Category: Utah Humanist

President’ Message

We are not publishing an August newsletter this year, but I have some thoughts that I want to pass along to the group.

Warmest greetings to you all! It has been a hot month. For me, with this kind of heat, I find discomfort in my routines and look for ways to slow down and get cool. One of the perfect ways to do this is research, reading, going to the library (they have amazing air conditioning) and reaching out to friends to visit with them. Lately, I have been researching stoicism. A new friend introduced me to this concept a couple of months ago and I was intrigued. I love how this philosophy works in alignment to humanism and my personal code of ethics.

The Stoics elaborated a detailed taxonomy of virtue by dividing it not four main types: wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. They believed that we are all equals and that our external differences, such as wealth, status, power, possessions, and stature have no social importance with respect to our relationships with each other.

For me, this helps eliminate even further dividers from our fellow human family to help create a stronger community, society, and world.

We, as humanists, are a beacon to those around us, who are searching for a different way. One that does not guilt and shame us, as people. One that gives us the freedom to live out good ethics without fear of reprisal or damnation. One that gives us a community to learn and grow in.

I admonish you to take the heat this summer as a motivator to find something cool to lean into. Learn something, spend time with someone, rest—whatever makes you happy and gives you fulfillment.

I send my best from me, and the board and we hope to see all of you in person soon.

Kindest regards,
Melanie White-Curtis
President, HoU

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Chaplin’s Corner

Divided States of America

Doesn’t it seem like most post-apocalyptic movies are set in the United States? (Mad Max is set in Australia, but Australia can already wrestle an apocalypse).

I read a joke that said that perhaps the reality of those movies is that every other country is totally fine and functional, while only the United States descends into an apocalyptic hellscape. “Should we tell them?” the other countries ask. “Nah,” they conclude. The depressing thing is, that’s pretty much our current reality. Many other countries have mostly figured out how to you know, actually be decent humans and care for each other, while in the US women have fewer rights than guns and corpses. And those guns end up killing our children, with no end in sight.

It is understandable if you are feeling that way right now, that civilization is burning around us. But at least we can pray in school, right? “Is that how they are going to stop school shootings?” my 19-year-old asked darkly.

Accepting the Truth

It is demonstrably true that the United States is in a dark place. We are a global embarrassment. The reality is that we are more the Divided States of America, experiencing a Cold Civil War. The overturning of Roe v. Wade is deadly horrifying, and both reveals and intensifies cultural divides that we need to face and address. As surreal and terrifying as the Capitol Riot of January 6 was, we need to sit with the fact that 35% of Americans don’t believe the 2020 election was legitimate, including 65% of Republicans. It is maddening that our government cannot make meaningful progress on gun regulation even though almost 90% of Americans support mandatory background checks, for example.

For all its challenges, the present provides unparalleled transparency. We are hearing about the literal ketchup-splattering temper tantrums that Trump threw in the wake of the election. The Supreme Court is overturning rights considered established for decades. This transparency is a challenging gift for each of us. We are seeing these issues. It is harder to ignore them. They have entered mainstream conversation for all of us. The wider threat to our rights and privileges can remind us that marginalized communities have been suffering and combatting injustices for decades and centuries. I hope that we can unite and help those who have experience working from the margins.

Presence over Performance

The most urgent thing we can do right now is take care of ourselves. I’ll share a Chaplain training secret… Chaplains cultivate what is called a “ministry of presence” or “healing presence”. The science behind that is that we train ourselves to regulate our nervous systems and remain calm in almost any situation. That is something all of us can do, care for ourselves well enough to show up for ourselves and those close to us. I hope that we can be gentle with ourselves. If it is too much to watch the news or worry about the big problems, we can lean in and show up for the moment.

Caring for ourselves can help us get to the next step, which is the day-to-day hard work of supporting those in our lives who suffer from the problems I’ve brought up. For example, the challenge to Roe v. Wade can invite listening to women, better understanding abortion, and discussing birth control options. Social media encourages performance such as sharing memes about Handmaids Tale rather than digging in and doing the daily work. Our brain rewards both behaviors, but only one makes a difference.

