Well the human race has not really come to a consensus about what to do with this pesky equinox solar rotation blah blah insert astronomy here dilemma. In fact, the approaches at trying to adequately quantify the number of days in a year is as varied as the languages we speak and the currencies we squander. For a variety of religions and countries there are distinctive calendars, all periodically revised and altered for this or that purpose.
According to the Islamic tradition, it is actually immoral to add a leap day because it is a violation of what Allah has created as sacred (Allah: "12 months and that's it, bitches!!!"). Holy crap! So in America we've got it all wrong!!! We've focused so much energy on chastising abortion and homosexuality that we have neglected to reject that nettlesome and vile 29th of February! Everywhere I turn I see sin and debauchery, all those immoral calendars flaunting their leap day lifestyle in my face! 666?!? Oh no friends, it's all about the 29 ...
Do not fear, children of the Gregorian, because there is plenty of other folklore afoot to entertain and confound. For example (if the folklore is true ... and it generally is of course)- in the 13th century it was an accepted practice for women to have the right to propose marriage to a man-- but only during a Leap Year (and the penalties for the man's refusal were stiff - or un-stiff? He paid the price of a "kiss" or he had to buy the damsel in distress a nice pretty gown- damn that's harsh). Apparently they were running out of kisses or gowns so some changed the rule so that it was only on the Leap Day itself that women could propose.
Revered or feared (in Greece it's bad luck to marry during a leap year), there's even a special name for leap years- "intercalary years". However this special name comes at a price- the non-leap year years are dispassionately referred to as "common years" (I guess leap years are like the Prodigal Son - "It's February 29th, kill the fatted calf!!!!" *moooooooo*)
There is an intricate set of rules that go into our current Gregorian calendar. We're used to the fact that leap years come every 4 years, however-- Years which are divisible by 100 are not leap years, unless they are also divisible by 400, in which case they are leap years.
What? What?? What person is sitting around making up all this stuff?!? "Yes, it is not a leap year if you can divide the year by 100, unless of course your sister was born on a Tuesday and the groundhog saw his shadow. In that case, but only if mauve is your favorite color and the words "diaper rash" make you cringe, then divide the year by the square root of your neighbor's insolent son's age and add your weight- in kilograms. Um ... yeah that'll about do it."
Well it could be a hard knock life for those calendared systems that do not align with the monopolizing Gregorian calendar; nevertheless, they are an indication of each group's individual cultural perspective on time- and I think that's pretty darn cool.So I have to wonder... if a gay man proposes marriage on the 29th, he's doubly doomed according to the Islamic faith and the Bush administration. Yikes!!!!! And as we all know, two wrongs don't make a right ...
Indeed- I have never liked the right. I shall always be a left-y.
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