There’s no fooling Mother Nature

March 11, 2024March 10, 2024Michael 13 Comments

We sure pulled off a couple good ones on old Mother Nature these last couple weeks, didn’t we? First, last week we added an extra day to her natural progression around the sun because nobody who was ever important enough (or perhaps self-important enough) to proclaim this is the calendar we are going to use was smart enough to create a usable calendar without readjusting it ever 4 years. And then Saturday night we took an hour away from her because we don’t like when she decided to have sunsets. Well she got back at us for sure. I din’t know about where you are, but here, after a week of beautiful spring like weather, she gave us torrential downpours on Saturday and snow (snow!!!) on Sunday. Of all the nerve!

The way we willy-nilly our way around physical constants you would think humans are in charge. Ha! You know what we’re in charge of? The universe’s blooper reel! We can start with the clock and calendar. Pick point, any point in space and call it Point A. Now however long it takes for this planet you are sitting on to go around the sun from Point A to Point A is one year. Period. Now… however we want to divide it is up to us. Maybe something like this, 10 months in a year, 10 weeks in a month, 10 days in a week, 10 hours in a day, 10 minutes in an hour, 10 seconds in a minute, and we can make the second as long or as short as we need to make it come out even. No, after a variety of questionable decisions we finally land on 365.25 days in a year made up of, 12 months in a year, 28, 29, 30, or 31 days in a month, let’s forget about weeks in a month but put 7 days in them, 24 hours in a day except for twice a year when we make one 23 hours and one 25 hours (but make those changes at night so nobody will notice), 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds-ish in a day except on those days we randomly add a “leap second” or two so everything comes out even.

People have a hard enough time dealing with other people, do we really want to pit man against nature? Is it because we know we can’t amicably deal with other humans that we decide we’ll just make up stupid “laws of nature” and that will show everybody else how masterful we are. Guess what? We aren’t! As a species, man is selfish, stupid, and stubborn. People see things right in front of them but claim it didn’t happen. You don’t like the facts? Make up alternate facts. Don’t like what somebody says, make up a catchy insult. Don’t like that it gets dark so early? Push the hours around on the clock.

Nature isn’t like a mousetrap that you can make better. We can argue with each other as much and as long as we want. Chances are, neither side is right. But let the natural order of things go on naturally. Or else, don’t complain when next year there are more hurricanes than last year, that lakes appear and disappear in the dessert, and when eventually the Yellowstone volcano erupts. Until then, be happy you got to wake up this morning. Many didn’t and now what will they do with an extra hour of daylight. (By the way, you know you can get that “extra” hour by just waking up an hour earlier.)

Now, let’s talk about the genius who put 128 ounces in a gallon and said the metric system is too confusing?

It’s time to make a New Year’s resolution. What now? See why we say “Yes, Now!” in latest Uplift!

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Have a Little Faith

January 25, 2021Michael 2 Comments

Over the weekend my daughter and I were discussing how people are no longer allowed to change their minds. Well of course, they can, and many do, but the world in general doesn’t like change. It may have to do with how many people can no longer think for themselves. Not that they don’t want to think for themselves but that they’ve lost the ability to do so. So many have gotten so used to doing whatever they are told, including what to think, they have lost faith in their own ability to reason.

Reason says there are things that happen of which we are aware and we can explain and we have to adapt to survive. Sometimes those are physical things. People who study the earth’s geological history know that even in the absence of man the earth is getting warmer. The sun is getting hotter, the earth’s orbit around the sun is changing, the speed of the earth’s rotation is changing, and instability deep within the earth the leads to volcanic eruptions continues. Just as the earth moved from its ice age to a state that can support human life it will someday move beyond that point to be uninhabitable by man. That doesn’t mean we don’t do what we can to lessen man’s impact. We can and should make changes, and many, many billions do make changes to preserve the environment. But we should not be so arrogant to think we’ll always have the climate we want and are comfortable with. We may have to change because the earth is certainly going to whether we believe it or not and that change is going to have an impact on us.

Reason also says there are things we cannot explain but they happen anyway. These are the changes we have a harder time with globally. Christians throughout the world recognize the power of change in the life of St. Paul of Tarsis who changed from persecutor of early Christians to one of Christianity’s greatest evangelists. His change was one taken on faith, hearing words heard by no one else. Arguments can be made that Paul saw that it was “better” that he serve the way of God rather than that of Caesar but then one has to make the argument for what constitutes better and how far one goes to make one’s point and no matter how you defend or attack those arguments it doesn’t change the fact that somebody changed his mind and in his mind the change was for what he considered better. He did not let what he was told earlier in his life prevent him from believing what he was told later. Regardless of what you believe, he believed and changed and that change made an impact in the world.

Over the last year we’ve heard what could be construed as conflicting reports on everything from what to use to wash your hands to how and when to wear your masks to whether it is safe to play sports and at what size does a gathering become a risk. That’s not to say that if we were told something – by experts – in October of 2020 that contradicts what we were told – by experts – in March 2020, that what was said earlier in the year was wrong. It means the experts learned something new about something that changed. Something became different, something that is measurable and addressable. You may not like that the virus mutated and that it might be best addressed by re-institution of isolation procedures but the mutation happened and just not believing is not an option. You can decide to not isolate but that won’t change that a mutation occured. And that others also probably will.

This is probably why, unless it has stood the test of a couple thousand years like the words of Paul, we should probably not “take as gospel” things we hear and may even ourselves say. But like Paul, we should recognize that even though we firmly believed something yesterday we can be open to believing something completely different tomorrow because whether you believe or not, the world will be different tomorrow.

Having a little faith in what you hear today, and believing in the change you make tomorrow, might make a big difference and have a great impact in your world.

Extra! Extra!

February 27, 2020Michael 3 Comments

What are your plans for Saturday? You remember Saturday? February 29, our quadrennial reminder that in the struggle between man and nature man is lucky to struggle into second place.

We (that’s the big “we” and that means you too), we so arrogantly preen and posture and spends oh so much energy saving the planet for future generations that we completely miss that we know so little about our planet. We can’t even tell how long it takes to get around the sun.

Years, months, days, hours, minutes. All man made methods of marking time. We (the big “we”) came up with these. They weren’t forced upon us. We defined them as we chose. Can you hear the discussion? “I know, let’s make a ‘year’ our standard.” Great! What’s that? “The length of time it takes to go around the sun.” Wonderful! How long is that? “Heck if I know.” And in the true sense of being human in a world where being human was seemingly an afterthought, and an arrogant one at that, we picked 365 days. ish. Hmm. What’s a day?

And so, because somebody didn’t take the time to measure twice, declare once, we get an extra day every 4 years. ish. Every couple of years, nothing specific mind you, an extra second gets added in order for man to keep up with nature and the natural order of things. Somebody decides when to insert these “leap seconds” by probably following some multi-page calculation harkening as many laws of physics as possible in a single formula. Probably the same people deride poor Punxsutawney Phil as an inaccurate teller of things to come.

We absolutely must do our best to preserve the resources nature let’s us borrow, but we should also take heed that we are not in charge. Long before the first underarm deodorant was sprayed the glaciers began receding to carve out the Great Lakes and the Liddar Valley. Long before the first well was drilled the great land mass began separating into a handful of continental chunks. It’s not done. Long after man leaves Earth nature will continue its ongoing process of global renewal.

It’s good we screwed up measuring time. Now at least once every four years we get to remind ourselves that we aren’t all that after all. To be honest, I’m surprised somebody hasn’t worked in a drinking holiday or appliance sale around Leap Day. I suppose it’s only a matter of time.