Work within the System

It’s understandable that pretty much all of us are overwhelmed, because we are embedded in overwhelming systems. Each of us needs to do the best we can to live an aligned and ethical life, but in a very real way, the emphasis on individual responsibility is a corporate conspiracy. A handful of individuals and corporations hold the most money, power, and influence. It also doesn’t help that natural selection targets systems, not individuals. That’s why we need to work together to create systems that take care of us–in a word, civilization. Let’s keep that going. Back to the focus on presence, as we practice remaining calm and present in challenging circumstances, we become a healing and constructive influence in the systems we belong to.

Courageous Conversations

We need to talk to each other. Softening the divisions between us happens best between individuals. I think one key to addressing our divided state is to have open, compassionate, curious conversations with those who have differing beliefs. We live in a time of trigger words and superficial gut reactions. And the media capitalizes on this superficiality to increase ratings and profits. Most people are responding to the word and idea “abortion” for example, without understanding the medical and ethical nuances relating to actual abortions. Multiple life saving procedures are counted as abortions.

It is relatively rare that arguing changes anyone’s mind, as much time as some dedicate to doing so on social media. It is much more effective to learn why people believe what they do, understand the underlying values, and build connection, compassion, and perhaps even constructive responses based on those shared values. And when there are not many shared values, even respectful understanding goes a long way. Recently I’ve been thinking about three powerful questions that are always productive: 1) What is it like to be in your mind and body? 2) What do you want to do with that? 3) What resources and support do you need? These questions focusing on the human experience can bridge our divides and connect us across divisions.

Even in this divided and sometimes apocalyptic country, we can take a deep breath and show up to the moment. As Humanists, we don’t have the luxury of delusion or saving myths. It is up to us to show up to life and make this world, and this country better.

—Chaplain Jared Anderson

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President’s Report

Wow! So much has happened in the past few weeks. This seems to be the general statement for the past few years. Just when we think it is time for a break to relax a bit, another huge “something” happens. The country is very triggered with the Roe vs. Wade decision. It doesn’t matter what political party you belong to….this impacts us all. As we watch this unfold it is clear that it affects every single one of us, even those who are not in our country that are watching closely. My friends, this is such a blow to human rights issues. Because of the umbrella element to this, the decision to overturn it just opened doors and conversations that will harm more folks if allowed to overturn more protections we have as a nation. Utah, our own backyard, is a hotbed for such legislation. So much so that the ACLU has named us as one of the top five states that they are assisting in the fight to keep protections for our people. I know I encourage peace and harmony. I am a believer in goodness and justice. Our organization promotes these things as well through solid ethics, knowledge, accountability, and truth.

That said, we are also called upon to fight the good fight. Or as the beloved, John Lewis said, “Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year. It is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.” Now is the time. It is critical for us to establish support for the things we believe in, to throw down if you are called to. I am watching the cycle of human nature over this issue and am hopeful that if we all stand together, get loud, lock arms and not be afraid – we will prevail in helping get things back on track and stopping the madness from continuing. This is not just a political thing. Take this message to heart and apply it where you feel there is injustice and darkness. We are strong. We are not along. We are unbelievably brave. This is what we have been made for. Standing in our sense of humanity and protecting each other.

I admonish you to get as involved as you are able. For me personally, I am called to open my mouth more, attend more legislation, protest, support and come out of the comfort zones that are in my world. I was sad/shocked at first. Then I was sick about it. Now I am angry. Mad as hell, in fact. And now, I am going to get loud. Not hurtful toward people (not necessary), but not standing down until the result is fair and just for all. I love you all, as I do this community, this state, and this country. I love this planet and my life’s mission is to make the world a better place. Well, now is the time. My sleeves are rolled up….GAME ON!!!

During this month of our nations Independence Day, reflect on exactly what that means. It is time to do it again. Join me in the fight. Check out the ACLU’s website. There is much there that you can support and participate in. The AHA’s site is a good one too. We will be updating our social media much more often on what is going on and opportunities to participate.

See you on the front lines, we got this!

Kindest regards,
Melanie White-Curtis
HoU President

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Ups and Downs

The month since my last newsletter submission has been one of ups and downs. Amy and I attended the life celebrations for two people dear to us, a family member and a friend we have known for decades. These events are themselves an up and down sort of thing. On the one hand we are saddened that someone we love has died, and on the other hand we are happy to celebrate lives well lived and share that celebration with others who loved them as well. Plus, I am happy they were celebrations rather than mournful funerals with viewings and burials. Rather, they both were cremated, and their ashes are in the hands of family members to be dealt with whenever and however they choose.

