Nicholas Johnson
The Gazette, December 31, 2023, p. C8
“Back in the day” I joined friends on New Year’s Eve to help push earth into one more year. We occasionally kept at it until 1 or 2 a.m. New Year’s Day, either to make sure we’d finished the task or because we’d lost track of time.
As we aged we remained determined to stay until midnight local time, but not much beyond that.
The years rolled on and many wished to be in bed before midnight. So we switched our clocks to Eastern time, watched television’s portrayal of New York City ringing in the new year at midnight New York time, headed home an hour earlier and were in bed by 11:30 central time.
And now?
I’m reminded of Laura Bush’s stand-up routine at a press corps dinner. She interrupted President George W. Bush’s speech: “I’ve got a few things I want to say for a change. (George is) usually in bed by now. (I told him) if you really want to end tyranny in the world, you’re going to have to stay up later. Nine o’clock, Mr. Excitement here is sound asleep and I’m watching ‘Desperate Housewives.’”
How many of us 90-year-olds can relate to that?
Many of the world’s cultures and religions have celebrations around the winter solstice. I’m told in Spain they eat 12 grapes. We, by contrast, welcome the yearly opportunity to overeat for the six weeks from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. It’s just a difference in cultures.
New Year’s Day has walked a long and winding road through history, beginning with welcoming floods and the new agricultural year. Babylonians and Sumerians in Mesopotamia welcomed the flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Egyptians marked the beginning of the new year’s agriculture when the Nile flooded.
Iowa’s farmers also focus on next season’s crops -- buying from monopolists, selling to monopolists, hoping for rain without floods.
New Year’s Day celebrations interweave gods, religious beliefs, stars and planets. Though there are many calendars (e.g., Coptic, Seleucid, Egyptian, Jewish and Zodiac), our Christian calendar’s New Year’s is widely accepted.
That’s right, we are praying to a Catholic pope’s 1582 calendar. We may not understand or adopt the metric system, and our children’s math scores may be falling, but we are attracted like iron filings to a magnet with the numerical precision of 24-hour days, 52 weeks and 28-to-31-day months.
How could we use New Year’s to push 8 billion people closer toward the “world peace” Miss America contestants wish for?
With Universal Time Coordinated (UTC). Google it.
We now have 24 time zones and 24 New Year’s midnights -– further separating humans. [Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons, London fireworks, New Year's Day, 2017.]
Airlines, radio amateurs, numerous industries and the military recognize the “local” times around the planet. But to operate globally they also need an everywhere time. UTC time is London time. Noon in Iowa is 6 PM UTC.
With a UTC New Year’s the world celebrates at the same precise moment. Starting the year agreeing about something. What a concept!
Nicholas Johnson wishes everyone a happier New Year than the year we’re leaving behind. Contact mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org
“New Year,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year
Laura Bush
AP, “Laura Bush steals show at press corps’ dinner; First lady Laura Bush stole the show with a surprise comedy routine that ripped President Bush and brought an audience that included much of official Washington and a dash of Hollywood to a standing ovation at a dinner honoring award-winning journalists,” NBC News, April 30, 2006, . https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7693810 (““Not that old joke, not again,” she said to the delight of the audience. “I’ve been attending these dinners for years and just quietly sitting there. I’ve got a few things I want to say for a change.” [George is] usually in bed by now” and said she told him recently, “If you really want to end tyranny in the world, you’re going to have to stay up later.” She outlined a typical evening: “Nine o’clock, Mr. Excitement here is sound asleep and I’m watching ‘Desperate Housewives’.”)
Spain’s grapes
“Twelve Grapes,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Grapes (“The Twelve Grapes[1] (Sp. las doce uvas de la suerte, "the twelve grapes of luck") is a Spanish tradition that consists of eating a grape with each of the twelve clock bell strikes at midnight of December 31 to welcome the New Year. Each grape and clock bell strike represents each of the coming twelve months.[2]”)
Mesopotamia and Egypt
Evan Andrews, “1. Babylonian Akitu “5 Ancient New Year’s Celebrations; Get the facts on the ways 5 ancient civilizations rang in the New Year,” History, Dec. 31, 2012, https://www.history.com/news/5-ancient-new-years-celebrations (“Following the first new moon after the vernal equinox in late March, the Babylonians of ancient Mesopotamia would honor the rebirth of the natural world with a multi-day festival called Akitu. This early New Year’s celebration dates back to around 2000 B.C., and is believed to have been deeply intertwined with religion and mythology. . . . Through these rituals the Babylonians believed the world was symbolically cleansed and recreated by the gods in preparation for the new year and the return of spring.”
