Merry Christmas

It is the season of hope, joy and kindness and there are three fictional characters I want you to meet and grow to understand. Their names are Agios (redemption and immortality), Krampus (a simple child like man tortured and freed) and Nicholas (perhaps the original). Some of you will turn aside from your busy schedules to read, to be challenged and be refreshed. Some of you will merely look at the author’s name and refuse to even consider the story he has written. That will be a personal mistake.

I have just completed my third annual reading of The Immortal Nicholas by Glenn Beck. Each reading gave me a reason to return. The first reading was because the story’s concept intrigued me. The second reading was because I wanted to renew my acquaintance with the principle characters. Each was unique and they had lessons to teach. The third reading convinced me to read it every year simply because I feel better. 

Edmond Wilson wrote: “In a sense, one can never read the book the author originally wrote and one can never read the same book twice.”

Yes, it is a Christmas story!

Why Were Our Historical Monuments Really Moved or Distroyed

On 18 June 1940, Winston Churchill spoke these words in his “Their Finest Hour” speech to the House of Commons: “If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.”

Because I could not recall any recent statue removal or destruction stories, I found myself asking why that emotional wave had ended so abruptly. Perhaps it is true that the general public has a short lived attention span. Perhaps the listeners and viewers were no longer consumed by the shocking and mind grabbing headlines and they had become disinterested and the income the media harvested suddenly evaporated as well. Perhaps the new stories about powerful men taking liberties with women who were unable to protect themselves proved more exciting to the folks on the street and the money began to flow to the media outlets in even larger amounts. Perhaps the demonstrators had met or exceeded their demonstration goals. For me, the last observation seems to be the most compelling. Do not forget the acts or the actors and do not simply move either of them into the category of old news. It is not a question of if they will return but when and how. They may take a different form but the messages and the tests will remain consistent.

Consider the possibility that the assaults on all of the monuments were a staged and highly choreographed, quarrel with the past for effect. The real demonstration targets were not the statues of specifically chosen Civil War heroes and/or our nation’s founders. The real targets were the hearts and minds of the people of color who are living in the present and want the past to have never happened. Carefully note that the highly publicized actions by these activists did not change the past or improve the present but they did nudge all of us toward a different kind of future. I believe the activists decided to remove the statues not because they were offensive to them but because they wanted to test the limits of a rewriting of history itself. The destroyed and removed statues were simply visual reminders and symbols of our historical truths, events, mistakes made and lessons learned.

Be wary of the continually developing revisionist history. That history is being written to replace our past and the lessons we have learned with a created history that will be presented as something far, far better. The removal or destruction of these statues told us a great deal about the activist’s teachers and the lessons they taught and teach in today’s college classrooms. Both events showcased which lessons the activists clearly learned and applied. I believe these teachers and students are now much more likely to seek ways to remove and replace all written and widely accepted truths in our founding documents beginning with the Bill of Rights. I also believe they will also continue to test, in public arenas, their own guiding principles and values as well.

Following the lead of these activists puts you and our nation at risk but you can protect yourselves by making personal decisions and efforts to learn freedom’s lessons by reading and understanding your true history and foundation documents. Focus on the future you certainly want but could well lose.

The Concept of a Free Press, Real or Illusion

My lifetime has taught me to admire, respect and love the truth that is my country. In my youth I was taught to believe that our free press is our protector and our protector will always be there to tell us the truths we need to know and understand. This is the reason the press was revered and given safe harbor in our First Amendment to the Constitution. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press.”  The First Amendment clearly demonstrates the importance, faith and reverence extended to the press by those who chose to create and protect our nation.

Step away from the clearly desired and desperately needed intent of a guaranteed freedom and carefully observe the press rejecting its intended protector role. The press in all its modern forms now chooses each and every day to follow unanticipated, dangerous courses and purposes. The truths it chooses to twist daily can be compared to the images you see when you enter a house of mirrors found in many carnivals. There, you get what you expect. Your reflected image is simply a humorous distortion. You are tall, short, skinny or fat and you are amused because you understand that it is not really you. In real life the press also presents you and this nation as distorted images based on false values and false truths. Those images continue to grow more and more grotesque and dangerous and I am decidedly not amused. Truth is the only image you and I should seek and demand or we no longer have a protector. 

If you cannot trust where can you turn?

Everything is Whole/Part Forever

Every once in a while my walkabout seems to stop in mid stride, pause and then abruptly turn in another direction. Today was one of those times. I had decided to sit down and simply read a chapter from A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber which I had finally purchased because my daughter had suggested that I should. She had promised I would find clear writing and unique thinking. Armed with my usual cup of coffee, a pad and a pen I arrived almost at once at an unanticipated stopping point. My eyes and my mind saw a sentence which spoke of thinking I had not considered. “Time goes on and today’s wholes are tomorrow’s parts.”