Last month I said that the SCOTUS was about to overturn Roe vs. Wade, and as you know they did just that. The Supreme Court’s decision has emboldened the right-wing conservative totalitarians and the conservative majority of the Court is in fact a part of this totalitarian movement. The court is already hinting that other past decisions could be up for review and reversal. Decisions that could affect same sex marriage, transgender rights, contraceptives, and on and on.

While thinking about this decision I had an absurd thought, almost as absurd as the notion that other people should have power over a woman’s reproductive rights. To force them to have a baby when they might choose not to. I thought, why not go all the way with controlling human reproduction. Can we say that if you can be forced to have a baby, then we ought to be able to say when you can’t have any more babies. Sounds more logical than absurd the more I think about it. Being that much of the poverty and hunger around the world is generated by, in my opinion, overpopulation. Therefore, we should be able to restrict people to only replacing themselves or said another way, “only two per couple.” Truth is, that no government or zealous religious group should have any power over a person’s reproductive rights. Instead, we should strive to provide health care that will help people avoid the need for an abortion. While in regards to overpopulation we should also strive to help people world wide out of poverty and empower women to make their own decisions about their healthcare and reproduction.

In the last month, the most positive thing has been the January 6^th congressional hearings. Being retired gives me the luxury to be able to watch these hearings as they occur in real time. I’m grateful to the committee for presenting in detail and in order the events before, during and after the Insurrection at the Capitol. I’m starting to feel like the criminality of Donald Trump and his enablers is coming to light. I’m also hopeful that some of them will be indicted, and ultimately punished for their misdeeds.

In closing I want to suggest that you check out a guy named Jordan Klepper. This man goes around to Trump events and gatherings and asks questions of Trumps supporters. The results are often hilarious and at the same time make you shake your head in amazement at how vacuous, ill-informed, and unwilling to face facts they are. For example, when he asked two young women about what happened on January 6^th, they said, “the election?” They had no idea there was an Insurrection or that there are hearings taking place about the incident. That’s why I call them willful idiots.

With that I’ll say so long for now.

—Bob Lane
HoU Board Member

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Subrogation

Healthcare in the USA is more expensive and less efficient than in most other industrialized countries in the world. I received a letter from my health insurance provider the other day that explains part of the reason. The subject of the missive was “subrogation.” They wanted to know if several of my recent visits for care might have been due to negligence of businesses or other people so that the insurance company could sue those institutions or people to cover the costs for my medical care.

Insurance companies have cadres of accountants and legal professionals ready and willing to “cut my costs.” Paying for this information is part of the cost of my medical care. This amounts to accountants and lawyers practicing medicine.

The letter stated that all insurance companies obtain and use this type of data. I am sure that they do. I am also sure that this contributes to the high cost of health care. I also believe that this negatively affects the quality of healthcare here in the USA. Medical providers spend many hours learning ever changing billing coding numbers to capture this type of information. I would prefer that medical providers were keeping up on medical advances rather than staying current on billing numbers.

We really need a single-payor healthcare system that covers everyone and includes comprehensive longitudinal medical records.

—Wayne Wilson
HoU Board Member

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Chaplain’s Corner

What’s the Point?

The existential bar for my email is pretty damn high, but this subject line still got my attention:

Could you please share with me what makes life worth living?

Maria continued,

I’m a high school student who loves science. But I’m depressed by scientific claims that life has no purpose and that we might not even have free will.

How is it possible to live a happy and meaningful life with a purely scientific worldview that rejects traditional notions of free will?

Could you please share with me what makes life worth living?

Please respond soon.

Thanks,

Maria

mariasaveyourtruth@gmail.com

[I have shared this correspondence with Maria’s permission, and she said she would be interested to hear how other humanists answer the question, so feel free to email her]

I was struck by the specificity of Maria’s question. Not what is the purpose of life, but what makes life worth living?

Here is the response I gave her:

Dear Maria,

Thank you for writing me, and with such a beautiful, important question.

One of my favorite ways of looking at life and its parts is as a conversation. You and I are having a conversation. Your life is its own conversation. The poet David Whyte uses this metaphor often, that we are part of the conversation of things. His book Consolations is superb.

Often cliches have elements of truth, and it is true that the meaning of life is what you make it.

