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Seasons | |
March 21st, 2018 | |
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I have a pet peeve about the seasons and their start date. I've | |
written about this on my web blog [0] before, but the topic | |
deserves more attention on gopher. Today is March 21st, 2018, and | |
yesterday was the halfway point of Spring, not the first day. | |
[0] Tomasino Blog - Seasons | |
The equinoxes and solstices are mid-point measurements of the | |
solar seasons. The vernal equinox and autumnal equinox are the | |
dates when the day and night are of equal length. This is an | |
appropriate date to count as halfway between Summer and Winter. It | |
is an appropriate date to be the mid-point of Spring or Autumn. | |
It's logical. It's measurable. | |
The Winter Solstice, the date of the longest night, is an | |
appropriate marker for the middle of Winter. Again it makes sense. | |
The Summer Soltice, the longest day, you know... the thing | |
literally called "Mid-Summer" in A Mid-Summer's Night Dream. Do | |
I need to finish? | |
So what the hell, why is everyone else on Earth a big dummy | |
determined to piss off tomasino? I think they're lazy. The big | |
four seasonal days are easy to remember. Who remembers Imbolc or | |
Beltane or Lammas or Samhain except Wiccans and celtic cosplayers? | |
It's easier to just summarize everything down to the four days we | |
know and pretend they're the start of the season. We'll give the | |
decision some extra bull-shit creedence by saying it aligns better | |
with a meteorological season (aka, Spring is fucking cold). | |
I don't buy it, though. We have days for this stuff already and | |
they are set for a reason. Stop being lazy. | |
Need another example while I'm ranting? How about good old | |
Groundhog's day? Imbolc by another name! February 2nd, Candlemas, | |
the first day of Spring. It's still celebrated by an esoteric | |
tradition with no real purpose other than to piss off a sleepy | |
rodent. We literally pull that dude out of his hole and hold him | |
up to forecast whether we're going to have "6 more weeks of | |
Winter". Here again we're talking about weather, not seasons. The | |
season is over. You just celebrated the first day of Spring | |
without realizing it. | |
Are you following me here? This is not some little nit-picky thing | |
that one or two news stations screwed up but a world-wide shift. | |
It gets me really peeved! | |
END RANT | |
Do you have something like the Seasons which eats you up inside | |
that you need to rant about on gopher? I wanna know about it so | |
I can join you in righteous anger. | |
Bring it on, and happy mid-spring. |