I did not begin to look for a quotation about time but there it was and that thinking gave me a new purpose and turned me in a different direction. Ken Wilber’s words led me through the concept that there is no whole anything. Everything is “whole/part” forever. The combination of whole/part is then defined as a holon. After many minutes of searching I learned that holon was a word created by Arthur Koestler, a Hungarian-British author and journalist. A holon (Greek: ὅλον, holon neuter form of ὅλος, holos "whole") is something that is simultaneously a whole and a part. The word was coined by Arthur Koestler in his book The Ghost in the Machine (1967, p. 48). You can learn much more about the unique Arthur Koestler at the site shown below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Koestler  (should be: Arthur_Koestler)

See also: http://www.integralworld.net/edwards13.html  Here you will be looking at an interesting article : A Brief History of Holons by Mark Edwards and you will observe the idea of the holon occupies a central position in Koestler's thinking about the human condition.

Consider, here, two of Koestler’s quoted thoughts: 

“Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual” And “Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears.” See Brainy Quotes for others.

As I became comfortable with the origin and purpose of holon I turned on my heels and began to search for the word kosmos which sounded a lot like cosmos and was therefore a bit confusing.  I turned to my old friend etyomology where I learned that kosmos was Greek in origin and it was passed on to us from Greek kosmos ‘order or world’ and through middle English. So how did this word morph? Enter Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt a Prussian explorer and naturalist, (1769-1859).  Humboldt viewed the world the ancient Greeks called a kosmos and saw a “beautifully ordered and harmonious system”. If I have read it correctly von Humboldt later coined the word cosmos as a title word.  Using the word cosmos enabled him to encompass heaven and earth together.

Indeed, Laura Dassow Walls in her book The Passage to Cosmos  Its subtitle is Alexander van Humboldt and the Shaping of America  describes Humboldt’s “vision of humans and nature as integrated halves of a single whole.”

I had found in cosmos and kosmos something that is simultaneously a whole/part of the single whole forever and realized I had completed a circle and have arrived where I began. 

Today’s walkabout is complete and I can now return to Wilber’s book with better understanding as my companion.

Thank you for joining me.

Examine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_(Humboldt)#See_also

and

Examine Laura Dassow Wall’s book at https://www.amazon.com

No doubt you also remember the book Cosmos by Carl Sagan. (An interesting man and book)!

What Happens If People and Not Congress Abridge Freedom of Speech?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/sports/colin-kaepernick-national-anthem-protests-and-NFL-activism-in-quotes/?utm_term=.209ad7d520df

When you have finished reading all of the recent comments published in the Washington Post newspaper address shown above you will likely come to the conclusion that one football player’s deliberate attempt to make a point has been achieved. The ongoing protest is viewed by some as a beacon leading to change and equality for a particular group. There is also a counter group brimming with anger and it questions the how, when and where ethics of the unpatriotic demonstrators. The potential for growth or for loss for the country is being played out with no apparent end in sight in all of our media. In addition to those who have spoken and have been quoted daily, there are countless other men and women who are apparently quietly accepting or rejecting his decision and the consequences of that decision. Do the unmeasured and unheard voices present a potentially different unseen and unheard outcome? 

One thought concerns me greatly. I have not considered it before and yet it exists in plain sight and it is troubling. Separate the freedom of speech language from the total First Amendment language and it reads "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech”. What happens when and if a decision is made to abridge the law by individuals and groups of people and not Congress? What happens when people exercising their rights stop other people exercising their rights? Some of you will say, "That cannot happen." Really? 

Our amended Constitution does not say you have to like, approve or support what someone does or says or where and how they choose to say it. You have been granted both the freedom of speech and a great personal responsibility which you must learn to master. The real challenges to this nation are not the demonstrators or the demonstrations or the language used or who says it. The challenge is how the nation chooses to address the issue being protested. I choose to follow the Constitution because it is the law of the land and without it we merely exist and are literally not unique as a people or a nation.

Time Seen Through Poetry, Music and Etymology

Today my mind has acted like a compass unable to locate and settle on true north and I wandered about looking at time in poetry, music and finally word etymologies. Even for me, that combination is a bit weird but then I often find myself going in different directions at the drop of a thought especially if I think I might run into something I didn’t know, or something that has vexed me and I need an answer. Though odd, today’s walkabout has confirmed again my belief that elements of the concept of time can be found nearly everywhere and they are capable of revealing things that are unique and hidden in plain sight.

            Time and Poetry

I began my walkabout by wondering if time could be linked to poetry and I simply typed the phrase ‘time and poetry’ into my search engine and up popped a list of 16,700,000 results in 0.64 seconds. I chose topic one: https://www.poemhunter.com and was delighted because in addition to a title, the poet’s name and the text of the poem, I had the additional pleasure of seeing the text and hearing it read aloud. I found poems about time passing, about time and love, about the importance of time, about time as precious and about time running out. Not bad for a few minutes of simply looking around. Yes, I do like poetry.

            Time and Music

Disclaimer: When I was young, I actually tried, dramatically and unsuccessfully, to learn how to play both the accordion and the violin but I still learned to love music. I believe that I learned to love classical music because of a radio program sponsored by American Airlines out of Chicago called Music till Dawn.  I listened to that program on a tall wooden framed Philco radio in my bedroom almost every night when I was in my teens.