Patrick J. Kiger, “How Mesopotamia Became the Cradle of Civilization; Environmental factors helped agriculture, architecture and eventually a social order emerge for the first time in ancient Mesopotamia,” History, Nov. 10, 2020, https://www.history.com/news/how-mesopotamia-became-the-cradle-of-civilization (“Mesopotamia’s name comes from the ancient Greek word for “the land between the rivers.” That’s a reference to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the twin sources of water for a region that lies mostly within the borders of modern-day Iraq, but also included parts of Syria, Turkey and Iran. The presence of those rivers had a lot to do with why Mesopotamia developed complex societies and innovations such as writing, elaborate architecture and government bureaucracies. The regular flooding along the Tigris and the Euphrates made the land around them especially fertile and ideal for growing crops for food.”)
Evan Andrews, “3. Ancient Egyptian Wepet Renpet,” “5 Ancient New Year’s Celebrations; Get the facts on the ways 5 ancient civilizations rang in the New Year,” History, Dec. 4, 2023, https://www.history.com/news/5-ancient-new-years-celebrations (“Ancient Egyptian culture was closely tied to the Nile River, and it appears their New Year corresponded with its annual flood. According the Roman writer Censorinus, the Egyptian New Year was predicted when Sirius—the brightest star in the night sky—first became visible after a 70-day absence. Better known as a heliacal rising, this phenomenon typically occurred in mid-July just before the annual inundation of the Nile River, which helped ensure that farmlands remained fertile for the coming year. Egyptians celebrated this new beginning with a festival known as Wepet Renpet, which means “opening of the year.” The New Year was seen as a time of rebirth and rejuvenation, and it was honored with feasts and special religious rites.”)
Evan Andrews, “4. Lunar New Year,” “5 Ancient New Year’s Celebrations; Get the facts on the ways 5 ancient civilizations rang in the New Year,” History, Dec. 31, 2012, https://www.history.com/news/5-ancient-new-years-celebrations (“One of the oldest traditions still celebrated today is Lunar New Year (also called Chinese New Year), which is believed to have originated over 3,000 years ago during the Shang Dynasty. The holiday began as a way of celebrating the new beginnings of the spring planting season, but it later became entangled with myth and legend.”)
Agriculture’s monopolists
“Monopolies Are Killing Our Farms,” Bemidji Pioneer, April 15, 2010, https://www.bemidjipioneer.com/opinion/monopolies-are-killing-our-farms (“Has Big Ag gotten too big? And do consumers really benefit from the low prices farmers earn for selling livestock and grain to food giants like Cargill, Smithfield, and Tyson? After two decades standing idly by while those companies and seed behemoth Monsanto swallowed their competitors, a new Department of Justice anti-trust team is vowing to bust up companies that have gotten so big they're thwarting competition. . . . [F]amily farmers and independent ranchers have watched as corporate mergers and takeovers left them with fewer buyers for their crops and animals, and fewer suppliers of basic inputs like seeds and fertilizer. . . . Smithfield's 2007 takeover of Premium Standard Farms, a merger that fattened the largest U.S. hog producer and pork packer by feeding it the country's second-largest producer and sixth-largest packer. In the Southeast, the merger left 2,500 independent hog producers with just one regional buyer. Smithfield could say to the hog farmers who weren't under contract to the company: Here's the price and, if you don't like it, good luck selling your hogs.”)
Varieties of New Year’s celebrations
Cheyenne Buckingham and John Harrington, “26 Completely Different New Year’s Days Around the World,” 24/7 Wall St., updated Jan. 11, 2020, https://247wallst.com/special-report/2019/02/01/26-completely-different-new-years-days-around-the-world-3/ (“People all around the globe ring in the new year, but not all celebrate the same way Americans do, or even on the same day. Though people have different traditions and customs, most feel grateful for the year that passed and optimistic about the one that’s about to begin. Several New Year’s celebrations stretch across several days, like the Burmese and Thai New Year. The Chinese New Year is the longest, lasting 15 days.”)
