Summer Solstice, Midsummer, &c.

Where I reside, at approximately 38° North Latitude, the actual length time between sunrise and sunset is identical (within half a minute) from 15 June to 25 June (and maybe beyond that, I didn’t check). Namely we have about 15 hours 32 minutes between sunrise and sunset – it seems longer because of long morning and evening twilight and often a lingering glow from atmospheric conditions in summer. 

In modern astronomical terms, the solstice is defined in terms of the position of the earth in its orbit around the sun, as measured against the background of the fixed stars.  So in 2017, the solstice occurs at 9:24 PM PDT on 20 June.  

In ancient observational astronomical terms, the solstice is literally the apparent “standing still” of the sun at either end of its travel, over the course of the year, north and south on the ecliptic.  Seeing the sun come up in the same spot for ten or more days is remarkable, compared to the day-to-day changes in equinoctial seasons (more rapidly changing position of sunrise/sunset as well as many minutes per day longer or shorter time of daylight).  So the ancients marked the year with Midsummer celebrations at Summer Solstice, and with Midwinter celebrations (Yuletide) at the Winter Solstice.   

Let me beat my “First Day of Summer” drum.  In my attuned-to-ancient-Celtic brain, the first day of summer was the cross-quarter on Cinco de Mayo, more or less.  First Day of Spring is Groundhog Day (Lunar New Year, more or less, depending on whether you’re a sun kind of person or a moon kind of person). First Day of Winter is actually around Guy Fawkes Day, November 5, plus or minus.  And First Day of Autumn is August 6, Hiroshima Day – or if you prefer, the day on which the racist American President Lyndon Baines Johnson was dragged kicking and screaming and forced into signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

Mil Spec

Every competitor in a new field simultaneously tries to maintain complete start-to-finish and top-to-bottom control of their niftiestness, and tries to become the standard to which all other competitors will have to comply.

VHS vs. Betamax?  19th century railroad gauge conflicts? Phillips vs. Pozidrive deck screws? JIC vs. SAE vs. DIN?  Apple vs. Microsoft?

The plum to be plucked in some of these conflicts is government contracts. "MIL Spec" can be a golden ticket for a company, such as when Break-Free CLP met the "Un-meetable Spec" for a Pentagon-approved firearms lubricant.

Competition is a good thing. Open Sources is also a good thing -- giving rise to even more competition and creativity for after-products such as Androd apps.

But the .gov influence can get in the way of development, don't you think?  I'm thinking of, say, how MIL-Spec ECWCS polar fleece stays expensive and crowds out development once it's THE spec.

Korean Cease-Fire 1953

27 July marks the anniversary of the signing of a cease-fire agreement in Panmunjom in 1953.

The Korean War Conflict never ended.

The Kim dynasty continue their version of Two Steps Forward One Step Back.

But the Forgotten War continues to be forgotten by most in the West or allied to the West.

Feast of the Presentation of Jesus

For the past year or so when I think about the Feast of the Presentation -- a recurring theme while meditating on the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary -- the character that calls out to me is the prophetess Anna.

Anna was a constant presence in the temple, and served God with fasting and prayer (Luke 2:37). By grace coming to the place where Simeon was speaking to the Holy Family, Anna was also led to recognize the Savior.

And what does Anna then do?

Anna becomes a kind of new Isaiah, speaking comfortingly to Jerusalem (Isaiah 40:1-2) about the Christ child.

Having maintained a kind of static watchfulness for so many years, Anna is rewarded with the One she has sought and hoped for.  The Presentation of the Lord moves her to great change. Think of this old lady, probably considered pitiful by most who see her, suddenly filled with great joy.  Think of this old lady, always locked in silence of prayer and mortification, now suddenly bubbling over with a spirit of thanks and praise.

There is no Canticle of Anna.  Yet Anna's witness is antiphon to Simeon's song.

Yes, our God is True!  This baby!  This one here!  He is the One!

