Monday, March 12, 2007
Not on my watch
A landmark year, 2007, for many reasons, up to and including global warming/a first-time-in-a-long-motherfuckin-time Groundhound day winter-shortening self-sighting, and the extension of Daylight Saving Time that has threatened the functionality of Microsoft Office calendar tracking the nation over. As the new Y2K, I bow down to respect it by a) being late for work and b) reflecting on my own tender history with this crackpot way of asserting America's independence.
I don't care about DST. I'm late to everything so it doesn't fucking matter what time the clock says. I will find a way to arrive between 5 minutes and 2 hours after the time anything begins. It's a disease I inherited from my mother. I have great blood pressure, I help old people, my IQ can benchpress 350, I give alms to the poor so on and on, but I am categorically incapable of punctuality. So what.
One thing I did not inherit from aforementioned Mom, though, is a conspiracy theory gene that extends through her neurons to target and connect the most incredible nonsequitors of all time. And, you guessed it, one 'a them happens to be Daylight Saving Time, and [according to Momz] its sister conspiracy, the demon Algebra.
The first half of this theory is fairly familiar: Daylight Saving Time is a construct intended to maniuplate the physchology of we in the Land of the Free. Clocks are already contrived mechanisms to measure the exterior universal principle of Time, blah blah, and the government took a cue from Ben Franklin's noodling on the economy of time bending to create Summer Time. In World War II, we get a super boost with Double Daylight Saving Time and while the boys abroad fall back, the nation springs forward by two hours at home. I had not realized there was an inverse ratio of DST to conscription and/or consumer rationing, but there you have it. Lose husband/two pair hose/one pound butter, gain extra sunlight. Brilliant.
But this is nothing new. DST is at least a pain in the ass, and at best a Masonic-inspired attempt at control of the populace. Arizona bucks this system as the bullshit it is, just to make things interesting, but all in all, it's a liveable quirk of Western time management. Fine.
What's interesting, though, is that in the World According to Goober, the DST phenomenon is intimately interrelated to that bellweather of higher math, Algebra. The study of relation and quantity. A gift to we middle children of history from the great Arab nations of antiquity. In the deductive province of my mind, algebra's a gift horse, without which we don't make it to calculus, so we don't get, say, roads, binary systems, 7th grade math class crushes, so on and on. For Momz, though, it is the selfsame sinister stuff as our Wrinkle in Time known as "setting the clock back" - a construct introduced precisely to muddle the minds of the people about structure and numerical relationships. She has a particular trigger from LBJ on this count, as the architect of our deception: a seemingly well intentioned leader with secret back-room plans to confound our higher brain power with such trifles as Learning Math. Algebra, she postures, is a force-fit manner of arimethic that skews our world view and sends countless schoolchildren into a Sisyphusian battle against fake numbers with no productive end. The classic line to bridge these two ideas, in the standard dialogue is "And what is 'x'? No one could ever tell me what 'x' is - it's a system no one understands, but they masquerade as though they do. They set their clocks, they find 'x'. Mind control is what it is."
Confronting my mother on this topic is my favorite sport. I've heard it all before, but I set the trap when new people come over so they can witness it in the flesh. You start her on Daylight Saving Time and inside of five minutes, you've got Master Math coming at you like wildfire. Same in reverse. These ideas are organically bound in Momz' mind. My father studied math, just so you know, but he gave up about 20 years ago on trying to reason this one out. But I can't help myself. In a world of variables, this is an unflinching constant, a beacon in the shifting landscape: My Mom hates clocks and hates algebra, and so for her they are twin evils inflicted upon us/her by a malicious governing body.
And so. Exactly one hour late in getting ready, I tip my hat to Timeliness, Doing the Math - and my libertarian mother. Go 'head, girl, go 'head get down.
I don't care about DST. I'm late to everything so it doesn't fucking matter what time the clock says. I will find a way to arrive between 5 minutes and 2 hours after the time anything begins. It's a disease I inherited from my mother. I have great blood pressure, I help old people, my IQ can benchpress 350, I give alms to the poor so on and on, but I am categorically incapable of punctuality. So what.
One thing I did not inherit from aforementioned Mom, though, is a conspiracy theory gene that extends through her neurons to target and connect the most incredible nonsequitors of all time. And, you guessed it, one 'a them happens to be Daylight Saving Time, and [according to Momz] its sister conspiracy, the demon Algebra.
The first half of this theory is fairly familiar: Daylight Saving Time is a construct intended to maniuplate the physchology of we in the Land of the Free. Clocks are already contrived mechanisms to measure the exterior universal principle of Time, blah blah, and the government took a cue from Ben Franklin's noodling on the economy of time bending to create Summer Time. In World War II, we get a super boost with Double Daylight Saving Time and while the boys abroad fall back, the nation springs forward by two hours at home. I had not realized there was an inverse ratio of DST to conscription and/or consumer rationing, but there you have it. Lose husband/two pair hose/one pound butter, gain extra sunlight. Brilliant.
But this is nothing new. DST is at least a pain in the ass, and at best a Masonic-inspired attempt at control of the populace. Arizona bucks this system as the bullshit it is, just to make things interesting, but all in all, it's a liveable quirk of Western time management. Fine.
What's interesting, though, is that in the World According to Goober, the DST phenomenon is intimately interrelated to that bellweather of higher math, Algebra. The study of relation and quantity. A gift to we middle children of history from the great Arab nations of antiquity. In the deductive province of my mind, algebra's a gift horse, without which we don't make it to calculus, so we don't get, say, roads, binary systems, 7th grade math class crushes, so on and on. For Momz, though, it is the selfsame sinister stuff as our Wrinkle in Time known as "setting the clock back" - a construct introduced precisely to muddle the minds of the people about structure and numerical relationships. She has a particular trigger from LBJ on this count, as the architect of our deception: a seemingly well intentioned leader with secret back-room plans to confound our higher brain power with such trifles as Learning Math. Algebra, she postures, is a force-fit manner of arimethic that skews our world view and sends countless schoolchildren into a Sisyphusian battle against fake numbers with no productive end. The classic line to bridge these two ideas, in the standard dialogue is "And what is 'x'? No one could ever tell me what 'x' is - it's a system no one understands, but they masquerade as though they do. They set their clocks, they find 'x'. Mind control is what it is."
Confronting my mother on this topic is my favorite sport. I've heard it all before, but I set the trap when new people come over so they can witness it in the flesh. You start her on Daylight Saving Time and inside of five minutes, you've got Master Math coming at you like wildfire. Same in reverse. These ideas are organically bound in Momz' mind. My father studied math, just so you know, but he gave up about 20 years ago on trying to reason this one out. But I can't help myself. In a world of variables, this is an unflinching constant, a beacon in the shifting landscape: My Mom hates clocks and hates algebra, and so for her they are twin evils inflicted upon us/her by a malicious governing body.
And so. Exactly one hour late in getting ready, I tip my hat to Timeliness, Doing the Math - and my libertarian mother. Go 'head, girl, go 'head get down.
Labels: epidemic geekery, FalloniusMonk, family matters, hilarious shit, libertarians rule
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