A 21st C. VIA DELOROSSA

The 6 billion people on our planet share at least one cross in common: Daily unpredictability. From the most powerful of leaders to the weakest of losers, we all travel this same Via Delarossa wearing this same crown of thorns. Frankly, it can bleed the very confidence out of us. So we may sometimes ask ourselves, are there no predictables left in life...?

Take heart fellow traveler. My research found seven. Seven you can count on every single step of the way --
1. Health: Count on every new report on eggs, coffee and red meat to be reversed within exactly 26 weeks by new reports on eggs, coffee and red meat. Evidence suggests this will have less to do with lab tests, and more to do with who in the labs like eggs, coffee and red meat. Either way, the absolute regularity of these reports is like the much needed port in a storm

2. Hollywood: Count on the same career choreography for every new child star. A cutesy movie; a shot on Leno or Letterman; a nationwide tour; a benediction on Oprah; a scandal in "The Enquirer;" child out of wedlock, month in rehab, apology on "Larry King." It's a crazy world out there, but it's guarantees like these which make it all make sense

3: Heroes: Count on a minimum of two heroes a year to go down in flames right before your eyes. Sports, government, clergy; makes no difference. There's always a secret drug bust, nanny fraud or abuse case to reassure you that it's really true -- there's nothing new under the sun. Especially a California or DC sun

4. Hierarchies: Count on one or more of our institutional hierarchies to make hypocrites of themselves. Take for example Major League Baseball buying ads calling baseball "everyone's game" the same season they double the price of grandstand seats and halve the cheese on the pizzas. Consistent hypocrisy, my friends, isn't as easy as it looks. But bank on it, these guys come through every time

5. Harbingers: Count on a whole bunch of these every year. Wild-eyed harbingers of doom from amateurs carrying signs on the streets to televangelists wearing tears on the closeups to the occasional guru who moves his message from cave to PBS. Just when everything seems to be falling apart in your life, take comfort. You can always count on these Cassandras to give your fears a name right along with a mailing address for your tax-free donations

6. Has-Beens: Count on these former celebrities to show up with a kind of cosmic dependability. This sub-set can usually be found in summer stock theatres, singing songs from the Sixties on that same PBS, doing periodic gigs on the Food Network, and of course smiling on the front cover of AARP Magazine. Gives you renewed confidence when you realize -- gee they're not dead after all

7. Historians: Count on these guys to understand that history isn't written, its re-written. Re-written according to what we'd like the past to be. When my parents suffered in the Depression and World War II, they never realized they were "the greatest generation" until Tom Brokaw decided they were. And when I was struggling for a career in the fifties, I didn't realize these were "the happy days" until the television show said they were. Well, you get the idea. Undependable lives need something they can depend on, and very often that's our dependable best-selling pop historians

See, and you thought life was undependable. It's really not, and you can depend on that....!