Apocalypse Now?

[Dave Monroe]

>From Emily Eakin, "Suddenly, It's Nostradamus, the
Best Seller," New York Times, Tuesday, September 18,
2001 ...

"Within hours after last Tuesday's terrorist attacks,
sales of books related to the disaster surged as
people desperate for information and explanations
rushed to purchase treatises on terrorism and the Arab
world and biographies of the World Trade Center. And —
as often happens in the aftermath of dark and jarring
public occurrences — many of them loaded up on works
that some believe predicted the tragic event. In this
case, they have turned in surprising numbers to the
writings of Nostradamus, a 16th-century French
soothsayer credited by some acolytes with predicting
apocalyptic events including the rise of Nazi Germany,
the Challenger space shuttle explosion and the AIDS
epidemic.

[...]

"A French astrologer and physician of Jewish descent,
Michel de Notredame, or Nostradamus (1503-1566), first
became famous for his innovative medical response to
an outbreak of the plague in 1546. During the
mid-1500's he became known as the author of
"Centuries," a book of rhyming quatrains grouped in
hundreds that purported to foretell the future. 
Published during a period in which astrology was in
vogue, Nostradamus was received by members of the
French royal court including  Catherine de Médicis.
Vague and muddled, Nostradamus's rhymes are considered
to be gibberish by most scholars. But their ambiguity
has made them fodder for disaster portents...."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/18/books/18READ.html?todaysheadlines



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