A California proposition narrowly passed in the Nov. 4 election "defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman." The law has no place in the definition of marriage, and a legal definition of marriage will not prevent homosexuals from marrying each other.
Two people can decide to join together for the purpose of sharing living expenses, procreate children and establish life savings without getting married. When they do so, they should establish a contract that defines the agreements involved. Many, however, do not. None of this has anything to do with marriage.
Marriage is a sacred bond, vows spoken before God and/or the Community. You turn to one another, speak your promises, those promises are blessed by the occasion, and you live, together, happily ever after.
In neither case - a contract subject to contract law or a sacred bond certified by the Church - people do not always keep the promises made. I have broken them, they have been broken over my head. I owe nearly everyone I have ever lived with for more than two or three hours. Sometimes we were together for years (four years is the current record). I almost went to jail once for not paying child support, and there are plenty of women who know to the penny how much money I owe them, but the government is not going to do anything to enforce any legal or super-legal obligations therein.
We may need laws that make it easier to certify relationships and enforce the promises we make each other. When people own property together, when they have children, when they invest documented time and money in a relationship, there should be legal channels to certify the relationship and adjudicate differences. Parents need to provide child support, and the laws enforcing parental obligations are already well established and enforced when the custodial parent pursues the matter.
However, government has no place defining marriage. We enjoy a vigorous separation of church and state in America, and our democracy will function much better when we stop trying to impose religious or moral values through the law. It's a free country, and to me that means if I'm not causing damage to any other person or property, I'm free to love anyone I want to and establish any sort of relationship I want to with that person. Pass all the propositions you want to, marriage - gay or hetero - is none of your business.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Harmonizing Jay and Mark
As part of a thread of emails today, Jay and Mark traded some thoughts. After assuring that Obama policies can heal the economy, Mark wrote: As a bonus, we might adopt a manner of behaving in the world that all Americans can be proud of. That is to say, we might behave with the ethic of the most powerful, mighty nation in the world and lead by example into peaceful democracy.
Jay replied: Just as an aside.....America already behaves in the world in a manner that I am proud of. No country in the world has ever sacrificed and given like we have and like we continue to do; economically, militarily, disaster relief, medically, the list goes on and on. Europe would be speaking German were it not for us. Pacific countries would be speaking Japanese were it not for us. S. Korea would be under communist control were it not for us. Russia would have continued to be a threatening, militarily dominant, bullying force were it not for us. And today with the whole world threatened by radical Islamic terrorism....we are carrying on the fight for all free nations....practically alone. Because of us the Iraqi people may soon have a free and independent nation. I am extremely proud of my countries behavior in the world.
I can't leave that alone. Because you know, we do great things and we do horrible things. We saved Europe from Hitler and Asia from Japan. Our deterence probably defeated the Soviet Union, but you can’t really say our power has been used well since. We saved half of Korea from despotic Communism, but Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq have exposed our capabilities to global view, drained our resources and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. While we needed to reform Afghanistan in response to 911, we have yet to achieve stability there.
Yes, we’re capable of tremendous humanitarian effort, and a Godsend in natural tragedy. We have strong and powerful armies of people willing to sacrifice themselves and their families in the national interest. Jay, we owe it to this dedicated professional military to use them in defense of our country, to commit them to meaningful, constructive missions. Yes, we have the greatest universities in the world, incredible economic influence and magnificent people. But right now the world knows us for our movies and our Armies. Some of them are offended, many are afraid. No one is very impressed, and our enemies scoff us.
But it doesn’t matter now. In this election, in this economic collapse, in this strained military posture, the environment failing, we have no choice but to turn around. We can get together and focus on the good deeds our powerful country can achieve. We can rebuild the economy stronger and more transparent. We can find a graceful way to get out of Iraq. We can help Afghanistan find effective organization. We can defend our country from terror without terrorizing others. And we have the greatest communications capability ever known. We can stop commanding attention and start earning respect.
I have no argument with anyone, just a mutual need to understand the problem and fix it.