We also live within complex systems, and that’s another part of the conversation. Different people treat you differently based on how you look and speak, for example. I’ve worked at the Utah State Prison for five years and I encourage volunteers to do as much good as the system allows.

Positive Psychology is one of my favorite fields, and it is literally the science of thriving. Ikigai is another powerful idea.

I personally believe that the meaning of life is to live it. Which seems silly to say, but it’s surprisingly hard to really open yourself up to life. I also think the purpose of life is to help things be better.

Sleeping At Last is another of my favorite artists. Every night before I go to bed, I listen to Saturn, the refrain of which is “How rare and beautiful it is to even exist”.

The Rabbi Joshua Heschel said “Just to live is a blessing. Just to be is holy”.

But you didn’t ask about the purpose of life. You asked what makes life worth living. I’ll admit that for much of my life, I resented being alive. It hurts so much. I’ve always felt big feelings. I like this sequence of questions: How do your mind and body work? What do you want to do about it? What help/resources do you need?

I’m prone to joy and wonder as well as sadness and anxiety, for example. Relationships, beauty, art, the experience of being conscious… for me all these make life worth living.

What makes life worth living is a question only you can answer, but I’m glad to be part of the conversation.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about what makes you happy and fulfilled.

Witnessing with you,

Jared

Ikigai relates to career fulfillment, and I think it is a significant improvement over the simplistic “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Ikigai describes the overlap between What you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. Love + Skill = Passion; Love + Need = Mission; Need + Pay = Vocation; Skill + Pay = Profession. And Ikigai is that precious spot that captures it all. As a Chaplain, I am constantly amazed and grateful that I get to live in that space.

Positive Psychology addresses all of thriving, not just job satisfaction. Human thriving has been distilled to the categories summarized in the acronym PERMA: Positive Emotions, Engagement (think flow), Relationships, Meaning, and Achievement. It is an important challenge for us as Humanists to provide responses as good as religion in all of these categories.

So, I’d like to leave each of you with the same question. For you, what makes life worth living? As I shared with Maria, this is a quest and question that each of us need to engage.

Where is your joy? Where is your gratitude? What makes you glad that you are conscious and alive? I have deep respect for the harder, deeper, more grounded emotions. I feel an inexorable drive to facilitate wellness. As a Chaplain, I companion people on their worst days. I help them make peace with life and death. It isn’t always pleasant, but it is deeply fulfilling.

Here do you get your sense of fulfillment? What is it about life that makes it feel worth it?

Not what’s the point, but where is the joy? Where is the gratitude? What makes you glad you are conscious and alive, what makes you glad you are here?

—Chaplain Jared Anderson

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Feeling Outraged – part 2

Last month I wrote a rant about Liars and people I consider Traitors or Unamerican. I want to add a little to that rant before I move on to another subject or two.

While surfing the net recently I came across this headline from the Huffington Post “Republicans cheer as congressional candidate demands Fauci’s execution by firing squad.” The candidate’s name is John Bennett, chairman of Oklahoma GOP. That folks is what angers me, disgusts me. It is that kind of use of fear and hatred that plagues our politics. While statements like that are potentially harmful, they are also mostly hot air.

In the mid 1970’s Jerry Falwell is attributed with coining the term Moral Majority, it was a lie then and still is a lie. With the tutelage of D. Trump, they have taken the black art of lying to a new low.

I was watching MSNBC when Johnathan Capehart talked about how He can no longer listen to people you know are liars and has no respect for people you know are lying. That’s pretty much my attitude also.

Anyway, moving on, I’m getting excited that the weather is warming up. If things go well for awhile with covid, it may be that we can start to get together for meetings and such. I think we should have more than just our one BBQ this summer adding say a picnic and perhaps an outdoor discussion group.

I’ve wanted to get back to discussing the environment and climate change. The topics are almost endless ranging from the little things we can do as individuals with our personal footprint, to the global aspects and how to make progress that will actually help globally.

So, I was thinking about how I still have a lot of places I can improve my footprint. Some ways I could improve are at present not practical for me, such as changing vehicles to electric. But, looking at some of my household habits, I can point out some mundane, yet useful places for improvement. First one that comes to mind is that I use to many paper towels. I like to cook and spend time in the kitchen, so I reach for them all the time. I also have to keep reminding myself not to run the water full blast, which is a habit that goes back to when the thought was (in my youth) there is a lot of it and it was cheap. But price shouldn’t be the only reason you decide to conserve water, you should conserve because it is prudent and wise to not waste the resource. I could also do better with saving electricity, but we have done pretty good job changing to LED light bulbs as they save quite a bit.

