Hey, it's Y2K and the world is abuzz with bugs, disorders, and grim predictions. When you look at all the hype in the media they all put the same negative spin on the whole millennium thing. Whether it's nuclear war or aids, earthquakes or the global warming that will inundate humanity into the water age, the race is in trouble of becoming extinct. The biblical scribes and their prophecies all depict turmoil and strife, the horsemen of the apocalyptic age, when good is cast asunder and evil joins the ranks. This is the age of the underworld and it's best to be one of the first to go to glory and be done with it as opposed to scratching around in this hell on earth.

When Y1K was an issue a thousand years ago, it was only an issue with the literati because everyone else was busy working on the land and didn't know one year from the next and, for all that mattered, they didn't care. They followed the seasons and moved forward in time like they had in the past, steadily and honestly. So when the sages and prophets' fears failed to materialize, humanity just sighed, got a good night's sleep and got up the next morning for another day in the field. Now the great translators of the gospel or other sacred scripts say that it was not the first thousand years after Christ but the second thousand years, hence their anxieties as this year draws us closer to our destiny.

We're entering a new millennium boys and girls. When we look over the last thousand years, at the age of exploration and exploitation, we can see just how much we have impacted history in just the last fifty years. We shouldn't be wasting our time worrying about Armageddon but concentrating on plans for the future, the millennium to come, inhabited by our children's children's children. We usher in a time that baffles those of us who watched it evolve in areas of micro everything and all the sciences. We need to take the time and dust off some of the philosophies and put them to good use, promoting the future miracles instead of drawing the curtains on life as we know it.

Millennium Man scoffs at Nostradamus and all the prophecies because he believes in man and man's ability to overcome the seemingly impossible only because he has no choice. This millennium is not the end but the beginning. Let's look forward and get our heads out of the sand.

Ever since man figured out healing that what ails us is a matter of correction and not of divine intervention, doctors have dedicated their lives to relieve our pain. It was more than a science or a craft because they dedicated themselves to serving the community, sharing their knowledge and experience to a common good. And they used to make house calls. But much of that has changed in this country, particularly in the latter half of the twentieth century.

For example, a friend thought he had a pinched nerve in his neck. His diagnosis was founded totally on the feelings he had in his neck and in his right arm. His company doctor sent him for the carpal tunnel test -- a series of electric shocks and sonic probes for muscle damage that included pin-pricks under the skin and into the muscles of his afflicted arm. The tests concluded that he actually had a pinched nerve in his neck and not carpal tunnel syndrome. When he got the bill for the tests, which cost a thousand dollars, his insurance company only authorized six hundred and that's what the hospital agreed to accept. Now, what if his insurance authorized the whole grand? Would they have paid it? Or what if he had no insurance at all and told the hospital that he was only going to pay the fair price? Would they discount it for him?

On a different note, a young couple were trying, unsuccessfully, to conceive a child. They underwent a battery of fertility tests and discovered there was a slight problem. Their insurance covered much of the testing costs but would not cover the treatment. This not only confused them but when they found that the same insurance provider paid for VIAGRA, she was livid. Female fertility --NO; male sexual pleasure -- YES?

We are nearing a new millennium, a time that will witness major breakthroughs in life threatening disease, cures for the seemingly incurable, and genetic engineering that will, no doubt, treat many disorders as early as in the womb. But as long as there are insurance brokers and inconsistent costs of medical treatment, this century will be an age for the well-to-do and the poor and disadvantaged will continue to suffer.

Millennium Man suggests the providers get out of bed with each other and remember that they were originally charged with a simple goal, to provide care. We challenge them to start working for the common good of all people, set some standards for everybody, not just those who can afford to be sick.

The Indiana general assembly recently passed a bill to produce vanity license plates that would support anti-abortion groups. The bill has since been stalled by a state supreme court decision but the idea of a sovereign state to favor one side over the other in one of the most serious arguments of the century is not only unfair to all taxpayers but totally ludicrous in the name of public fairness. They might as well outlaw women and people of color from voting or suppress any other of our hard fought freedoms.

Millennium Man realizes that there is a freedom of choice in this license plates issue. . . a person has the choice to purchase this plate or not. But is that the issue? Why not have a license plate that helps fund the ACLU or the NAACP? Our great leaders are very selective who they wish to assist and just as obvious about who they wish to keep quiet. I guess, in many places, to drive around with a pro-choice license plate would be subject to vandalism or worse. But the owner would have clearly exercised his right to choose the vanity plate on either side of the debate.

We humans tend to say things we think the other person wants to hear instead of offering an honest opinion. If you have something to say, don't be afraid but, be prepared to hear an argument. We live in a time that promises breakthroughs in all the sciences for years to come and yet we still have to deny and defy our neighbors' claim to do things his own way. Getting down to the basics of it all, every person who lives and breathes, walks and talks, should have the choice to put whatever they want into their body and not be restricted because a small group of old white men might think differently. On the other hand, a woman must have the right to choose whatever she wants to take out of her body. All this for the same reason . . . it's her body, not her neighbor's.

Millennium Man believes we all have choices to deal with on a daily basis. Why make things so complicated? Do you want to do that to yourself? Go ahead. You don't want to? Then don't. Simple. Let's get on with the business of running the government and let the chips fall where they may.

There has been a fervor during the past half-century regarding a voracious desire to be cute, beautiful, pretty, stunning, classy. All young women want to be Barbie dolls and men work diligently to become Brad Pitts or Robert Redfords. Whatever spin you put on it, the average American has been throttled by countless hours of advertising for hundreds of thousands of products from tooth pastes that make your smile whiter and brighter to, most recently, tanning salons, weight reduction procedures like tummy tucks, face lifts, hormone injections and fat reductions.

Ophthalmologists have created and perfected permanent lenses (tinted in assorted colors, of course) for the eyes. The American orthodontist is as plentiful now as the general practitioner was a few decades ago. According to figures from the American Dental Association, there are currently 4.5 million Americans wearing braces on their teeth, contributing to a $6 billion dollar per year industry. That number has quadrupled since the 1960s, when the practice was used for extreme cases where a person's health depended upon it. Not so any more. That results in a lot of perfect smiles out there. But is the smile or the weight reduction or the facelift or the hair coloring that detrimental to a successful job interview or a person's road to success in a company? Sad to say, it probably still is these days, in many cases.

The fact, as far as Millennium Man is concerned, is it's okay to have a birthmark on your forehead (see former Russian leaders) or a not-so-perfect smile (see Shelley Duvall or Sam Shepard). The greatest smile, after all, has nothing to do with straight, white, perfectly spaced teeth, but everything to do about coming from the heart, a warm and genuine reaction--a real smile. Millennium Man says it is not only okay to be not cute, but to be anything other than yourself is a sign of phoniness and arrogance. Be yourself and the millennium is yours.