I’m not advocating that America switch to the Hebrew, Islamic, Coptic, or Bengali calendar but the fact is there’s little about the one currently in use that makes any sense at all.
The most obvious imperfection: what dimwit decided to designate January 1 as New Year’s Day? That’s pretty arbitrary, if you ask me. Why change over to a brand-new year in the midst of winter, or, for the folks in the southern hemisphere, in the heat of the summer?
September 1 would be far more appropriate, as it, for many people, marks the tangible turning over of a new leaf: the beginning of a fresh school year. That portends far more significant changes than going from December 31 to January 1 does. The start of an academic year impacts anyone attending school, working at a school, or parenting and/or grandparenting someone in the midst of getting their formal education. Bus drivers, crossing guards, and people involved in coaching school sports start their new year in the fall as well. So it’s settled: from here on in, New Year’s Day should be September 1.
Better yet, let’s swap January 1 with Labor Day. There are already enough good-weather three-day weekends; why not give America’s workers a Monday off when the meteorological conditions are more likely to be unfavorable? I for one wouldn’t mind not having to commute to work on a day when the likelihood of the roads being coated with snow and/or ice is significantly higher than it is on the first Monday of September.
A healthy society evolves over time, and the Gregorian Calendar has been in use since October 1582. No one I know is suggesting that people should go back to living in mud huts or log cabins. Reading by electric light bulb rather than by candlelight isn’t just better for the eyes, it causes fewer fires as well. I for one prefer traveling distances of greater than a mile via bicycle, motor vehicle, train, or airplane rather than on foot, on horseback, or in a birch-bark canoe. And I don’t hear anyone recommending going back to getting their nourishment solely from unrefrigerated foods that they’ve grown and/or killed themselves, either.
Also, why just a dozen months? Thirteen, with 28 days each, sounds far more equitable to me. True, having 13 four-week months each year would leave one extra day to account for, but solving that problem is easy. I propose the extra day be given to the new month of Thirteenuary, given that it’s been deprived of having any days up until now and thus deserves to be retroactively compensated.
I admire reformers like the people who want to re-christen the fifth month as “No-mow May.” Designating five-ish weeks where people don’t pollute the air with gas-powered lawn mowers or tractors is a great idea, although this year I’d have preferred “No-mow August,” since I didn’t have to mow the lawn even once last month anyway.
Besides, if the main idea behind the “No-mow May” movement is to help support bees and butterflies by allowing flowering plants to bloom naturally, why not just go the whole hog and say “No Lawns?” That’s already being tried, albeit involuntarily, in places like Phoenix, south Texas, and southern California, where many residents are customarily even thirstier than the increasingly rare blades of grass are. <
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