Jay replied: Just as an aside.....America already behaves in the world in a manner that I am proud of. No country in the world has ever sacrificed and given like we have and like we continue to do; economically, militarily, disaster relief, medically, the list goes on and on. Europe would be speaking German were it not for us. Pacific countries would be speaking Japanese were it not for us. S. Korea would be under communist control were it not for us. Russia would have continued to be a threatening, militarily dominant, bullying force were it not for us. And today with the whole world threatened by radical Islamic terrorism....we are carrying on the fight for all free nations....practically alone. Because of us the Iraqi people may soon have a free and independent nation. I am extremely proud of my countries behavior in the world.
I can't leave that alone. Because you know, we do great things and we do horrible things. We saved Europe from Hitler and Asia from Japan. Our deterence probably defeated the Soviet Union, but you can’t really say our power has been used well since. We saved half of Korea from despotic Communism, but Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq have exposed our capabilities to global view, drained our resources and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. While we needed to reform Afghanistan in response to 911, we have yet to achieve stability there.
Yes, we’re capable of tremendous humanitarian effort, and a Godsend in natural tragedy. We have strong and powerful armies of people willing to sacrifice themselves and their families in the national interest. Jay, we owe it to this dedicated professional military to use them in defense of our country, to commit them to meaningful, constructive missions. Yes, we have the greatest universities in the world, incredible economic influence and magnificent people. But right now the world knows us for our movies and our Armies. Some of them are offended, many are afraid. No one is very impressed, and our enemies scoff us.
But it doesn’t matter now. In this election, in this economic collapse, in this strained military posture, the environment failing, we have no choice but to turn around. We can get together and focus on the good deeds our powerful country can achieve. We can rebuild the economy stronger and more transparent. We can find a graceful way to get out of Iraq. We can help Afghanistan find effective organization. We can defend our country from terror without terrorizing others. And we have the greatest communications capability ever known. We can stop commanding attention and start earning respect.
I have no argument with anyone, just a mutual need to understand the problem and fix it.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
The Promise
America's promise is freedom and democracy, liberty and inalienable rights. The country has always had a hard time fulfilling that promise for itself, and in recent decades, many European countries, liberated by our 18th Century example and resurrected by our military victory in World War II, have surpassed us in both freedom and democracy.
But it's not a contest, and there's no reason we can't start living up to our hype. Moreover, I propose that we make a new promise, a promise of peace. America has learned a valuable lesson in the last half century, and we could easily promise not to invade another country except in a direct effort to defend ourselves.
America could unilaterally swear to withdraw its military thrusts into other people's sovereign lands and further vow to limit our efforts to defense and consequence. We have always said that people have the right of self-determination, and it's not our business to affect that.
America is best suited for air war, and our overpowering superiority in the air should serve as a deterrent for any country that has evil intent toward us. Attack America, or support terrorist units that attack us, and we will rain hell upon your country. We will bomb all of your military installations, your government buildings and your centers of industry. If you are a civic official with a role in the attack upon us, you will die a fiery death. We promise.
We extend this promise in defense of our allies - other countries that have decided to behave responsibly toward their own citizens and the rest of the world. If you attack a democratic nation minding its own business, we will help that nation defend itself by sending our best and brightest pilots and missiles into your military units. Your soldiers and generals will die, your weapons will be silenced by our big deadly bombs.
It saddens us when dictators and corrupt governments wreak atrocities against their own citizens. When you do that sort of thing, we will stop trading with you. We may even move our navy into position to stop you from making money off your immoral pursuits and prevent you from getting the weapons and resources to conduct such unholy campaigns. We may drop bombs on your military bases to eliminate your capability to commit genocide.
Otherwise, America promises not to invade. We're not really interested in losing ground forces in someone else's civil war, and we don't really need to invade to effect regime change. We can destroy regimes that misbehave toward us or our allies with our bombs - we know that civilians and innocents get killed in these raids, and we would rather not be forced to take such action. Maintain peace and security with your neighbors, allow global trade to proceed in fair markets, and we will not bomb you, embargo you or otherwise interfere with your business.
