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Faustus

Does anyone else think it's kind of funny that Harvard's new president is named Dr. Faust?




(Incidentally, Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust is the first female president since Harvard's inception in 1636.)

What "Dime" Is It?

We have divided our days into twenty-four hours. Each hour contains sixty minutes, each minute contains sixty seconds, and--get this--each second contains septillion yoctoseconds. (If you can believe it, “yoctosecond” is one trillionth of one trillionth of one second.)


We accept this twenty-four hour clock without hesitation, but it is not unrivaled. In 1793, the French--God bless them and their baguettes--introduced a system of decimal time. Midnight became ten o’clock, noon became five, and so on. Needless to say, this system never really caught on. But, like all things unpopular and impractical, decimal time has a substantial cult following. In fact, decimal advocates recently re-proposed this system, which they have now dubbed “Dime.” Each Day contains ten “Dours,” each with 100 “Dinutes,” divided into 100 “Deconds.” (This is not a joke.)


Nor is our clock immutable. In the year 1752, the English-speaking world went to sleep on Wednesday, September 2nd, and awoke, the following morning, on Thursday, September 14th. This leap was implemented in order to align England’s calendar (Julian) with that of Continental Europe (Gregorian). Prior to this transition, a traveler headed from London to Paris had to set his watch ahead by two hundred and sixty-five hours! And so, under the mandate of King George II, eleven days were excised from our calendar. Poof.


(Ever wonder why we celebrate George Washington's birthday on February 22 when he was, in fact, born on February 11?)



Click here to find out what "Dime" it is.

(Cartoon by Kyle Baker, (c) 2005)

Chief.

This is kind of brilliant.

From the Op-Ed page of The New York Times:

At Ease, Mr. President
By Barry Wills
Saturday January 27,2007

WE hear constantly now about “our commander in chief.” The word has become a synonym for “president.” It is said that we “elect a commander in chief.” It is asked whether this or that candidate is “worthy to be our commander in chief.”

But the president is not our commander in chief. He certainly is not mine. I am not in the Army...

The president is not the commander in chief of civilians. He is not even commander in chief of National Guard troops unless and until they are federalized. The Constitution is clear on this: “The president shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.”

When Abraham Lincoln took actions based on military considerations, he gave himself the proper title, “commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” That title is rarely — more like never — heard today. It is just “commander in chief,” or even “commander in chief of the United States.” This reflects the increasing militarization of our politics. The citizenry at large is now thought of as under military discipline. In wartime, it is true, people submit to the national leadership more than in peacetime. The executive branch takes actions in secret, unaccountable to the electorate, to hide its moves from the enemy and protect national secrets. Constitutional shortcuts are taken “for the duration.” But those impositions are removed when normal life returns.

But we have not seen normal life in 66 years. The wartime discipline imposed in 1941 has never been lifted, and “the duration” has become the norm. World War II melded into the cold war, with greater secrecy than ever — more classified information, tougher security clearances. And now the cold war has modulated into the war on terrorism...

The glorification of the president as a war leader is registered in numerous and substantial executive aggrandizements; but it is symbolized in other ways that, while small in themselves, dispose the citizenry to accept those aggrandizements. We are reminded, for instance, of the expanded commander in chief status every time a modern president gets off the White House helicopter and returns the salute of marines.

That is an innovation that was begun by Ronald Reagan. Dwight Eisenhower, a real general, knew that the salute is for the uniform, and as president he was not wearing one. An exchange of salutes was out of order. (George Bush came as close as he could to wearing a uniform while president when he landed on the telegenic aircraft carrier in an Air Force flight jacket).

We used to take pride in civilian leadership of the military under the Constitution, a principle that George Washington embraced when he avoided military symbols at Mount Vernon. We are not led — or were not in the past — by caudillos.

To read the full article click here.