The start of the new millennium brings us new realities. Saturday we will have a new president. The Saints won their first ever playoff game. Mexico has a new dynamic president. Shaquille O’Neal is a college graduate.

I decided I needed to start eating a healthier diet.

However, on New Year’s Day I hit a major stumbling block, which brings me to the most conspicuous reality yet to be realized this millennium: Burger King has put chicken sandwiches on sale for 99 cents!

Usually, health and money are equally effective deterrents to succumbing to fast food. However, lower prices can really test one’s will power.

Another newcomer this millennium is the latest in a series of reality shows. My own Temptation Island would consist of a Burger King, a Taco Bell as well as other eateries.

I may be the most outspoken fan of chicken here at The Nicholls Worth, but I am not the only one. Those of you in the student body who are employees of Pepper’s Pizzeria know the faces of the men of The Nicholls Worth.

Buffalo wings go well with a pitcher of fine beer, but few of us could tell you what the pizza there tastes like.

We need no occasion to celebrate, either. Not even the millennium.

I must confess that I wasn’t a purist about the millennium until I became convinced for myself that there was no “Year Zero.”

Interestingly enough, one of the few countries to recognize Jan. 1, 2001, as the start of the new millennium is Cuba, of all countries.

Fidel Castro seems to know his numbers. Heck, hasn’t he been around since the turn of the last millennium?

He was certainly around 40 years ago this week when John F. Kennedy was taking the oath of office. We all know about the famous speech Kennedy made then.

In it, he set a goal for the nation: put a human being on the surface of the moon and safely return him to Earth. He also set a time frame: within a decade.

Many astronomers are saying that George W. Bush needs to make a similar challenge Saturday. The only difference would be the target: Mars.

While the idea may sound far-fetched, putting people on the moon sounded crazy in 1961.

Despite Castro’s proficient mathematics, many Cubans regularly brave the high seas to defect to the United States. Perhaps they could find exile on Mars!

Bush could get his brother, Florida’s Gov. Jeb Bush, to lead the first manned mission to Mars. Settlement of the red planet could be encouraged by Jeb to ease the burden his state bears on those seeking asylum there.

Perhaps this could be the fulfillment of the insatiable political appetite of our outgoing President.

Bill Clinton is probably very unhappy that our Constitution limits him to two terms.

He could enhance his legacy by becoming colonial governor of Mars! While there he could introduce to the Martian landscape Arkansas’ favorite agricultural product: chicken!

The chickens would soon adapt to the hostile Martian atmosphere as soon as Clinton teaches them his celebrated ability of how not to inhale.

Also discussed at NASA was the idea of financing missions to Mars by selling advertisement space on spacecraft. Hello, Burger King! Imagine eating genuine Martian chicken sandwiches.

Hopefully they would be cheap enough.

I had a high school coach who once put the expendability of poultry into proper perspective for a bunch of hungry athletes.

I will always remember those immortal words: “Chicken ain’t nothin’ but a bird.”

Chicken may be nothing but a bird, but with the efforts of men like Bush, Castro and Clinton, the survival of the human race for another millennium may well walk lockstep with the survival of the world’s most underappreciated bird.

My survival, however, may rest on refraining from the temptation of feasting on this enticingly simple bird.