Below is a slightly modified version of an essay first posted to my site August 6, 1999:

I am blessed to have friends and family who manage to travel along all walks of life. One of my dearest friends is a noted journalist/activist who has written some of the best work you'll ever read about the destruction of the environment in Upstate New York; he's had stories of his own appear in many of the major papers, and has even been the subject of a few of them, himself. (The New York Times, in particular, comes to mind.) In fact, he was the E-n-C of Generation when I first started there. That's where I had my first real taste of the finer points of journalism-on-a-deadline.

Like many of my friends, Eric is about as multi-talented as you can get. One of his many current careers though is that of professional astrologer.

I happened to have a chance to get together with him a couple of weeks ago in Manhattan. Although he and I have been working on a few things together here and there for the past couple of years, it had been seven years or so since the last time we'd actually seen each other in person. Ah, the wonders of the Internet!

Spending some quality time with Eric (insofar as eating at the Stage Diner can be considered "quality time") led me to think about some cold, hard realities... and some not-necessarily-realities. Such as, for instance, astrology.

What if Astrology was the real deal, and my skepticism was ill-founded? What if, someday, the results of the double-blind studies came in, and Astrology won out as being a valid indicator of personality, behavior, and destiny?

I'd like to present for you the year 2020, if Astrology were proven to be a valid science:

• Colleges would, naturally, use the birth dates of applicants to determine not only whether they should be accepted for admittance, but what majors they'd be allowed to choose.
  
• Presidents of the United States of America would be required to be 35 years of age, and a Leo. Secretaries of State, likewise, would be Aries. Voters would tend to choose Pisces for legislative positions, just to get them out of the food service industries.
  
• Police would only require a breathalizer test of non-Geminis. Geminis, themselves, would be presumed guilty automatically.
  
• "The stars told me to do it," would become a legally justifiable excuse for misdemeanors. For felonies, the plea "Not Guilty by Reason of Astrology" could be entered, but each side in the case would inevitably bring in fifteen Astrologers each to argue the true meaning of having been born at 10:15am GMT on some particular date.
  
• Pop Astrology would take up the debate about whether consumer products (like cars or software) were "born" the day they were released to manufacturing, or the day they first went on sale.
  
• "You must be this tall and a Libra to ride this roller coaster."
  
• The legal drinking age would be 21, except for Aquarians, for whom the drinking age would be 19.
  
• Budweiser would stop using "Born On Dating" on their cans and bottles after they discovered that many batches couldn't be sold because they were "born under a bad sign".
  
• OJ Simpson would *still* be looking for the real killers.

When you get right down to it, is the world I just described any less scary than the one in which we currently live?