Below is a letter I wrote to the Nipissing News in North Bay, Ontario. They decided not to publish it because it was too offensive. I had been published by them before and was no less offensive then than now. So let me know if you find this letter offensive.
Nipissing News - I Commend You
What’s your sign? I’m not sure how it slips through so many reputable magazines and newspapers across the world, but it seems that we educated and learned people are somehow more fascinated by the notion that, based only on our date of birth, we can tell instantly how we and others around us work and love, and live, than the ancient civilizations who invented the silly notion to begin with.
There is somehow a draw for people to read how they will act and feel, or how they should act or feel on a given day: almost as though they wish to remove responsibility for their actions by attributing it to the destiny prescribed them by the Ottawa Citizen, or Toronto Star, or North Bay Nugget. It seems an absolutely ridiculous idea that the movement of planets could influence so many individuals in such a detailed way, everyday, but in so many detailed ways from so many sources.
As I am writing this, the Globe and Mail tells me that “someone in authority has got it in for [me]…[and that I] think too much and must be positive this week.” But the National Post tells me that I “might want to rearrange furniture or begin renovations.” Canoe.ca at least tells me something useful: “[I] must trust [my] judgement.” As good as that last bit of advice is, that applies to me daily anyway. If I don’t trust myself, how could I possibly get on with getting out of bed every morning without the fear that I will fall and break my neck as soon as I stand?
Not to say that what Sally Brompton, Georgia Nicols, and Eugenia Last say is complete poppycock…but each of the above statements for my horoscope doesn’t only apply to me: It applies, this day, to every person who happened to be born between January 20th and February 18th of any year, ever, since this obscene idea hit ancient pop-culture. If we take a look, as I think we should, at the first statement and note that Jeb Bush and Dick Cheney are both Aquarians like myself and so many others, how could we conceive that someone in authority has got it in for them? Does Sally mean God has it in for them? Eventually, assuming that we all actually go to an amusement park in the sky, I’m sure a supreme authority will certainly have it in for them (however surprising it is that he hasn’t already), but at present, this statement seems useless.
What about Georgia’s message? Well, there are approximately 1,200 births per year in Sudan, let’s assume, however unrealistically, that all of these births survive. Now let us, for the sake of ease, say that there are one hundred births per month then: is it not ludicrous to think that one hundred infants, under one year of age, all are somehow thinking of rearranging furniture or beginning renovations? To even assume that those one hundred infants have furniture to move or even a house to renovate is, in a number of ways, heartless.
Now, Eugenia’s statement, as said above, is at least good advice, but it is advice that does not follow every horoscope everyday (Aquarius was the only sign to get that tidbit of advice this day) and it is advice that we should be following everyday, regardless of the petty and useless yammerings on about how we should and shouldn’t live our lives.
According to Astrology-Online, I, as an Aquarian, am friendly, humanitarian, honest, loyal, original, inventive, independent, and intellectual. Why thank you very much Astrology-Online. Oh wait! But I am also said to be: intractable, contrary, perverse, unpredictable, unemotional, and detached. Hands up if any of these traits belong to you? Whether or not you’re an Aquarian, I’m going to venture a guess that at least some of these belong to you. That’s right Cancer and Leo - we’re basically the same person! It’s almost as though a number of fraudulent people created a bunch of vague, ambiguous generalizations about how people want to be or should be and sent them off to print.
If any of you are not aware of what is called the Barnum Effect, I strongly urge you to look it up. I also challenge you, the reader, to go online or look in your Community Voices paper this week and not only look at your daily horoscope, but all others as well - and for kicks, do your best to cover up which sign you’re reading and see how much you believe it applies to you before you look to see which sign you are also very similar to. If you go online, it shouldn’t be difficult to debunk the idiotic notion of horoscopes: there are, after all, 67, 100, 000 hits on Google, and though I haven’t gone through them all, the first eight pages are all different horoscopes for the same signs. Either they are all right and we are all in need of some furniture moving and renovations and self-trust, and we should all watch out for Big Brother, or it’s all a bunch of silly con-artists who seem to make a good living preying on the want to relieve ourselves of our own responsibilities to live our own lives.
I thank everyone at Nipissing News, from the very bottom of my being for not having a horoscopes page and allowing letters such as this, to be published. I commend you and respect you all the more as a serious newspaper, willing to take on topics that other papers will not, willing to hear the voices of the people, and willing to shun ridiculous, ancient, and exploded ideas like the horoscope.
~The Nugget’s Community Voices of April 19, 2012 tells me that I “have what it takes to make a big difference, so [I should] recruit a few other people who are content to march behind [me] toward the same goals.” It seems almost as though Community Voices is encouraging me to publish this letter, and while I should take this as a sign that Community Voices must be able to read my sign, not every other Aquarian will recruit other people to stand behind them (some of them are probably in prison cells with nothing behind them but concrete and steel - at least they should hope), and this horoscope missed me by four days anyway.
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