For Simeon, it is "now let your servant depart in peace" -- depart into the sleep of death peacefully, having seen the coming of the glory of the Lord.  For Anna, the move is to depart not immediately to death but to depart from the temple, into the neighborhoods and dining rooms of all who look in hope for the coming of the Savior of Israel.

I can almost hear her:  "Yes! The prophecies are true!  Look for Him, all of you.  When the boy grows up -- oh, look for Him!  It will be after I am gone, but look for Him!"

Equi-Nox means [Day] Equals Night -- Right?

Wrap this around your mental astronomical-phenomena spindle and see if you can make of it more of a skein than a snarl:

Where I live on the west coast of the U.S.A., astronomical equinox is at 1:20AM Pacific Daylight Time on Wednesday 23 September 2015.  The time from sunrise to sunset should be equal to the time from sunset to sunrise, right?

Doesn't work that way.

Wednesday actually has six more minutes of daylight than Friday.  On Friday 25 September we actually get 12 hours zero minutes between sunrise and sunset.

Why?

First, the astronomical definition of equinox is at the moment the earth in its orbit around the sun crosses a particular point in reference to what astronomers call the fixed stars.  We know that point wanders with respect to the earth's axis-wobble and the earth's elliptical orbit (precession of the equinox) -- ve-e-e-r-r-y s-slo-o-o-owly!  But can it make a difference of a day or two?

Second, there's the spin of the earth.  Does the spin, added to the round-the-sun motion, make a difference?

I admit I haven't done the research.  But hey, give me some credit for finding the conundrum.

Papa Francisco's Optics

No, I am not interested in the Pope's eyeglasses.  I do find it distressing, however, that the Holy Father does not seem concerned with the optics surrounding his visit to North America.  Specifically, doesn't it look like he is offering comfort and appeasement to Obama and Castro?

I firmly believe the pope is not intending to aid democrats and communists in a direct political way. But it is too easy to believe that the good Pope Francis is just to naive for the world scene.

Who won the fight over anti-Catholic guests at the scheduled White House meeting?  We'll see how that whole thing plays out.  And why offer the appearance of legitimacy to the murderous tyranny that is Cuba?

Don't hold your breath waiting for world-shaking words of courage from the pope. I will be happily surprised if he has a Brandenburg Gate moment while visiting down where the bananas grow: "Mr. Castro, tear down this police state!"

Words Mean Things - And Opposite Things

In Charles Dickens' The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (Chapter VI), Mr. Tupman is wounded by a small bore "rook rifle" shotgun, when Mr. Winkle demonstrates what happens when you ignore three or four of the rules of gun safety. Pickwick, Snodgrass, and Winkle then depart to enjoy a local cricket match with their host Mr. Wardle, leaving Tupman "in charge of" the ladies of the household. Dickens is not saying that Tupman has been vested with authority to police the ladies' behavior. Quite the opposite. The ladies are to see to the well-being of Tupman.

When did the change in meaning occur? How is it that words can flip meanings?

Then there's Subject and Object. Some time between the 12th and the 21st centuries, Subject and Object passed each other going in opposite directions on the towpath of language, and as they passed they traded meanings. "Subjective" used to mean, "of or pertaining to the subject," where "subject" meant the thing being "subjected" to scrutiny.  Now, of course, the subject of scrutiny is called the "object", and if you object to that, you will be subjected to the ignominy of being misunderstood.  What you study is the "object", unless you're talking about your school schedule -- in which case you still study the "subjects" on the list. The final lens on a microscope or telescope is the "objective" lens.  But how handy to introverts it could be when attending a social function, to be able to pull out a little lorgnette or pince-nez or opera glasses holding high-quality subjective lenses!  Perhaps then the (unspoken) object of the person talking to you would be magnified, their point revealed. All the feels they subjectively hold, all the bias they subjectively project, would be visible in shifting pleochroic auras under an optical-quality subjective lens!

And if I were to look at myself in a mirror through the subjective lenses of my hypothetical binoculars, would I stumble across the threshold of some kind of Burnsian satori?

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

On second thought, I will pass on the subjective lenses and go on seeing myself as richer, younger, healthier, and handsomer than I may look to "ithers."