Fall Back, Spring Forward, or Earthtime?

As the end of daylight savings time (DST) approaches, let us reflect upon its utter futility and ask that most prosaic of questions, "wha?" For those of you who are lost in a parallel universe, the US has decided that we change our clocks twice a year by an hour, where we remember to "fall back" in the autumn by one hour, and "spring forward" in the spring, ostensibly to assist farmers by giving them the appearance of having an extra hour in which to farm as the days grow short. Instead of changing the time nationally, whereby an expensive media campaign is needed to remind everyone of those important days, farmers could just set their alarm clocks to an hour earlier and simply change their work hours, but no, it was conceded that farmers must be too stupid and lazy to manage that task, so the Government in its infinite wisdom, made this Federal policy in 1918, then it was repealed, then re-instated in 1921, according to Wikipedia, one of the finest websites in the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_Savings_Time).

When extra-terrestrials finally come visit, they will be missing many an important meeting because of the remarkably arbitrary 'features' of DST. One alternative would be to just always stay on Eastern Standard time in NY, an hour later in the Central time zone, and so on as we move west across 24 vertical (or longitudinal) bands of evenly spaced-out geography. If you can't figure out how to program your day accordingly (and that goes for employers, too), then shame on you for being tied so to a flawed system that, while intended to address the faltering psychology of humanity, is more of a cultural tradition than a solution. But there IS another way! There's always another way - although the shitless media would have you believe otherwise. So in the spirit of the band Chicago's "Does Anybody Really Know What Time it is?", I would like to propose a new system of time. I call it "Earthtime." Why?, and how will it work?

I recommend we set all clocks to a single time (how about Greenwich Mean Time?) across the entire planet, so when it's 1PM in Paris, it's 1PM in Shanghai. Just because Jaques is having an late breakfast while Chang Hong is peacefully sleeping at the same hour means nothing. It's purely a psychological difference. Naysayers will predictably jump on such a radical concept, claiming that it won't work, cost too much, and eventually conclude that the people behind the effort are crazily creative. Such praise by pundits is what drives me crazy, so instead, the task should be rolled up (or into) a large, slow burning joint, and blissfully treasured. Or not. The ideal outcome is to get a bunch of international academic and cultural superstars to embrace and invest in the project to get the world thinking again before we run out of time. Else we can try to reverse the madness of our hyperspeed culture, where we "fall forward" over one another, drunk from irrational exuberance and greed. Then, we "spring backward" to get ot of the way of that incoming missile, targeted at some bleak future. If we don't create Earthtime soon, we can forget about the clocks and focus on the worldwide alarms ringing in the end of days. But don't worry! "Stay tuned to the same 'bat' time, same 'bat' channel, Adam will return from the West, turning Bruce Wayne into Jesus. Every Tuesday at 1PM Earthtime.

Everyone's a Pimp

Chris Matthews, the cackling host of MSNBC's Hardball, pushed his new book "Life's a Campaign" recently on The Daily Show, declaring everyone should manage their life like politicians. It seems the key to success (the old glories of power and wealth) is to run your life like a politican campaign, or at least, act strategically to get what you want. It's all about YOU and YOUR wants, you see.

This is the basic attribute of the human species - we are genetically encoded to put ourselves first. Darwin called it "survival of the fittest," although some folks may consider it "selfishness". While there are exceptions (Christ, Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King), most of us are simply pimps, pimping our friends, our charitable activities, our avocations, indeed, ourselves.

Perhaps this is the inside joke of religion, asking you to emulate the selflessness of Christ or Buddha. In doing so, the rest of us can grab the land, oil, and control. The curious behavior of some wealthy people is that once they get the wealth, they give it away. Is that to assuage their conscience? Do they feel guilty about how they got to where they are? Apparently giving feels good.

The human condition is a kind of consciousness battle between the ego and the collective - do you serve yourself or others? Do we, as Matthews suggests, manage one's life as a campaign, because the old adage that "money can't buy happiness" is plain wrong? Does money, indeed, buy happiness? Matthews would have us believe that.

We either accept the concept that money creates happiness and accept our inner pimp, and spend our lives in pursuit of getting. For those who do, Matthews' advice is quite sound. However, if your mind is wired another way, where you seek something else, some other reward, perhaps life doesn't need to be a campaign. That doesn't make you a sucker. That makes you a Buddha (or Christ).