery, England, 17th century