Introducing our new Syndicated Column!
Inquiries welcome!
Today’s
Reality Scope
A lively suggestion column to replace horoscopes
Relieve your newspaper of the snickers and low reputation horoscopes bring.
The nation-wide revulsion at Nancy Reagan's astrological leanings demonstrated the broad public disrespect for that pseudoscience. Most horoscope-readers are not deeply committed to the premise, but merely entertained and encouraged by the "predictions" and, often enough, impressed when one coincides with their own happenings.
Embarrassed by horoscopes' flimsiness, newspapers often dump them next to comics (though many readers don't catch the hint). More than 30 newspapers even assuage editors' consciences by publishing disclaimers right with the column.
I offer a better solution: my new daily column, Today's Reality Scope. With witty categories and time-tested, upbeat advice, it entertainingly involves readers. Because this column takes the high road and emphatically disclaims pseudoscience, it will please readers more. Newspapers can publish this column with an absolutely straight face, anywhere in the newspaper. Prestigious papers which disdain horoscopes can happily run this column!
I retain twelve divisions, but change the criteria every day. These intrigue readers anew each day, and continually chide the horoscopes' Sun-signs. On most days, at least one option brings a grin. Divisions often ask for your favorite: juice, tree, music, meat, sport, pet, pizza topping, and a multitude of other categories. What do you drive? At what hour are you sharpest? What car part did you most recently service? What kind of doctor did you most recently see? What handtool did you most recently use?
What are you sitting on?
The column includes short advice:
- always-wise financial and business tips.
- suggestions for smoother interpersonal relations.
- health advice from nurses and doctors.
- tips to avoid burnout.
- car-care tips.
- shopping tips.
- counsel against cheating.
- things to note in the sky.
- near exam seasons, suggest that good sleep beats cramming.
- cycles of junk mail: tell when there will be most and least, when they push memberships, donations, subscriptions and merchandise.
- other common wisdom about advertising.
- tell housekeepers what most likely needs cleaning, versus what can be put off.
Often there is a specific prediction for everybody (Moon near Venus, Nielsen sweeps, ...). These go on top for "Everyone", followed by eleven divisions. Those days, everybody gets two that are aimed at them for the price of one.
Here are 2 examples:
Where You Live:
- Center of town
- If people leave out an important matter, find a way to bring it up.
- Inner city
- Don't keep wondering; look it up or ask an authority.
- Upscale urban
- No matter how right you are, take court cases very seriously.
- City side streets
- You can afford a gamble if you can live with it failing.
- Wrong side of tracks
- Be at least as skeptical of famous people as of anyone else.
- Inner suburbs
- A nice haircut or hairdo will perk you up.
- Outer suburbs
- Just because something is legal doesn't mean it's right.
- Exurbs
- Update your will. Follow the laws scrupulously or it won't be valid.
- Farm
- Keep your body running by at least keeping it walking. Reasonable exercise helps health.
- Ranch
- Who in your family might need a passport? Do they all have them? Have any expired? It's easier to get them now, instead of waiting till it's almost too late.
- Desert
- Don't be in such a rush. Leave a little earlier, slow down, and go easier.
- Other
- Go up a high building or mountain and enjoy the view.
Born during the Administration of:
- Clinton
- If the people you want to meet aren't where you go, try different places till you find them.
- Bush
- Some money comes at too high a price, so turn it down.
- Reagan
- If you must lose in the short run, do it in a way more hopeful for the long run.
- Carter
- Learn to do one more computer thing today.
- Ford
- Insurance is a gamble. Some policies - like some other bets - are not worth taking.
- Nixon
- Even if you can't buy it, rent the car of your dreams for a special day, and enjoy it to the hilt.
- Johnson
- Debts change friendships. It's usually best to keep money out of a good relationship.
- Kennedy
- Promises can weigh as heavily as debts. Fulfill your obligations, and be wary of making more.
- Eisenhower
- Change your exercise and eating to nudge closer to your recommended weight. Overweight and underweight both endanger your health.
- Truman
- Safe deposit boxes can be sealed upon a death, so don't keep wills and life insurance policies in them.
- Roosevelt
- Read the nutrition pyramid on package foods. Overall it's good advice.
- Before FDR
- If you haven't heard from an important project lately, get a progress report.
The twelve categories change every day to renew interest. And none of the low-brow astrology claims to embarrass everything else in the newspaper.
Special offers:
- The first two daily newspapers to adopt this alternative column get the first two
months free.
- Any newspaper that stops carrying horoscopes and carries this column instead
gets a 25% discount for the whole first year.
- Any newspaper that conducts a fair challenge-match between a syndicated
horoscope column and Today’s Reality Scope wins great circulation-building
publicity and improved credibility.
Show us what you pay for your horoscope, and we’ll make this worth your while.
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