Welcome to the new year — please be careful as the door of 1997 hits you in the butt. Of course, nothing seems different. In fact, the more time passes by, the more things remain the same. At least that’s how the saying goes, and who am I to doubt such a popular saying?

I’ve already become tired of hearing about the best and worst of 1997, whether the topic is music, movies, television shows or people. I’m also sick and tired of hearing about those damn septuplets and Princess Di’s death. There seems to be no end in sight to the merchandise those top news stories have spawned.

I’m also becoming increasingly agitated by the predictions for 1998. The psychics, who are supposedly never wrong in their vague fortune-telling abilities, have predicted that JonBenet Ramsey’s death will be solved, that California will fall into the ocean, that Jesus will rise again to usher in Armageddon and that locusts will descend upon the world and devour us all.

These predictions are always based on opinion and fantasy. Wasn’t California supposed to join Atlantis several decades ago? Didn’t I hear some lunatic screaming last New Year’s Eve that Jesus was coming to town? What’s taking those damned locusts so long to get here anyway?

Based on the first two weeks of the year, I think it’s safe to presume this year will be exactly like last year. That means homicides, drug busts and bank robberies galore. Here is a rundown of some of the events I expect to see on the national news this year.

Several teenage boys will be gunned down in cold blood for wearing the wrong colors of clothing. An elderly lady, confined to a wheelchair, will be beaten to death by her two young grandchildren. A grocery store employee will be stabbed to death over some insignificant thing and a convenience store employee will be robbed and shot.

A young mother will shake her baby to death because he will not stop crying. A college student will walk into a classroom and shoot his professor over a bad grade while another student will go berserk and open fire on a packed campus sidewalk.

A man will be arrested for molesting children. Another man will be arrested for selling child pornography out of his home. A woman will kill her husband after a long period of abuse. Several children will be kidnapped from school and murdered.

A massacre will happen in some foreign city that cannot be found on a map. Terrorist bombs will claim the lives of thousands of people. Chemical warfare will kill thousands more. Abandoned landmines in deserted war zones will continue to blow innocent women and children to pieces.

Tornados will destroy millions of dollars worth of homes and businesses, leaving dozens of people dead in their wake. A typhoon will threaten hundreds of thousands of people. Floods will drive hundreds from their homes. An earthquake on the high end of the Richter scale will cause several more millions of dollars worth of damage.

Nuclear missiles will continue to threaten the very existence of humankind, not to mention every animal and plant on Earth except for the cockroach. The food we eat will continue to be unhealthy and toxic. An assassination will rock some foreign nation, or maybe it will rock our own.

Cigarettes will continue to give millions lung cancer and emphysema. Marijuana users will continue to be unfairly prosecuted. Alcohol-related automobile deaths will continue to escalate. Twitching hands will continue to hold glass pipes filled with crack cocaine. Tender noses will still snort line after line of crystal meth.

Some big-name celebrity will die of a drug overdose, while another will commit some ghastly crime, commit suicide or die of old age. Somebody will kill dozens of people just for fun. Blood will continue to flow from young teenagers’ bodies as the game of gang warfare rages on.

Politicians will still be corrupt, and the justice system will still be abused. Millions of homeless people will sleep under bridges in cardboard boxes while our “democratic” government tries to give millionaires bigger tax breaks.

As you can see, nothing has changed. These are the same things that happened last year, and the year before that, and so on. Hopefully some of these things will be avoided this year, but I doubt it.

So, welcome to the New Year. I hope you survive to enjoy another one.

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Ben Jones is a sophomore in English from Ankeny.