When I was the editor of a small daily newspaper in California about 20 years ago, I was asked out to lunch one day by an earnest young fellow who, as it turned out, wanted to lobby me to put a warning label on the paper's horoscopes.

Over servings of organic sprout burgers, he explained to me that readers should be advised for their own good that astrology was complete nonsense and was not scientifically based.

This did not come as a complete surprise. As a Capricorn, I had long realized that I shared the same birth sign as my Dad, Elvis and Jesus, so clearly something was wrong with the astrological system. It was more like astro-illogical.

It is true that I do a fair impersonation of Elvis and this may possibly be another career opportunity for me if the newspaper industry goes belly up, instead of, you know, suffering the spread of institutional leprosy.

Of course, some purists may not be ready for a bald Elvis, but I reckon the younger generation doesn't remember Elvis anyway -- and, besides, it has always been obvious that I am a hunka, hunka burning love, or so clinically insane people tell me.

But Dad and Elvis bore little resemblance to each other, at least not enough to confirm an astrological connection. They shared the same birthday -- Jan. 8 -- but the stars evidently did not twinkle enough to encourage common attributes of fate or condition, especially the gyrating hips and pelvic movements that Elvis perfected. I don't recall my old Dad doing that.

As for Jesus, I have to believe he lives in a more tasteful mansion than Graceland and here on Earth he caught more fish than my Dad, who was a good man but drowned a lot of worms.

So, believing that astrology is bunk, I did the only responsible thing: I told that earnest young fellow that I would absolutely refuse to put any sort of disclaimer on the horoscope. The very idea! The next thing you know people like him would be wanting to change the (then) time-honored newspaper practice of putting "Final Edition" even on the first edition.

My main reason for non-action, however, was that I did not want to insult the intelligence of the readers, at least outside the Editorial Page, where it is traditional. If my paper's readers couldn't figure out that astrology was bunk on their own, then I could do nothing for them.

Only years later, when I started to write a newspaper column regularly, did I realize that many people would benefit from a disclaimer, in the case of my work saying something like: "The following should be read with the understanding that leg pulling is not restricted to chiropractors."

While this column remains warning-free, the nannies and scolds and lawyers have had their wicked, nagging way in recent years. I now work for a paper that has carried a warning on horoscopes for many years. The Post-Gazette primly advises readers that the horoscope "should be read for entertainment value only. These predictions have no reliable basis in scientific fact."

With this bucket of cold water poured over the fun -- which I assume consists of actually believing the horoscope if it tells you that a tall, dark, romantic stranger will enter your life -- what entertainment value could possibly be left? None as far as I can see, but at least you can't sue the newspaper if the stranger steals your car.

Applying warnings or disclaimers is increasingly the way of the world in many areas. One day, there won't be a swing set in the country that doesn't warn kids that falling off can be hazardous to their health. One day people will say of me, "He may be a bad bald Elvis, but he stood athwart the general assault on common sense." You could say it was written in the stars, if that wasn't bunk.

Yet if astrology is bunk, what explains good fortune smiling on certain people -- Barack Obama, for example? What wild oscillations in the heavens brought him to us against the odds? It's not astrology but fate, which may be nothing more than dumb luck, the shuffling of the eternal pack that only turns up aces for some. (Darn, I got the joker again.)

Yet what was written of old remains true -- we are at some time masters of our own fate. There's no blaming the movement of the planets but the movement of ourselves. This is the warning that comes with every life -- read it for more than entertainment purposes.