When I typed in time and music I discovered concepts which had eluded me in youth explained and pictures that could have helped me to make a connection with the little symbols named notes, sharps and flats which are found on sheet music. I was really fascinated by a simple picture of a piano keyboard which could be placed on the piano above the keys as a visual guide and as a reminder. Pictures and the use of simple words like forks and chopsticks helped me to see what I could not see and grasp as a child. It is difficult for me to draw a picture of a piano keyboard with just words but read the words first and then turn to the web site shown below for clarification. The black keys are in groups of two (chopsticks) and three (fork). The key to the left of the chopsticks is the note C and the key to the left of the fork is the note F. Wonder of wonders it made sense and so did the later explanations of sharps and flats. All of this doesn’t mean that I can now learn to play the piano or the accordion but a light went on in my head and the room was no longer dark. http://www.dummies.com/art-center/music/piano/how-to-identify-the-keys-on-a-piano/.

            Time and Etymology

My original goal for today was to merely clarify the meaning of the word “saeculum”.  I found that it can be defined as a length of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a person or the equivalent of the complete renewal of a given human population. Here, I was reminded that etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. Examining saeculum at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/saeculum, I discovered  the classical and Ecclesiastical pronunciations of this word differ. The classical Saeculum is pronounced (sae-ku-lum) and Ecclesiastical is pronounced as (se.ku.lum). I also learned that the letters ‘sae-” mean to sow, bind, knit and tie together. Those meanings are joined by the addition of the Latin suffix –culum  to form some nouns derived from verbs. I even discovered a list of “Latin words suffixed with the suffix –culum “ at: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Latin_words_suffixed_with-culum.

For good measure, I learned that the Romans picked up the word saeculum from an extremely successful nation of peoples who were named Etruscans. Etruscans believed that their nation would exist only through ten lifetimes and would then end.  It turns out they were correct!

Promise to myself: Return to the visit Etruscans one more time and then move on to the Romans because the Romans who followed the Etruscans in history have a similar nation ending story of their own.

Our Earth's Journey Around the Sun

Our Earth’s Journey Around the Sun

My daughter recently sent me a simple five word sentence which she had posted in her blog site at http://guhacaveoftheheart.blogspot.com/. As I read it again and then again I paused and turned from what I was planning to do and lingered in its truth. Her shared sentence was: "Time goes from present to past." In essence we by nature look at something and recall another time and image. She also revealed the source of the words as coming from the Zen Master Dogen of 12th century Japan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dōgen .

Earlier in that same day I had been struck by the fact that the shadows created by the morning sun shining on the trees in my back yard had moved dramatically from when I had last paid attention to them, and I clearly remembered that I had watched their repeating patterns through an earlier autumn then through winter, spring and summer. Now they had returned to autumn. I hadn’t been paying any conscious attention to the shadow’s movements but they had, indeed, moved and in my mind the never ending cycle revealed itself again. It was at this point that I realized that physical challenges I had faced in the prior year were finally ready to be put aside and I could return to the past and continue my walkabout with time. Where you are when you are ending or beginning the cycle we call a year makes no difference at all.

During the trying time I had forgotten the uniqueness of the earth’s movement and truthfully didn’t even care but it is some of the obvious and the subtle elements of that movement which I choose to share with you today. Join me on my walkabout and observe our earth’s graceful dance around the sun.

Remember: I choose to not share all I have read and learned on my journey because this is my journey. I will, however, leave a few signposts for you to examine and perhaps find your own discoveries. Two of the signposts were shown above. The rest are shown at the end of my walkabout and perhaps the beginning of yours.

Our earth’s journey around our sun takes 365.24 days. Because it is not exactly 365 days, the year needs to be adjusted every four years from 365 to 366 days. The added day makes it possible for all of the seasons to occur at the same time each year. That adjustment year is called leap year. The added day is called leap day and it has been added to February as its 29^th day. Leap day has its pluses when it comes to seasons but there is also a drawback for those people who are born on February 29 because they can experience their calendar birthday only once every four years.

Depending on your age, each and every year is accurately described as gone in the blink of an eye or as taking forever. In fact our earth’s journey is not the stately walk of lovers on a beach. On each of the 365.24 days we travel a fairly accurate 1.598 million miles per day at roughly 18.5 miles per second. We experience a time in our journey when we are closest to the sun and yet it occurs on January 3. It is called the Perihelion. Conversely we find ourselves at the greatest distance from the sun on July 4. That event is called Aphelion. Both events occur about two weeks after our two solstices. Both of these words describing our extremes came to us from ancient Greece. Peri means close and Apo means far. Yes the Greeks also had a name for the sun. It is helos. A solstice also has a most and least time. The Summer or June solstice occurs on June 21/22 and the Winter or December solstice occurs on December 21/22. They arrive six months apart. Their season arrivals reflect the times when the sun reaches its highest or lowest point in the sky at noon, and are marked by the longest and shortest days.