I now live in the house I grew up in. It has a swimming pool which holds about 35,000 gallons. I have worried about that as part of my personal footprint with regards to water use. But, as I researched water use by swimming pools, I found that they don’t use as much water as the same size area of lawn. Also, I have purchased a solar cover which is like heavy duty blue mini bubble wrap. With the cover you save water from evaporation, use less chemicals and it helps heat the pool saving energy used to heat the pool.

Next month maybe I’ll talk about doing something about the environment a step up from personal to say the local.

Hope to see you this summer.

—Bob Lane

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Humanism as the Cure for What Ills Humanity

Editor’s Note:

This piece from another Humanist Chapter makes extensive use of the term “non-believer.” My personal prejudice is to define myself and my beliefs by what they are instead of what they are not. I could refer to myself as non-black, non-female, non-homosexual, etc. Possible word choices to use in lieu of non-believer include secularist or free thinker.

—Wayne Wilson

What has become very clear to me is that without our freethought community the hopes of a safer, richer, and kinder humanity dwindle. Freedom of thought is a human right. It is an equal right. It is at once a liberation, as it is in some places around the globe, a Scarlet Letter. And for those people who are not free to express their ideas and conclusions, there is ongoing danger to life, imprisonment, shunning and other retribution against the nonbeliever and their family.

So, here’s the thing and probably the core reason as to why I identify as a humanist and non-believer. I see humanism and the conclusion that there isn’t a divine force in the universe, as the ultimate acceptance of nature and reality. That because I see this as such, it equally informs my ability to have and lead a just, moral, and happy life.

I’ve kicked the tires of various religions and have found them wanting. I’ve read other spiritual philosophies, and because of my curiosity still research competing views of how best to be in the world. However, as I look to the history and current actions of organized faith traditions and spiritual movements, I see so much lacking.

But thank the cosmos for each of us! According to the statistics, atheists, agnostics and humanists as a group have the highest level of COVID-19 vaccine adoption. Somewhere north of 90%. Beating out EVERY other social, ethnic, racial, and religious group category. Perhaps this is why reason matters most and humanism serves as my (and our?) view of how best we should treat ourselves, as well as others and the planet. There are deep moral, social and evolutionary consequences to our vaccine adoption and they are each positive.

Those best prepared to lead the expanding conversations are the same people in our diverse movement and community. The non-believers, humanists and secularists who fight for reason and kindness both in the present and for generations to come.

So, break those chains! Do not be a slave. Do not ask permission to think and be who you truly are. But learn to bask in our modernity and your liberation as a nonbeliever.

—Dr. David I. Orenstein
Board President
Secular Humanist Society of New York
Reprinted from the May 2022 PIQUE newsletter

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Chaplain’s Corner

Age of Overwhelm

Humanists aren’t very good at avoidance.

When you believe only in reality, turns out you have no choice but to face it.

I believe that we humanists need to find healthy ways to fulfill the roles of religion. For example, religion helps groups cooperate at a powerful level (that’s a topic for another column), for better and worse. That is likely a primary reason why religion evolved.

I believe that purpose and meaning are easy to find as humanists. Every night I listen to the song “Saturn” by Sleeping At Last, with the refrain, “How rare and beautiful it is to even exist”. When talking to the religious, one of my favorite questions to answer is, “If there is no afterlife, what is the purpose of this life?”

The answer is obvious! All of it! This life has all the meaning! Humanists believe in Life BEFORE Death, as Harvard Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein emphasizes. That’s another of my favorite humanist summaries.

I believe the purpose of life is to show up to it. We can practice facilitating the flow of feelings and experience and make the most of it.

In this column, I’d like to share a few thoughts about what the hardest human task might be: finding and providing comfort. Specifically, I want to talk about big picture, global comfort.

At a fundamental level, when we are hurting, we want to feel better. There is nothing more urgently real than pain, both physical and emotional. That’s what pain is for, a warning system to get our attention.

Small, everyday pain is relatively easy to manage, usually with relationships. We are social primates designed to find comfort in each other. Even a hug can help us feel better. Talking through our feelings helps. In addition to helping us process, the demonstration that someone else cares does tremendous good. We need to feel like we matter, and that those we care about will show up for us when we need them.