Above all, countries of the world, know that America promises to defend itself. If we have evidence that you are preparing to attack us or our allies, we will act and we will act decisively. You will have plenty of notice - we will try diplomacy, we will try sanctions, we will do our best to warn you not to mess with us. However, if you attack America, you will experience hell on earth.
We have decided that our national security depends on nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. We understand that it may not seem fair that we have enough atomic weapons to destroy the planet, yet we are unwilling to permit other nations from obtaining nuclear capability. However, it scares us when other countries work to arm themselves with weapons of mass destruction. We didn't even like it when India got the bomb (followed closely by Pakistan), and India is a traditional ally. There are far too many nuclear weapons on the planet already, and we don't trust anyone with the capability to wreak mass destruction. Remember that America is willing to use all of its resources - military and economic - to prevent nuclear proliferation. And if you get the bomb and use it, we will kill you. We promise.
Play nice, and we will help you prosper. Eventually, we hope to live in a world of countries cooperating to nurture the environment and bring the blessings of freedom and democracy to all of the people. We respect any religion, any government, any community movement that promotes good will.
Despite our bravado, we are a nation of peace-loving people. We wish all of the people of the world love, freedom and prosperity. Don't mess with us, and live in peace. We promise.
But it's not a contest, and there's no reason we can't start living up to our hype. Moreover, I propose that we make a new promise, a promise of peace. America has learned a valuable lesson in the last half century, and we could easily promise not to invade another country except in a direct effort to defend ourselves.
America could unilaterally swear to withdraw its military thrusts into other people's sovereign lands and further vow to limit our efforts to defense and consequence. We have always said that people have the right of self-determination, and it's not our business to affect that.
America is best suited for air war, and our overpowering superiority in the air should serve as a deterrent for any country that has evil intent toward us. Attack America, or support terrorist units that attack us, and we will rain hell upon your country. We will bomb all of your military installations, your government buildings and your centers of industry. If you are a civic official with a role in the attack upon us, you will die a fiery death. We promise.
We extend this promise in defense of our allies - other countries that have decided to behave responsibly toward their own citizens and the rest of the world. If you attack a democratic nation minding its own business, we will help that nation defend itself by sending our best and brightest pilots and missiles into your military units. Your soldiers and generals will die, your weapons will be silenced by our big deadly bombs.
It saddens us when dictators and corrupt governments wreak atrocities against their own citizens. When you do that sort of thing, we will stop trading with you. We may even move our navy into position to stop you from making money off your immoral pursuits and prevent you from getting the weapons and resources to conduct such unholy campaigns. We may drop bombs on your military bases to eliminate your capability to commit genocide.
Otherwise, America promises not to invade. We're not really interested in losing ground forces in someone else's civil war, and we don't really need to invade to effect regime change. We can destroy regimes that misbehave toward us or our allies with our bombs - we know that civilians and innocents get killed in these raids, and we would rather not be forced to take such action. Maintain peace and security with your neighbors, allow global trade to proceed in fair markets, and we will not bomb you, embargo you or otherwise interfere with your business.
Above all, countries of the world, know that America promises to defend itself. If we have evidence that you are preparing to attack us or our allies, we will act and we will act decisively. You will have plenty of notice - we will try diplomacy, we will try sanctions, we will do our best to warn you not to mess with us. However, if you attack America, you will experience hell on earth.
We have decided that our national security depends on nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. We understand that it may not seem fair that we have enough atomic weapons to destroy the planet, yet we are unwilling to permit other nations from obtaining nuclear capability. However, it scares us when other countries work to arm themselves with weapons of mass destruction. We didn't even like it when India got the bomb (followed closely by Pakistan), and India is a traditional ally. There are far too many nuclear weapons on the planet already, and we don't trust anyone with the capability to wreak mass destruction. Remember that America is willing to use all of its resources - military and economic - to prevent nuclear proliferation. And if you get the bomb and use it, we will kill you. We promise.
Play nice, and we will help you prosper. Eventually, we hope to live in a world of countries cooperating to nurture the environment and bring the blessings of freedom and democracy to all of the people. We respect any religion, any government, any community movement that promotes good will.