Since there is an existing and observable balance between closest and furthest and longest and shortest it is logical to find that we have two periods when there is a time of sameness. Those periods have been named Equinox. An Equinox is the time or date (twice each year) at which the sun crosses the celestial equator. The celestial equator is defined as the projection into space of the earth's equator; an imaginary circle equidistant from the celestial poles. I can hear you thinking about that sentence because I am not really scientifically or mathematically comfortable with another equator and more poles either. It hurts my head too! Just focus on the time of the year when the days and nights are of equal length, about September 22 and March 20, and you understand an equinox.

All of this predictability is only possible because our earth is tilted. It appears that about 4.5 billion years ago an object about the size of Mars collided with our earth and that collision resulted in a world tilted in its relation to the sun. It is the tilt of the world which make the seasons possible. Not only is the world tilted, it actually wobbles between roughly 21.4 and 24.4 degrees and the extremes of the wobble occur within a roughly 41,000 year cycle. The increase and decrease of the tilt can be shown to set the table for our earths predictable heating and cooling cycles. This cycle theory was proposed by a Serbian named Milutin Milankovitch in 1930.

Together, we experience four seasons, equal days and nights, heat and cold, longer and shorter days and we travel through space at high speeds. In all of this, we remain in place and yet we move and because of an ancient collision we all experience the year we sometimes take for granted. Because the journey repeats itself whether you pay attention to it or not and all observable events come and go on a predictable schedule our journey around the sun together is a dance we all can and should enjoy.

Guideposts:

A guidepost is another name for sign post but I prefer it to be merely a guide and not the end.

1.      http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C2TSND_enUS618US618&q=time+and+date.com

2.      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season

3.      https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/aboutseasons.html

4.      https://www.livescience.com/18972-earth-seasons-tilt.html

5.      https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-time

6.      https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/aboutseasons.html  

7.      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus

8.      https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Milankovitch/ 

9.      https://www.quora.com/Why-does-February-have-28-days

Our DACA Issue

I do not know if any of you who might be reading this entry have also followed the DACA issue but I am personally delighted by the possibility that our Congress will take the President’s suggestion to act wisely and promptly to seek a just outcome for all DACA individuals within the 6 month window of opportunity he has provided in his recent decision. I believe the President’s decision is correct and just. I want you to understand that I am not against any of the DACA individuals who can meet the requirements in the yet to be established legal path to their possible citizenship.  I am personally relieved that their futures will finally be determined by the rule of law rather than in the dysfunctional courts of media and personal opinion. President Calvin Coolidge spoke these words on July 5, 1926 in Philadelphia. “It is not the enactment but the observance of laws that creates the character of a nation.”

Those among you who have chosen to inappropriately speak of President Trump as cruel because of his decision must consider the following facts about our nation’s Constitution.

Our Constitution is the law of the land.

Our government’s Legislative branch includes a Senate (100 members) and a House of Representatives (435 Members). Our Legislative branch was designed and empowered to Make the laws.

Our government’s Executive branch includes the President, Vice President and the President’s Cabinet. Our Executive branch was designed and empowered to Carry out the laws.

Our government’s Judicial branch includes the Supreme Court and other Federal lesser courts. Our Judicial branch was designed and empowered to Evaluate the laws.

Because it is ours, we must find a way to let our nation’s Constitution work its magic yet again and we must make a personal promise to learn and understand our Constitution and the ideals that created it.

Now is the time to understand and change

Every human being, young or old, strong or weak, male or female has a specific point in their psychological makeup beyond which each will be broken in mind and spirit. A broken mind ultimately motivated the shooter toward violence in Alexandria, Virginia and I believe there are many more such men and women in various stages of being broken who might also turn destructive in the not so distant future. I only wonder why the psychological siege from the progressive left took so long to exhibit its predictable effect.

This article is an attempt to describe what I believe is close on the heels of a single broken man from Illinois going over the edge and shooting an elected person of a consciously chosen political party. Outrage will be the word of the day but that single man’s actions could become the focal point for a possible change or an even greater crisis.

The recent attack in Alexandria was logical and it was a precisely direct consequence of the continuous ill chosen words and actions which offered no other choice to that man. The 217 consecutive days between November 8, 2016 and June 14, 2017 were filled with manufactured truths by those on the progressive left. The left has chosen this path because they believe, for whatever reason, that President Donald Trump is evil and not legitimate and is morally and ethically a criminal and he needs to be punished and removed from office. Eventually the left will be correctly confronted with suggestions that they in no small way contributed to the shootings and the targets. The left will feign innocence and deny the obvious truth. However, the shooter simply demonstrated that he clearly heard what they have said, read what they have written and consciously took to heart the perverse ugliness laid before him and after 217 consecutive days he broke.

On November 8, 2016 a national crisis was manufactured and given life. Against all odds, Donald Trump was elected, President of the United States and the progressive left proceed to go berserk at the expense of anyone who begs to differ with their vaunted self opinion and demonstrated rage. Because of that rage there has been a well defined and concentrated rush to defame a man who won a national election which the left considered as theirs and they believe he needs to be punished. They have clearly demonstrated that there is nothing to be considered as too low, vile or untrue to be left unspoken and demonstrated against. With their actions, they have established both an obvious goal and the actions necessary to achieve that goal. The possibility that the established goal could create, sooner or a later, a national crisis seems to make no difference whatsoever to them.

