Criswell Predicts

I was rummaging through my things the other day and came across this wonderful item: Criswell Predicts: From Now to the Year 2000!, a book published in 1968 cataloguing some of the infamous seer's more "fanciful" prophecies.

Criswell is perhaps best known for his odd narrative scenes in Plan 9 from Outer Space, or if you haven't actually seen that (and I wouldn't blame you if I haven't), you may be familiar with Jeffrey "I'm a Creep" Jones's portrayal of him in Tim Burton's biopic Ed Wood. He also spent a fair amount of time sharing his psychic visions with the world, whether it was on the Jack Parr show or on his own syndicated TV show.

Criswell's predictions range from the bizarre to the ridiculous to the gob-smackingly stupid. His method of forecasting was, as best I can guess, huffing silver Krylon while looking at Flash Gordon comics. He claimed an 87% accuracy rate, which seems about as reliable as anything that come out of his mouth.

That being said, legend has it that Criswell did accurately predict JFK's assassination. If true, this alone makes him more reliable than Nostradamus. And an unknown Wikipedia scribe claims Criswell may have been gay, which shouldn't surprise anyone considering two of his closest friends were a transvestite and a vampire. (That's not to say having transvestites and vampires as friends necessarily means one is gay, it just increases the odds.) All of which is neither here nor there.

Since we're apt, here at Shakes, to discuss matters of personal autonomy women have, or at least ought to have, all things being perfect, I thought I'd share Criswell's prediction, right there on page two of his book, under the heading Birth Control. (Page one was about homos, just FYI.)

I predict that birth control will no longer be a major problem in the United States. Placed in the water system of the country, in every city, regardless of size, will be chemicals which will act as contraceptives on the entire populace. In addition to this, the electricity that comes into each home will have certain ionic particles that cause contraception.

Ionic particles, eh? How sciencey!

Birth control will be a function of the Federal Government. If you want a child, you will have to go to the proper Federal Government Agency and get yourself a pill so that you may conceive. You will have to receive the sanction of this Government agency before you will have the right to have a child.

Birth control in any of the forms which we know today will not exist-by the year 1981, when these new systems will definitely be in effect in this country and the majority of the other nations throughout the world. This, mankind will agree, is the only way to control the population explosion.

Well… that's… something. Birth control a function of the Feds? Like The Handmaid's Tale, but different. Nevermind that there are now certain fuckwits out there who'd love it if the government actually made birth control it's purview, that is, made it illegal at the federal level.

I wonder what's on page three.