Despite our bravado, we are a nation of peace-loving people. We wish all of the people of the world love, freedom and prosperity. Don't mess with us, and live in peace. We promise.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
American Courage
I’m going to scare you now, and John McCain is going to scare you later. Hillary Clinton has already started. Certain peoples of the world hate America, and George Bush has merely fed their fires. Our bombs and occupations kill, maim and enrage families and tribes. Encouraged by righteous speakers who declaim our devil ways, angry people seek effective means to right wrongs.
It’s not a time for weakness. The next president will inherit a foreign policy laid to waste by an arrogant, chauvinist campaign to protect our interests. Bluster and blitzkrieg asserted our might and destroyed our reputation. Part of the world hates us outright, another part resents us, our friends are embarrassed and the rest take advantage of us.
There seems to be a sense in the world that dominant aggression and unbridled violence is a profitable enterprise. In the absence of any moderating authority, governments both elected and stolen take up arms against rebels and both sides wreak cruelty in ever more horrendous holocausts. As resources – oil – become more scarce, the world will do business with anyone to feed the engines.
John McCain is going to tell you that many of these violent people wish us great harm. Many people – maybe you – harbor a secret dread that someone somewhere in the world is brewing a catastrophe to top the new holy day of September 11. He is going to tell you that our enemies are legion, and determined to bring us down.
He will insist that we need a warrior, a fighter who will take the war to its conclusion. He has already responded to Mrs. Clinton’s 3 a.m. phone call ad, saying that the majority of Americans would prefer that he – John McCain – would be there to take the call.
But if his response intends to follow George Bush’s model, he will pit our soldiers, aircraft, ships and satellites against the enemy. He will strike first and hard, he will brook no threat to the American way of life. He will make war and make it pay.
We need a president with the strength to make peace.
We need a president who will seek solutions that influence regimes, bringing change through economic cooperation and democratic advocacy. We need a president smart enough to wield our power for defense, and to shape our overwhelming military to detect and neutralize threats with direct, effective action without entangling our nation in the expensive, deadly long-term occupation of any other country.
We can’t afford to be scared. We need to have the strength to elect a peacemaker. We need to advocate with our votes a desire to win security by stabilizing the world instead of destabilizing civilizations. America needs to stop wasting its money and soldiers. We will not be less vigilant, we will merely stop squandering America’s most dedicated, courageous resources. So many young people killed and maimed, and after all these years, we can’t afford to stay and we can’t easily go. There’s got to be a better way to interact with the world.
We need a president that’s good enough to join the world’s effort to preserve the biosphere. There’s an overwhelming common interest in habitable air, water and soil. On this course, I have no doubt that anyone elected president this year will administrate a much greener term than the current polluted chief executive. However, our next president needs to be big enough to accept responsibility for our footprint, require commerce to respect the long-term consequences of their quarterly interests, and inspire our ingenuity to find cures that heal the environment.
And we need a president that can bring peace among ourselves. We wage an uncivil war against people who seem to disagree with us. We tolerate hate, and cooperate with injustice. Certainly there are people who condemn the greed, oppression, corruption and violence, but we also blithely accept a democracy operated by a two-party system, the electoral college and nonsensical, exploitation of the poor.
Wait – not so blithe? Expect a president that can change things, knowing that the things that cannot be changed eventually change no matter what, and you will have a chance to vote for it.
DISCLAIMER: Any facts assumed or implied herein stem from an individual perception and the gary may, or may not, know what he is talking about.
It’s not a time for weakness. The next president will inherit a foreign policy laid to waste by an arrogant, chauvinist campaign to protect our interests. Bluster and blitzkrieg asserted our might and destroyed our reputation. Part of the world hates us outright, another part resents us, our friends are embarrassed and the rest take advantage of us.
There seems to be a sense in the world that dominant aggression and unbridled violence is a profitable enterprise. In the absence of any moderating authority, governments both elected and stolen take up arms against rebels and both sides wreak cruelty in ever more horrendous holocausts. As resources – oil – become more scarce, the world will do business with anyone to feed the engines.