The present course of history is simply economically, socially and politically unsustainable. I am becoming convinced that the unheard, unseen and under respected masses between the mountains of the east and west are slowly being pushed toward a fight or flight mentality. First one man or woman and then another and then another will each reach a personal breaking point and succumb. There is a growing possibility that these people will come together and forcefully declare enough is enough and collectively demand a national course change. Face to face confrontations will likely occur and suddenly the dark storm on the horizon will reach over all of us and we will find ourselves at a national point of no return. What comes out of that event concerns me daily.

Let us all pause to understand and appreciate any and all steps leading us away from this destructive course of action before it becomes too late to matter.

The Beginning of Time

I have only experienced true darkness in the bowels of the earth we call caves.  A trip through a cave provided me a remarkable first person glimpse of the time before what we now call the Big Bang or the Creation Story. I am neither a science authority nor a religious scholar and it is not my purpose during my walkabout to explore the relative agreements and disagreements of this observed event. It is enough to share that the science story is covered by such a luminary as Stephen Hawking and the religious interpreted story found in the book of Genesis. Who or what you choose to explore and believe is your own journey.

Today, I will merely share some of what I have observed and experienced in mind and body because a major part of the walkabout is remembering and sharing.  It is why I begin in a cave. Whether you take the journey with a single spelunker friend in a secluded personal outing or you choose a professionally guided tour in the company of fellow travelers, every cave provides a remarkable transition just for you. The ever handy dictionary states that a transition is a process or a period of changing one state or condition to another. Consider these synonyms as you look for a transition in your life: change, passage, move, transformation, conversion, metamorphosis and alteration.

At some point in the exploration of a cave you are handed the gift of experience. On this trip, I knew what was coming and I had made a conscious effort to allow time for my eyes to adjust to the transition from the provided low level electrical lighting to darkness.  I also knew it would make no difference. A simple flick of a finger on a switch and I found myself in a remarkable place. Nothing that was there before the lights were put away remained and the roof of the cave became a sky devoid of everything I had grown to know. For all practical purposes, the demonstration gave me a vision of what did and did not exist before the transition to we call the beginning of time. I wish for you the experience of the absence of created light. The only things that remained were the sounds of falling drops of water and the varied sounds from those who were unprepared. I also wish that each of you, far away from unnatural light and in the middle of night, will someday experience the gasp in your breath when you realize that you are surrounded by a level of light you thought impossible.

Needs, Wants and Debt

Our human body contains in excess of 37 trillion cells. Any beach is a huge collection of individual grains of sand. The number of individual geometric patterns contained in a one inch overnight snow shower is impossible to count. A new earth is apparently only four light years away if we can travel at 186,232 miles per second for four entire years. These numbers baffle me.

A twenty trillion dollar national debt is such a number. The debt, however, can be viewed as a manageable $65,000 personal debt for every man, woman and child in this country through simple division. It does not include the debt carried by states, cities or ourselves but it is a number easily understood, managed and feared.

In the absence of real emergencies there is, and there always has been, a straight forward solution to debt management for you, your family, any city, any state and our national government. All that is required is the understanding of the value of a budget and knowing the difference between "I need" and "I want because". When our national financial end arrives, and it will, it will arrive not in the arms of “need” but on the back of “I want because”.

We must recognize and understand that all budgets seek a balance of what we need and can afford not what we want. Increased taxation and the printing of money on demand by our government will never meet the costs of  “I want because”. We all “want because” and that is the real point. Correct choices are what budgets are for. Politicians should spend resources on needs but they get more votes for providing wants. Tell politicians to provide you what you need and not what you want. There is a difference.

Spring Forward to Daylight Saving Time

Today, my Walkabout begins. As you read this and future articles here in Our Caravan, please remember that I asked you to join me in my Walkabout in search of time because of the learning you too will experience. My Walkabout is not intended to be a solitary journey. Neither is it intended that I will share with you everything I may have read or learned. The Walkabout is meant to be a journey of self learning. I will always look for something I didn’t know before I started but as you also explore, you and I will likely discover different aspects of the same thing. I like that possibility. We both will grow!

I promise that I will always try to remember to provide you with expanded opportunities to see and grow on your own. I have a slight head start on you today because I now have several pages of typed and handwritten notes in front of me. I certainly will not use all of what I have found so there is much that you can consider on your own.

The Daylight Saving Time we will explore in this article is not a natural patterned event like a change in seasons but I think it is appropriate for me to begin my Walkabout by considering some of information associated with its anticipated arrival.

Setting our clocks 1 hour forward in the spring is often referred to as “Daylight Savings Time” even though “Daylight Saving Time” is the correct spelling. DST is a good way to avoid the issue. The direction to Spring forward literally reminds all of us that we must move our clocks one hour forward but it is also a gentle reminder of the anticipated arrival of calendar spring. This year, the season we call spring arrives eight days later, on Monday, March 20. The first day of the spring season is the day of the year when the Sun crosses the celestial equator moving northward (on March 20th or 21st). This day is known as the Vernal Equinox. The Vernal (Spring) Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere is the Autumnal (Fall) Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere and vice versa.

