the abbreviated reign of “neon” leon spinks

OOPS 196
in the shorthand of the many Web sites and chat rooms devoted to con-
templating modern, technologically dependent society’s imminent de-
struction.
And it was hard not to contemplate the various scenarios that were
supposed to play out because of the millennium bug. They were laid out
in macabre detail by prophets of doom on Web sites, in high-priced videos,
and in books with enervating titles such as Time Bomb 2000, 101 Ways
to Survive the Y2K Crisis, The Christian’s Y2K Preparedness Handbook,
Y2K=666, and the like. Across the United States and Canada, according
to the doomsayers, lights would dim as electricity generating plants and
power grids stopped working. The air-traffic control system would go on
the fritz, leaving jets circling in confusion. On the highways, drivers
would suddenly lose control of their cars as their computerized steering
and brakes failed. Phones and e-mail would stop working. In hospitals,
medical devices would malfunction, and patients on life-support machines
would fl atline.
It would only get worse in the days and weeks that followed. The
U.S. government would be unable to issue Social Security checks. Hordes
of depositors would descend upon beleaguered banks, demanding their
savings out of fear they would vanish. Financial markets would be thrown
into chaos. With government unable to collect taxes to pay police offi cers’
salaries, law enforcement would wither, and violent mobs and vigilantes
would roam the streets. Eventually, President Bill Clinton would seize
upon the chaos to declare martial law, suspend the U.S. Constitution, and
appoint himself dictator. Alternatively, blue-helmeted United Nations
troops would show up on American shores, and the Antichrist would
arise, revealing that what we had assumed to be innocuous computer bar
codes on credit cards and retail products was, in fact, the sign of the beast
as prophesied by the book of Revelation. In retrospect, it all may sound a
bit too much like the plot of a cheesy 1960s apocalyptic disaster thriller,
lacking only that climactic scene when Charlton Heston discovers the