John McCain is going to tell you that many of these violent people wish us great harm. Many people – maybe you – harbor a secret dread that someone somewhere in the world is brewing a catastrophe to top the new holy day of September 11. He is going to tell you that our enemies are legion, and determined to bring us down.
He will insist that we need a warrior, a fighter who will take the war to its conclusion. He has already responded to Mrs. Clinton’s 3 a.m. phone call ad, saying that the majority of Americans would prefer that he – John McCain – would be there to take the call.
But if his response intends to follow George Bush’s model, he will pit our soldiers, aircraft, ships and satellites against the enemy. He will strike first and hard, he will brook no threat to the American way of life. He will make war and make it pay.
We need a president with the strength to make peace.
We need a president who will seek solutions that influence regimes, bringing change through economic cooperation and democratic advocacy. We need a president smart enough to wield our power for defense, and to shape our overwhelming military to detect and neutralize threats with direct, effective action without entangling our nation in the expensive, deadly long-term occupation of any other country.
We can’t afford to be scared. We need to have the strength to elect a peacemaker. We need to advocate with our votes a desire to win security by stabilizing the world instead of destabilizing civilizations. America needs to stop wasting its money and soldiers. We will not be less vigilant, we will merely stop squandering America’s most dedicated, courageous resources. So many young people killed and maimed, and after all these years, we can’t afford to stay and we can’t easily go. There’s got to be a better way to interact with the world.
We need a president that’s good enough to join the world’s effort to preserve the biosphere. There’s an overwhelming common interest in habitable air, water and soil. On this course, I have no doubt that anyone elected president this year will administrate a much greener term than the current polluted chief executive. However, our next president needs to be big enough to accept responsibility for our footprint, require commerce to respect the long-term consequences of their quarterly interests, and inspire our ingenuity to find cures that heal the environment.
And we need a president that can bring peace among ourselves. We wage an uncivil war against people who seem to disagree with us. We tolerate hate, and cooperate with injustice. Certainly there are people who condemn the greed, oppression, corruption and violence, but we also blithely accept a democracy operated by a two-party system, the electoral college and nonsensical, exploitation of the poor.
Wait – not so blithe? Expect a president that can change things, knowing that the things that cannot be changed eventually change no matter what, and you will have a chance to vote for it.
DISCLAIMER: Any facts assumed or implied herein stem from an individual perception and the gary may, or may not, know what he is talking about.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Why Schools?
Virginia Tech, occurring near the anniversary of Columbine and other school shootings, brings back a lot of ghosts. These gun massacres do not always happen at schools - they happen at post offices (bestowing upon us a new definition for "postal"), malls and other workplaces. But the schools have a different ring to them - the victims seem to have an added layer of innocence, and we are fascinated how the perpetrators could be so twisted at such a young age.
School is where the winnow starts, it is the first imposition of the American caste system. The popular kids form their cliques, the rebels form their gangs, and some people are left out. The outcasts do not understand, encounter rejection, ridicule and humiliation. School is where the humiliation begins.
Add, then, the Dirty Harry lesson: guns solve problems, vengence can be yours for a fistfull of dollars and a dolop of revengeful rage. Injustice meets its maker, and you escape responsibility for your actions by putting the final bullet in your brain. Guns blaze in primetime throughout the week, and all the cop regret over the inevitable result doesn't bring the victims - those people who have humiliated you all your life - back to life.
As life goes on, some find a niche with friends and family combined to community, some create a personae that does not rely on the acceptance of others. Still, the outcasts suffer throughout life, always insecure, often self-reviled, never happy. Society finds ways to rub it in, from portraits of beautiful families on a coffeehouse wall in Indianapolis' Broad Ripple district to the heroes of all our television and film stories, constant reminders that you're not one of us, you're not okay.
Those of us who don't quite fit, aren't quite cool enough occasionally luck into friendships with people who recognize talents, compassion, enough virtue to sustain love and support from others over a lifetime. Some people have even formed communities to love and support unconditionally, to realize the blessings of a benign universe in the pursuit of personal bliss. Still, some outcasts never make it in, and they resent their exclusion, their only reward for not succumbing to revenge or suicide comes from sad, dreary lives of quiet degradation.