Daylight Saving Time (DST will be used in all remaining references)) begins on Sunday, March 12 and ends on Sunday, November 5. Remember, you don’t really save an hour. You simply move it from morning to evening to give you more time for fun things.

Even though the DST arrival and departure is cyclical, the date for the arrival of DST actually varies annually. Observe the changing the arrival dates of DST from 2015 through 2019: 2015(March 8), 2016 (March 13), 2017 (March 12), 2018 (March 11) and 2019 (March 10).

DST Facts:

Benjamin Franklin wrote an essay called “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light” and sent it to the editor of the Journal de Paris in 1784. “In the essay, he suggested, although jokingly, that Parisians could economize candle usage by getting people out of bed earlier in the morning, making use of natural morning light instead.”

In 1895, New Zealand scientist George Vernon Hudson submitted a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society. He considered a two hour time shift forward in October and a two hour shift back in March. Interest was expressed but there was no action taken.

In 1905, British builder William Willett came up with the idea of setting the clocks ahead 20 minutes on each of the four Sundays in April and back by the same amount in the four Sundays in September.

On April 30, 1916 Germany was the first country to introduce DST to save fuel for the war effort.

In 1918 in the U.S., President Woodrow Wilson signed into law “Fast Time” supporting the war effort in World War. This activity was suggested by Robert Garland a Pittsburgh industrialist who saw the plan in action in the United Kingdom. Garland has been referred to as the “Father of Daylight Saving”. Only seven months later the initiative was repealed. However, Pittsburgh, Boston and New York continued to use it. In 1942 “Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted year-round DST in the United States”.

I found it interesting that the names of each time zone changed along with Daylight Saving Time. For example, Eastern Standard Time (EST) becomes Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) as DST moved across the country. As you might expect the transition could cause major difficulties with transportation. Therefore, Under the Uniform Time Act, the department of Transportation is in charge of time zones in the United States and it ensures that jurisdictions observing Daylight Saving time begin and end on the same date.

Congress extended DST for ten months in 1974 and eight months in 1975 to save energy following the 1973 oil embargo. It proved successful in saving the energy equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil each day. It also became the focus of a national complaint that dark winter mornings endangered the lives of children going to school.

Since 1986 the United States had observed Daylight Saving Time from the first Sunday in April through the last Sunday in October. The bill called for Daylight Saving Time to begin earlier on the second Sunday in March and end on the first Sunday in November. On Monday, August 8, 2005 President Bush signed into law a broad energy bill that extended Daylight Saving Time by four weeks beginning in 2007.

DST is now in use in over 70 countries worldwide. There is no standard for beginning and ending from country to country. However, the European Union (EU) has standardized DST from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.

Given that nations close to the equator do not see huge changes in the hours of daylight between summer and winter DTS is generally not practiced. If interested, you can easily discover the countries which do and those which do not practice DST.

Some selected Facts about DST

Even after roughly 100 years people still disagree that the hour forward and back in fall has the desired effect.

Traditional dairy farmers often protest the DST creates a time challenge for milk collecting. Modern farms often use robot milking and this argument can be shown to be void. Farms in developing countries are still an active part of the ongoing debate.

Countries such as Egypt often change the DST dates because authorities need to make themselves felt.

Muslim countries, like Morocco, have suspend DST until the end of Ramadan.

According to a 2013 Rasmussen Report, only 37 % of Americans favor DST compared to 45% the year before.

There have been studies which link DST to reduced accidents and road injuries.

As you might expect, the American tourist industry really welcomes DST because it makes people stay out later and those people spend more money. In other countries such as Australia a study in Queensland as reported by the Courier mail estimated a $4 billion a year in lost business simply because Queensland does not practice DST.

Arguments against DST

Guatemala decided not to have DST because citizens leaving for work in the dark were being exposed to potential crime.

Certain studies show that there is an increase in both heart attacks and road accidents on the days clocks are set forward one hour in the spring.

There are apparently a lot of people, beside me, who, at least in the short term, do not adjust well to the loss of an hour of sleep. Loss of sleep decreases productivity, concentration and general a sense of well-being in a whole bunch of folks. On the other hand, other studies have claimed that after returning the clocks back to standard time a lot of other people find that November change can trigger seasonal depressions like Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) or winter depression.

Suggestion to make DST easier to manage:

Set your alarm a little earlier on the Friday and Saturday before the Sunday change. This is supposed to make it easier to get up on the next Monday morning. Mondays with or without DST were never easy for me.

Eat a healthy breakfast, first thing in the morning. Some studies claim that food tells your body it is time to start the day.

Try to get as much sunlight as possible because it is suggested that sunlight helps to adjust your body clock.

Help your kids to adjust by changing their bedtime a little bit earlier during the week leading to DST.

Just for fun.

Instead of DST, some locations change their standard time back and forth every year. For example, the Antarctic research station Troll switches Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) to Central European Time (CTE), and then later it goes on to Central European Summer Time(CEST) to adjust to the local time and its mother country, Norway. Troll time then changes back again to CET and finally to GMT. Now that is really disorienting!

