ALL THE NEWS THAT'S PRINTED TO FIT

Horoscope II made next to no splash; in fact the only place giving it any importance was the Sunday supplement Parade, where its predecessor had also been published six years ago. Here it got a most excellent review, authored by Sunday supplement contributors Turco and Sagan, that is, two of the TTAPS sooth-sayers. "Too many weapons in the world" was the title, for too many weapons are the cause of war; and by the same logic, it is too many women that are the cause of bigamy. It says a lot for these two intellects that they cannot discern the difference between the weapons wielded by George Washington and Nicolae Ceausescu.

But even the notorious NY Times (1/23/90) reported Horoscope II under the title "Nuclear scientists pull back: scientists say they overestimated warfare's effects on climate." The NYT reserved its habitual lies for new reactor designs, "quoting" Nucleonics Week-like this: "Experts are flatly unconvinced that safety has been achieved or even significantly advanced by the new designs" (1/9/90). What NW had really said was that "while some experts believe many of the concepts are far safer, other experts are flatly unconvinced."

Ah, well, they only rearranged the words and all they left out was the little word "other" before "experts." Nor did they report that NYT publisher A.O. Sulzberger was seen picking the pockets of a homeless orphan sleeping in the subway. Ah, well, all I left out was the little word "not" before "seen."