School is where the winnow starts, it is the first imposition of the American caste system. The popular kids form their cliques, the rebels form their gangs, and some people are left out. The outcasts do not understand, encounter rejection, ridicule and humiliation. School is where the humiliation begins.
Add, then, the Dirty Harry lesson: guns solve problems, vengence can be yours for a fistfull of dollars and a dolop of revengeful rage. Injustice meets its maker, and you escape responsibility for your actions by putting the final bullet in your brain. Guns blaze in primetime throughout the week, and all the cop regret over the inevitable result doesn't bring the victims - those people who have humiliated you all your life - back to life.
As life goes on, some find a niche with friends and family combined to community, some create a personae that does not rely on the acceptance of others. Still, the outcasts suffer throughout life, always insecure, often self-reviled, never happy. Society finds ways to rub it in, from portraits of beautiful families on a coffeehouse wall in Indianapolis' Broad Ripple district to the heroes of all our television and film stories, constant reminders that you're not one of us, you're not okay.
Those of us who don't quite fit, aren't quite cool enough occasionally luck into friendships with people who recognize talents, compassion, enough virtue to sustain love and support from others over a lifetime. Some people have even formed communities to love and support unconditionally, to realize the blessings of a benign universe in the pursuit of personal bliss. Still, some outcasts never make it in, and they resent their exclusion, their only reward for not succumbing to revenge or suicide comes from sad, dreary lives of quiet degradation.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
The Unindicted
The indictment against marines who killed civilians in Haditha (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/15/60minutes/main2574973.shtml) does not include the people responsible for putting young Americans in a situation that caused them to fire without looking and taking innocent lives.
It does not include the deciders that started the war. The President and his team came to office with a grudge against Saddam Hussein and a keen desire to manipulate massive oil fields. They twisted September 11 terror, molded intelligence and threatened venomous attack against anyone who disagreed. They destabilized Iraq without a plan to set it back in place. They ignored history, they ignored intelligence and they ignored the American people. They drove our Armed Forces into a snake pit of people pitted against each other, united only in the desire to rid themselves of American occupiers.
A soldier's primary personal mission is to get home alive. The Haditha marines were ordered into a neighborhood to find enemy soldiers hidden among children. They traveled between buildings that could be homes or bunkers, depending on current occupancy. A remote-triggered IED explodes and takes out one of the marines' vehicles and several of their comrades. Like their fathers, charging into Vietnamese huts, they are invaders in a foreign country facing people they do not understand and knowing the next room could contain an armed enemy. Feel the stress, the confusion, the fear, the terror and...
...put it on the head of the administration that put the soldiers in that street that day. Name the Secretaries of Defense and all of their deputies who have never had a plan for stabilizing Iraq and cannot manage an honorable end to this misbegotten war. These are the parties responsible for the massacre that day, the uncounted innocents killed by our bombs, and a lingering legacy of war resulting from our destabilization of Iraq.
The President needs to be held responsible for this war. Congress needs to investigate the true agendas operating in the drive to war, the special interests that have benefited from the war, and impeach any liars and thieves they find along the way.
The Marines of Haditha will serve long sentences for the mistakes they made that day. The people who are responsible for the war that put them in Haditha that day should be their cellmates.
It does not include the deciders that started the war. The President and his team came to office with a grudge against Saddam Hussein and a keen desire to manipulate massive oil fields. They twisted September 11 terror, molded intelligence and threatened venomous attack against anyone who disagreed. They destabilized Iraq without a plan to set it back in place. They ignored history, they ignored intelligence and they ignored the American people. They drove our Armed Forces into a snake pit of people pitted against each other, united only in the desire to rid themselves of American occupiers.
A soldier's primary personal mission is to get home alive. The Haditha marines were ordered into a neighborhood to find enemy soldiers hidden among children. They traveled between buildings that could be homes or bunkers, depending on current occupancy. A remote-triggered IED explodes and takes out one of the marines' vehicles and several of their comrades. Like their fathers, charging into Vietnamese huts, they are invaders in a foreign country facing people they do not understand and knowing the next room could contain an armed enemy. Feel the stress, the confusion, the fear, the terror and...
