Six years ago tonight, the world waited with great apprehension to learn whether the Y2K Bug would zap the new Millennium into chaos.

Much time and money had been spent trying to update the technological world against the aberration. Somehow, the gurus of the 20th Century had failed to comprehend the looming of the next thousand-year era. Older computers couldn’t change their clocks from the 1900s to the 2000s, and fear fomenters had the world in their clutches.

We were warned that computer chips in cars could quit. Businesses could lose data. Checkouts in grocery and department stores might fail. Personal computers might lock up. The threat was real, and if the worst happened, an economic disaster would likely follow!

So the still-youthful Internet was full of websites offering survival tips and kits. Many even had online stores that sold a year’s supply of food. Some of it could be delivered to your door all vacuum-sealed and ready to eat like an MRE. This was war!

Now, I ask: Don’t you wonder whatever happened to the Y2K bug? After all, nothing happened when the clock struck midnight at the dawn of 2000. Like Cinderella, the Y2K Bug just disappeared. Later, everybody said that efforts to update were successful, and the problem had perhaps been overstated.

So, what did happen? It’s a story I’ve been waiting to tell for years. It’s kind of unbelievable, but I swear by the words of The Hunter and The Youngun, it’s the truth as they told it!

Just before New Year’s Eve 1999, The Hunter and The Youngun were over in the big, boggy Billow Swamp huntin’ whitetail deer. They were up in their tree stand where The Hunter was snoozin’ and The Youngun’ was playin’ Pokemon Red on the new Gameboy Color he got for Christmas. They were waitin’ til near about dusk dark when the deer usually move when all of a sudden, they heard movement and looked up to see a pair of CD-Rom eyes starin’ at them!

The critter had a computer-monitor head, a pair of speaker ears and a printer tray for a mouth! Its tongue, which they said was flappin’ in and out, looked like an old-fashioned floppy disk.

Well, The Hunter got enough gumption to ask the critter what he was and what he wanted. The critter then claimed to be the Y2K Bug!

Said he was on a flight around the world checkin’ things out.
Said he was lookin’ for the greenest, slimiest, sickest crud he could find to infiltrate the computer chips of the Earth.
Said gurus had near about cured his aberration, and he wanted filth that would be impossible to cure!

So he asked The Hunter what he thought about computers and what kind of crud was in that swamp. The Hunter didn't exaggerate. “I ain’t got no use for computers! I spent all day yesterday backin’ up files at work to escape the likes of you, and even when you ain’t around, there’s enough other bugs to crash the system and cause the headache of the century! You’re welcome to whatever germs you can find in this swamp! It’s got St. Louis Encephalitis skeeter larvae, wild hog droppins and all kinds of worms. Just help yourself!”

So, the Y2K Bug went about stickin’ his floppy tongue to test the scum. The Hunter then asked how he planned to go about infiltratin’ the chips. The Bug replied that if The Hunter would be kind enough to lend him a computer, he’d just spit swamp water into the motherboard and send that virus ‘round the world!

So The Hunter said, “Follow me home! My wife’s got a computer that ain’t worth nothin’ to me. I don’t see the use of it. Kill that thing, and maybe she’ll start workin’ ‘round the stove again, stirrin’ up some venison stew!”

Well, about this time, a deer wearing a trophy set of antlers stepped from behind a clump of trees. The Hunter whispered to The Youngun to get his gun ready. But The Youngun, being of the New Millennium Generation, had heard all the conversation and wasn’t too sure he agreed with his daddy about computers. Why, if that Bug spit venom into his mama’s computer, he couldn’t play that PC racing game. He might not even be able to play Pokemon Red on the Gameboy! And he surely wouldn’t have access to that Dragonball Z website on the Internet! And what about all those Russian missiles that were said to be aimed at us? Could the Bug zap them into space at midnight?

So, The Youngun took the safety off his rifle, sighted in the 12-point buck, then swung the barrel ‘round real quick at that levitatin’ Y2K varmint and blasted him to KINGDOM.COM! Then, he coolly aimed again at the fleeing buck and downed him, too!

Now, The Youngun has his trophy deer head mounted on the wall at his house to prove he bagged him, but there wasn’t anything left at all of that Y2K Bug to prove he killed him! The shot was just so close, it obliterated the critter forever!

Now, I’ve not told this story before, because I knew some of those Y2K hoarders spent years chokin’ down big caches of Spam they bought and didn’t need after all, and I didn’t want them getting’ all riled and comin’ after my youngun’!

The MAMA of The Youngun’

Grrrrrr! How did I miss this news for so long?


While Gage assures us that the addition of extra stem cells neither restructures the mouse brain nor comes anywhere near “humanizing” us little squeaky creatures, there apparently is some worrying going around.
And not just from mice!


 But how close is too close?

Hmmmmm. Mice are 97.5 percent genetically identical to people, and while human cells have been injected into lab mice and other species for years, fiddling around with brain tissue poses concerns that human minds could get “trapped” in animal heads!