More DST ideas for you to consider on your own

In the beginning of this article I promised to drop some things you can discover on your own. Clearly I have left you a good cookie trail but here are some other potential points of interest: 

How about a couple of books to read? You can find both of them at Amazon. Seize the Daylight by David Prerau and Spring Forward: The Unreal Madness of Daylight Saving Time by Michael Downing.

If you don’t like to fool around adjusting clocks, you might consider looking for a clock which automatically adjusts to DST just like your computer. Yes, they do exist. Although there are probably other places to find them, simply begin your search at Amazon. Actually there are more clocks with the ability to change to DST than I really expected.

What is UTC?

What is the history of DST in Canada and Mexico?

What is a time zone and how is it determined?

By all means, enjoy your own searches and join me again for my next side trip on my Walkabout. I have no idea where I will stop to look but it will probably be fun. I have a feeling something will catch my eye and I want you to see it too.

Present Time is a Great Place to Begin

“The beginning is the most important part of any work”

Plato

There are many reasons why I am preparing to explore the concept of time but the short answer is because it has always fascinated me. Time is everywhere and nowhere. In many ways it can be compared to an itch you can’t quite reach.

There are. apparently,  at least 1567 synonyms and 177 antonyms for the word time. www.powerthesaurus.org . Time  exists as the past, present and future. “Time has been called an illusion, a dimension, a smooth flowing continuum and an expression of separation among events that occur in the same physical location” and it has also been described as “… a practical convenience in modern life”.

Brainy Quotes www.brainyquote.com  offered these quotations for consideration: “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time” (Leo Tolstoy) and “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” (Thomas A Edison) 

Not to be outdone, Goodreads  www.goodreads.com offered two additional time quotations: “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” (Mother Teresa) and “They say I’m old-fashioned and live in the past but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast.” (Dr. Seuss)

A visit to www.whatis.techtarget.com  startled me. I discovered that this site lays claim to an unbelievable 3,127 different tech results which include the word time. Examples included access time, talk time, cycle time, face time and time management on just the first page!  

Time is spring flowers and snow blown drifts separated by only days and weeks.

Cyclical  time and  mind time enable us to visualize our planet earth as a space ship annually and eternally circling  our sun in a precise, measurable pattern.

Our daily perception of time exists in clearly defined units such as seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months and years. The time expressed in the word ‘eon’ on the other hand has an indefinite meaning and a vague period of time.

We casually speak of great achievements such as man reaching for the stars where the time required for the journey to a new home is measured in light years. A light year is a unit of astronomical distance equivalent to the distance that light travels in one year. Remember light travels at roughly 186,282 miles per second.

Time is present in the awe we feel when we are actually able to see and read a message which has been written on the back wall of a tunnel carved by people of an ancient culture who knew and understood the concept of a solar equinox.

Time can be viewed in the accumulated layers of stuff from past civilizations which is revealed in an archeological dig. Each newly revealed layer gradually carries us back to the observable and imagined time and events for that site.

Time leaves the story of growth cycles easily seen, read and understood in the rings in the cross cut section of an oak.

Time can be seen on the face and heard in the voice of a Grandfather clock.

Time can even be illustrated through the written music and the lyrics from stage plays like Fiddler on the Roof. “Sunrise, sunset. Sunrise, sunset. Swiftly fly the years. One season following another, laden with happiness and tears”. Can you hear or feel the time of the music from this play?

The common hourglass presents the passage of time as something simple in concept, clearly visible and, importantly,easy to reset. In its simplicity, the hourglass is a wonderful visual example of time in motion. The top portion of the glass container represents the future. The pinched middle portion is the present and the bottom is the past. Standing in the middle of the hourglass we see the time above and experience time as something yet to come and the bottom portion represents everything that was.

Pause here for a moment and consider another perception of the movement of time. Our Caravan, this blog site, attempts to provide a different view of the passing of time.

The caravan traveler remains in the middle of the cycle and gazes forward toward the past. Future experiences remain behind and are yet to come. The difference between the two is subtle but it can be seen and it can be explored. I strongly believe our understanding of the past enables us to repeat positive outcomes with certainty and teach us what we should not repeat again. Now compare this simplicity to the complexity of quantum physics or an expanding universe.

During a recent conversation with my daughter, I clearly heard and recognized a long list of time concepts I want and need to explore. Christianity, for example, presents a wonderful combination of circular and linear time. Consider this: Christ was born. He died. It is promised that he will return. This is linear time. “The liturgical year, also known as the church year or Christian year,  consists of the cycle of liturgical seasons in Christian churches that determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be observed, and which portions of Scripture are to be read  in an annual cycle ...(circular time)”

Time is used and understood differently by people celebrating different faiths and cultures. Those differences reveal a completely different story when examined through the lens of the differing perspectives.

She talked of Periodic Cyclical time in Hinduism, reminded me of the Mayan time expressed and explored in 2012, spoke of cultural time, China and time, suggested an exploration of Japanese Buddhism and asked me to consider humans as meaning makers.