...put it on the head of the administration that put the soldiers in that street that day. Name the Secretaries of Defense and all of their deputies who have never had a plan for stabilizing Iraq and cannot manage an honorable end to this misbegotten war. These are the parties responsible for the massacre that day, the uncounted innocents killed by our bombs, and a lingering legacy of war resulting from our destabilization of Iraq.
The President needs to be held responsible for this war. Congress needs to investigate the true agendas operating in the drive to war, the special interests that have benefited from the war, and impeach any liars and thieves they find along the way.
The Marines of Haditha will serve long sentences for the mistakes they made that day. The people who are responsible for the war that put them in Haditha that day should be their cellmates.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Clearly Daylight
Yesterday morning, Saturday, I started this rant I want Chanda to pass along to her 8th grade science students. Today, I'm gonna finish it.
Daylight Savings Time merely confirms the undeniable fact that measured time is not natural, but a contrivance imposed on the experience of reality by man. Time passes in nature, morning through the night, as the earth turns and exposes different arcs for sun, moon and stars. Rings grow in trees, layers of geology form, water freezes and melts, rain and heat - the seasons happen naturally.
But it has nothing to do with sixty-second minutes, sixty-minute hours, 24 hour days, 365 day years, decades or even centuries. These are measurements marked off by humans, who are never devoid of profit motives, imposed upon our species and, through us, all the flora and fauna of the world, in order to keep the engines of commerce marching in step.
Most of the elements of our culture - speech, mathematics, music - were developed without the intervention of measured time. The species started marking time just as early - notches to mark the days and years, sundials, rudimentary clocks. It wasn't until the 1880s that Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) set a global standard for time. When clocks were invented, Paris would be clocking a completely different time than Cairo, often minutes apart.
And to tell the truth, few devices are locked into a global time. Look at the iPod or cellphone next to you - does its clock match yours? Walk through the office or your house - are all the clocks reading the same time? Which one is "right"?
So by now you have moved at least one clock in the house to the new time. The computer and cell phone companies pushed their version of time to you, and the devices changed automatically. But it's Sunday morning, and for those of us with the day off, no one is writing any schedule for us. Here's the punchline: they never do. Each makes his own decision when to go, when to slow.
Having thus liberated you from the convention, I warn: an anarchist's ramble about measured time might explain five minutes, but 10 minutes late is late.
Daylight Savings Time merely confirms the undeniable fact that measured time is not natural, but a contrivance imposed on the experience of reality by man. Time passes in nature, morning through the night, as the earth turns and exposes different arcs for sun, moon and stars. Rings grow in trees, layers of geology form, water freezes and melts, rain and heat - the seasons happen naturally.
But it has nothing to do with sixty-second minutes, sixty-minute hours, 24 hour days, 365 day years, decades or even centuries. These are measurements marked off by humans, who are never devoid of profit motives, imposed upon our species and, through us, all the flora and fauna of the world, in order to keep the engines of commerce marching in step.
Most of the elements of our culture - speech, mathematics, music - were developed without the intervention of measured time. The species started marking time just as early - notches to mark the days and years, sundials, rudimentary clocks. It wasn't until the 1880s that Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) set a global standard for time. When clocks were invented, Paris would be clocking a completely different time than Cairo, often minutes apart.
And to tell the truth, few devices are locked into a global time. Look at the iPod or cellphone next to you - does its clock match yours? Walk through the office or your house - are all the clocks reading the same time? Which one is "right"?
So by now you have moved at least one clock in the house to the new time. The computer and cell phone companies pushed their version of time to you, and the devices changed automatically. But it's Sunday morning, and for those of us with the day off, no one is writing any schedule for us. Here's the punchline: they never do. Each makes his own decision when to go, when to slow.
Having thus liberated you from the convention, I warn: an anarchist's ramble about measured time might explain five minutes, but 10 minutes late is late.
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