 Oh great! Just when Mouse One gets comfortable living in the abode of man -- even creating a blog on his computer -- man’s brain cells mix in, and now the “hum/mouse” brain takes on too many human neurons and decides that mice must be exterminated!
(Run for your lives, pals, while you still can!)

Now I find out that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this year rejected an application that would cover humanzees (human-chimpanzee chimeras), the humouse (human-mouse chimeras), other human-animal chimeras and other human-animal embryonic chimeras.
Reason for rejection?
The office was “unable to determine how ‘human’ an organism must be before it is protected by the anti-slavery prohibitions of the 13th Amendment!

Many thanks from MOUSE ONE!

Well, the merry holidays are almost over, and back to school the kids doth go! When it comes to education, my family has “been there and done that,” and without exception there is a big difference.

We have “done” public and private preschools, public elementary and middle schools and public and private high schools. Having “done” all that, we can look back and compare the educational value of each. I realize that quality education varies from teacher to teacher, school to school and community to community. So I can only state our case. Here goes:

Preschool for our eldest began at age 3. Twice a week, he attended a church school for three hours in the morning. He learned letters and their sounds, numbers, colors and how to print his name. Activities included coloring and art, music and outdoor recreation. Learning was presented in thematic units, and Thanksgiving was the biggest celebration. All the children from age 2 through kindergarten learned several songs and presented a full-fledged musical and recitation service in the church sanctuary.

Our eldest loved it, and we decided to send him to kindergarten there.
He started kindergarten the third week of September and graduated the third week of May.
He attended three hours per day, five days a week. I dropped him off at 9 a.m., and he was home for lunch. Most afternoons, he took a nap.
Upon completing kindergarten, he had finished the first reader, knew simple addition and subtraction, and had begun to identify and count money.
Those three hours per day also included 20 to 30 minutes of music as well as playtime. He had participated in the Thanksgiving service, a Christmas pageant and learned several songs for the graduation program.
He was more than ready for first grade.

Child 2 also attended the church preschool, but he began at age 2. While he did well and was coloring and printing neatly by age 4, this child disliked sitting still for even two minutes.

Realizing his high level of activity, and because he quit taking naps at age 2.5 and was still wide awake at 10 p.m. despite playing outdoors a lot, we also enrolled him in gymnastics. Aha! We thought we had found a way to tire his little hyperactive body out! Twice a week, he left preschool with some of his peers and went to the YMCA to do somersaults and trampoline bounces. Other parents said their children were worn out by the time they got home. But ours? He came home and bounced on his bed! Settling him down was even more impossible.

So we enrolled him in the full-day public kindergarten at the same elementary school that Child 1 now attended. Obviously, he could handle a lot of activity for a long period of time!

He started kindergarten the second week of August and graduated the end of May.
He boarded the bus at 6:30 a.m. and returned home at 3:30 p.m.
Upon completing kindergarten, he had finished the first reader, knew simple addition and subtraction, and had begun to identify and count money.
He had no music other than learning simple nursery songs in class and a couple of songs for the graduation ceremony. During the first nine weeks, his coloring and printing abruptly changed from neat to messy. Neither was ever to be neat again.
During that time, everything he had learned in preschool was introduced for the children who had never been to preschool. That meant that for a solid week at a time, everything he colored could only be one color. The purpose was to teach the children their colors through exaggerated repetition. And they colored a lot, a whole lot!
That’s when his coloring turned messy, and his papers were filled with upside-down smiley faces. Not good!
Highlight of the year was a chartered-bus trip to the circus. That was fun!
In the end, he was more than ready for first grade.

CONCLUSION: Allowing for different learning styles, Child 1 and Child 2 both entered first grade at the same level, reading and otherwise. The difference? Public kindergarten was free, but Child 2 was away from home five hours more per day than Child 1, and his school year was a whole month longer. Instruction was accomplished during the morning, an hour of which was spent playing and eating lunch. Afternoons in his full-day kindergarten were spent napping, snacking and playing.
Were the long days worth it?  Looking back, he says, "No!" He would rather have been home in the p.m. playing in his own back yard with his Tonka trucks and sanded blocks of wood.

British author J.K. Rowling plans to start writing her seventh and final Harry Potter book in 2006. After that, will life without Harry go on?

The series has sold more than 300 million copies worldwide, and like me, many adults enjoy the novels right along with their “wild about Harry” kids. My boys were in elementary school when the first Potter book took children’s literature to a whole new level, and we have first American editions of every one.

Parents and teachers were thrilled that their children actually wanted to read. Not only that, they read several hundred pages of magic that transformed an unwanted, abused and neglected child into the world’s most famous boy wizard. The books had well-constructed plots and subplots and even better, lessons in morality. That’s why I never understood why some people tried so hard to malign the books.