 She also encouraged me to explore Developmental time and discover Spiral time and even reminded me of mind time as seen in fishing time compared to waiting time in an emergency room. I smile when I remember that quite a few fishermen have made trips to various emergency rooms to get fish hooks and lures removed from their ears.

Please excuse me. A pun has asked to join my written thoughts. From time to time I will intentionally share a book title and perhaps a wee bit of the book itself.  I have already read some of the books I will mention and I hope you will come to enjoy them as much as I have.  I will probably also share some additional unread books which are silently waiting to speak.

I am now ready to begin a great personal Walkabout. By definition, a Walkabout historically refers to a rite of passage during which Indigenous male Australians would undergo a journey during adolescence, typically ages 10 to 16, and live in the wilderness for a period as long as six months to make the spiritual and traditional transition into manhood. I missed such a journey in my youth but I suspect it is never too late to begin and so I will. There is no real predetermined design. The essays will come in no specific order and there is no planned timeline or deadline. I invite you to come along with me. We both have much to see and learn.

American Left and Muslims Claim Government Foul in Immigration Plan

The followers of the leadership of the emotional and destructive American Left and the citizens and guests who worship in this country and follow the teachings of Islam are both being led to believe and proclaim that the government of the United States is an evil and vengeful spirited collection of men and women led by a man who is poised and planning to separate and isolate them for future persecution. That is a lie. The unknown who and why questions associated with the lie remain unanswered. I do know that neither the American people nor our government’s leadership is the enemy. The true enemy lives deep within the philosophies and leadership of the American Left and Muslim extremists.

Carefully consider what can be historically verified and let American history be the judge of American justice in the face of adversity on a world scale. During World War II the average citizens of Germany and of Japan were never in the vengeful minded cross hairs of the powerful nation named The United States. In Germany only about 10% of that nation were Nazis and in Japan citizens existed to place their lives in the hands of their Emperor. It was the leaders of those nations who chose to wage war and it was them who signed their nation’s death warrants and caused the almost countless deaths of the common citizens who trusted them.

As the second world war turned to peace, our history demonstrates clearly that the United States, did everything it could to help the citizens of both countries to survive the severe trials of that war and with good will helped them to rebuild and enabled them to resume their own versions of “promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty” to themselves and to their posterity.  At our core, United States citizens really do understand and believe the first amendment to our constitution and the specific language that screams in support of religion and “the free exercise thereof.” Instead of persecution, destruction and annihilation, the people of the United States and their government openly supported the remaining citizens who only wanted to work, live and worship as they saw fit.  My nation clearly understood that those people found themselves in war and death simply because they did not choose or were incapable of choosing to speak out against or fight against the evil that already existed within. I believe those German and Japanese citizens probably saw and understood the evil in their midst but they did nothing to stop it and the evil grew. To their horror they discovered that they had arrived at a clear personal understanding of the evil too late and could do nothing to stop it and they were trapped.

The United States is not now, nor have we ever been, completely without fault. We were clearly stupid and frightened enough by voices of persecution and doom from within our nation to actually put American citizens into detention camps during that Second World War. However, we are not what we are being labeled to be. If this were true then every German and every Japanese citizen alive in those years would have been removed from the face of this earth during and after that dreadful war.

I strongly believe that the acceptance of extremism found within the practicing Muslims and the United States Left is leading them to ride their own waves of intolerance and self destruction. I sincerely hope those followers quickly learn to separate themselves from those waves because they and many others will surely suffer when the wave crashes on the unmovable shore as it must. The rigid backbone of here and no further has appeared before and is, most certainly, poised to appear again.

America First

For those among you who are feeling and stating that you are fearful of the intent and possible international impact of President Donald Trump’s “America First” philosophy, consider the possibility that you do not really understand it is rational and necessary.

Contrary to your many spoken and written opinions, I believe the “America First” philosophy is best understood as a necessary first step taken to secure that we are able to continue our nation’s quest to assist others. Of course we are a nation of the world. Of course there is a real need someplace in this world each and every day. Of course this nation feels the pain of those in need. Of course we have a moral responsibility to help others as we can. However, where is it demonstrated that we should not take care of ourselves first even as we strive to help others? America First cannot and should not be interpreted as America Only or as a threat to other nations!

My family, each and every year, identifies agencies and institutions which provide services to others who have needs in our community. We can and do commit to support their efforts annually because we took care of ourselves first. We did not over spend and did not spend what we did not have. All families encounter needs and requirements which must be met first. Because we chose to make ourselves secure first, we are able to attempt to serve some of the needs of others. Family first is not a declaration of isolationism and self serving. It is the required process of making sure that you can do something good for others because you were able to secure the well being of your family first. Consider the ramifications of the alternative which is others first and family second. If we could not meet our family needs and obligations, we could never commit to attempt to meet the needs of others. Should a nation be and act differently?

What existing problems in The United States do you believe should not be addressed before we choose to serve the needs of others? This is not isolationism. This is not wrong. We must get our nation’s needs met and in order before we can and should assist others.