Varieties of calendars
Miriammne Ara Krummel, “A.D. 2022: Why Years Are Counted with a Gregorian Calendar When Most of the World is Note Christian,” Milwaukee Independent, Jan. 1, 2022, https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/syndicated/d-2022-years-counted-gregorian-calendar-world-not-christian/ (“The A.D. system, often called “C.E.” or “Common Era” time today, was introduced in Europe during the Middle Ages. It joined the world’s other temporal systems like the Coptic, Seleucid, Egyptian, Jewish and the Zodiac calendars, along with calculations based on the years of rulers’ reigns and the founding of Rome.”)
Near-global acceptance of Christian calendar’s New Year’s
Miriammne Ara Krummel, “A.D. 2022: Why Years Are Counted with a Gregorian Calendar When Most of the World is Note Christian,” Milwaukee Independent, Jan. 1, 2022, https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/syndicated/d-2022-years-counted-gregorian-calendar-world-not-christian/ (“On December 31, people from cultures all around the world welcomed in A.D. 2022. Few of them thought about the fact that A.D. signals “anno Domini,” Latin for “in the year of our Lord.” In A.D. temporality – the one acknowledged by most societies today – next year marks 2023 years since the purported birth of Jesus Christ. So why did we all toast this new year, given that most of the world’s nearly 8 billion people are not Christians? . . . The A.D. system, often called “C.E.” or “Common Era” time today, was introduced in Europe during the Middle Ages. It joined the world’s other temporal systems like the Coptic, Seleucid, Egyptian, Jewish and the Zodiac calendars, along with calculations based on the years of rulers’ reigns and the founding of Rome. Latin Christendom slowly but confidently came to dominate Europe, and its year dating system then came to dominate the world, so that most countries now take A.D. for granted, at least when it comes to globalized business and government. A.D.‘s ubiquity has almost silenced other ways of thinking about time. This began during the medieval era, under the influence of educated Christian monks . . ..”)
Catholic Pope’s 1582 calendar
“Gregorian calendar,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar
America’s rejection of metric system
Why Doesn’t the U.S. Use the Metric System?” Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/story/why-doesnt-the-us-use-the-metric-system
(“When they began to vet potential systems around the year 1790, the newly developed French metric system made its way to the attention of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Though it was so close at hand, Jefferson, and even France until much later, decided to pass, and the U.S. adopted the British Imperial System of measurement (the one still used in the country today). Since then, the U.S. has had many opportunities to change to the metric system, the one that is used by a majority of the world and that is lauded as much more logical and simple. . . . Whenever the discussion of switching unit systems arose in Congress, the passage of a bill favoring the metric system was thwarted by big businesses and American citizens who didn’t want to go through the time-consuming and expensive hassle of changing the country’s entire infrastructure.”)
“Metric Conversion Act,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act (“The Metric Board was abolished in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan . . ..”)
Reduction in math test scores
Alexander Fabino, “America's Tanking Math Scores Spark Fears of Mental Decline,” Newsweek, Dec. 5, 2023, https://www.newsweek.com/us-students-math-scores-decline-pisa-assessment-mental-health-concerns-1849812#:~:text=Despite%20stable%20performances%20in%20reading,that%20participated%20in%20the%20assessment (“Despite stable performances in reading and science, the PISA results found that U.S. students' average performance in mathematics literacy in 2022 was markedly lower than in previous cycles, falling to 26th globally in math literacy among the 81 countries and education systems that participated in the assessment.”)
8 billion people
“Current World Population,” worldometer, Dec. 26, 2023, https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ (8,081,286,900 @ 8:31 AM)
Miss America contestants and “world peace”
Chad Gramling, “Why Do We Expect World Peace From Miss America, But Not Jesus?” 1Glories, Dec. 30, 2021, https://www.1glories.com/world-peace-miss-america-jesus/#:~:text=World%20Peace%20is%20one%20of,in%20the%20movie%20Miss%20Congeniality (“World Peace is one of just two easy answers in life. It’s the correct response when a pageant contestant is asked what she would most want to see happen during her lifetime. This response is the mocked canned answer made famous in the movie Miss Congeniality.”)
Universal Time Coordinated (UTC)
“Coordinated Universal Time,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time
UTC used by Airlines, radio amateurs, numerous industries and the military
Jo Craven McGinty, “Major Industries Use Coordinated Universal Time. Why Doesn’t Everyone Else?; An economist and an astronomer want the world to abandon local time zones,” The Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/major-industries-use-coordinated-universal-time-why-doesnt-everyone-else-11562923800
Noon in Iowa is 6 PM UTC
See “Universal Time Coordinated (UTC),” above
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