Harry Potter, I am certain, is much less a misguided conjurer that the muggles…er, people, who tried to tarnish his reputation.

After reading a couple of the books and watching the first movie, I had to wonder if Harry’s detractors had done likewise. The moral values that naysayers said were threatened by this fiction actually do the opposite, and I know of no recent children’s fiction that better supports the Christian worldview. The plots focus on good versus evil and the importance of making wise decisions. The aim of Harry and his friends was not to break school rules for the “brattiness” of it as some critics alleged, but to defend against the evil Voldemort. Voldemort, of course, is the powerful, dark wizard who killed Harry’s parents and tried to kill Harry.

The series begins with the weakened Voldemort seeking to regain power. He craves immortality so that he can terrorize the world forever. Harry and his friends risk their lives to try and stop him. While the stories rely on the occult, so do other highly regarded children’s fiction such as “The Chronicles of Narnia,” “The Lord of the Rings,” and Aesop’s Fables.

In fact, both “Potter” and “Rings” portray similar plots. Potter and friends try to save everybody from the evil influence of the sorcerer’s stone, while Frodo and the Fellowship try to save everybody from the dark lord of Mordor and the evil influence of the Ring.

Even subplots in the Potter series favor Christian values. When the Magical Sorting Hat is placed upon Harry’s head in the first novel, Harry begs the Hat not to place him in the hall of Slytherin (whose residents are known for dark magic). The Hat notes that Harry has leanings both for Griffendor (the good residents) and Slytherin, but because Harry specifically shuns Slytherin, the Hat honors his wishes.In real life, we make the same choices. We either shun Satan and choose to follow God or we shun God and choose to follow Satan.

 In “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” Harry competes in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Competitors must use their knowledge of magic to solve extremely difficult situations. In one contest, Harry had the opportunity to win, but he thought his friends were in danger of death, so he chose to stay behind and save them.

The books emphasize that truth, loyalty, and the willingness to stand against evil are the real prizes in life just as the Bible encourages us to store our treasures in heaven. So write on, Rowling. I am ready to read.

• 15,000 songs.

Who needs or has time to listen to 15,000 songs?
That’s the storage capacity of some digital music players otherwise known as Ipods or MP3 players, and the logic of it all is one of the things I just don’t get.
Here’s a for instance. Suppose someone out there actually has time to download 15,000 songs. How much time would that take? I don’t even want to know. But consider how long it would take said person to listen to all that music.

Hmmmmm. Let’s multiply and divide.

15,000 x 2 minutes (average per song) = 30,000 minutes.
At 60 minutes per hour, 30,000/60 = 500 hours.
500 hours/24 hours per day = 20.8333 or almost 21 days or three weeks!

God help their eardrums!


OTHER THINGS I JUST DON'T GET:

• Americans who are willing to “fight to the death” for freedom of religion but cop out on the right to keep and bear arms.

• Hate crime laws.

A crime is a crime is a crime. If you kill somebody, they are still dead and you are still guilty whether you killed them due to jealousy, a gambling debt, drug deal gone bad, or if you happened to dislike the color of their hair or skin, their proclaimed sexuality or political leanings. When some crimes are labeled “hate crimes,” then those crimes tend to become more criminal than others. I have to wonder if freedom of speech or even of thought will soon be abridged. When will the Thought, Speech and Hate Crimes Police abridge freedom of religion and arrest ministers who preach against immorality?

• The racetrack mentality of interstate highway drivers.

I once enjoyed driving interstates. No more! When the speed limit is maxed at 70 mph, the minimum speed actually traveled must be at least 75 just to keep from getting run over. Most people drive 80, and many do 90, and I have yet to see any of those reckless speeders pulled over by the cops. Where are these folks going that they have to risk their lives and my life to get there so fast?

• The perception by school officials that they must randomly search students, their lockers and their backpacks, then submit them to drug tests in order to assure the public of a safe and drug-free environment.

What I’d like to know is this: Has any student anywhere ever tested positive for drugs during school hours? This includes the kids who were known by peers to be doing drugs the night before. And when it comes to backpack searches, why does it seem that the packs of kids who earn good citizenship certificates are the ones most likely to be checked?

• Blind faith.

Why do otherwise intelligent human beings tend to accept the beliefs of others without first questioning and studying those beliefs themselves? I think the most likely answer is that they are just plain lazy. In today’s fast-paced world where some had rather download and listen to 15,000 songs rather than investigate the tenets of their religious faith or the mishmash of the latest false prophet, they simply decide: If it sounds good, then it must be true. I enjoy reading books by Lee Strobel. A former atheist and investigative journalist, he takes issues of faith and tests them with journalistic principles. In “God’s Outrageous Claims,” Strobel asks what might have happened if followers of David Koresh and Jim Jones had doubted their teachings before being lured to their deaths? Even God does not expect humans to have faith in “blind faith.” The Apostle Paul advised to “Test everything.”