But I want to talk about big pain. The overwhelming pain of others. In our current connected, media saturated world, we are overwhelmed with pain, everyone’s pain at the same time. I know most of us are heartbroken over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine is such a powerful, vivid example of the injustice of war, as Putin targets civilians and places of refuge. It hurts to realize that though Ukraine is getting the most attention right now, the world is constantly filled with the horrors of injustice and suffering. More humans are enslaved now than at the height of what we think of as the slave trade, for example. We know all about Ukraine, but fewer are aware of the probable genocide of Uyghurs in north-western China.

I saw a darkly humorous and depressing map titled “Western Media When Tragedy Hits.” North America, Europe, and Australia are colored green signifying “24-hour coverage, celebrity songs, lit up monuments”. The Middle East is labeled brown, “A hopeless situation, just pray”. South America and the entirety of Asia are colored yellow, “Nobody wants to be sad all day”. And Africa is black with the label, “Literally do not care”.

There is an uncomfortable degree of truth to this map, but not because we are bad people. The actual issue is, we care so much that it overwhelms us, and then we shut down, so we find ways to cope. Plus, we are evolved to care most about members of our in-group (our empathy actually maxes out at a single tragedy! As they say, one death is a tragedy; a thousand deaths is a statistic.)

So, what do we do? How do we maintain caring every day, and increase our ability to face the truth, both of tragedy and hope? I suggest we Perspective, Practice, and Pause.

Perspective. I have spent the last five years as a Chaplain in hospice, prison, and the hospital. My primary job has been to help people cope with decline and death. I’m a bit surprised by how often patients will tell me how hard they imagine my job is. My response: “All of this is true whether or not I am looking at it, so I might as well do what I can to help.” I think this is the humanists perspective. Yes, there is an overwhelming amount of suffering in the world, but it is happening whether or not we are looking, so avoidance does no good. It is our responsibility to face it and help how we can.

Practice. Our compassion and emotional regulation is like a muscle that gets stronger with practice. “Growing edge” is a helpful term when it comes to increasing our capacity. If we are in our comfort zone, we don’t grow because we aren’t challenging ourselves. If we are beyond our abilities, we get overwhelmed and damage ourselves and others. The “growing edge” is the place where we are challenged enough to increase our capacity. I think about experiencing difficult emotions as an “emotional workout” and that perspective has helped tremendously. I have the privilege of this being my full-time job, but the practice of emotional fortitude works for us all.

Pause. This is the practice that will help you do the others. I repeatedly hear that most people cope through compartmentalization, just not thinking about the hard, sad truths. Unfortunately, this carries a cost in our bodies and our relationships. Instead of compartmentalization, I suggest a practice of dosing, which I call “walking to the edge of the abyss”. When reality is overwhelming, we can look at it, and then assess how much we are able to engage with it. Some days, we might be able to face all of it, and still function. Other days, we may need to be gentle with ourselves. We can pause by looking at what is real and saying “Yes, there is a world of suffering. I see it, and will engage more when I can.” This gentleness will provide rest as we work to increase our ability to engage more productively.

As humanists, we understand that reality is all that we have, exquisite and beautiful and agonizing and precious all at once. We have a unique ability and responsibility to provide an example of facing the suffering of the world head on and helping to better the world. But we also must remember to care for ourselves while doing so.

—Jared Anderson

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Feeling Outraged

I couldn’t make a submission to the newsletter last month. A lot has happened in the last month since then and I’m finding it hard to write anything positive. I feel like I could just launch into a lengthy diatribe about a whole lot of subjects. I guess what I’m feeling is a lot outrage about what’s happening to our democracy here in the United States where it is under attack by Republicans and Donald Trump. If that isn’t bad enough, we now have Russia’s Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine which is threatening democracy on the world stage. Plus, this war brings us closer to a world war with the possibilities of a nuclear exchange. And what do we get from the same Tucker Carlson, Republicans and Trump, praise for Putin and garbage and lies about the Ukraine not being a democracy.

During the last few years people have been reticent to call someone a traitor. But this recent praising Russia and Putin for invading the Ukraine is a traitorous act or at least unamerican. I feel like every day that goes by, I become more disdainful of these traitors and don’t mind saying that I hate them. There I said it.

I suppose it’s not a good idea to express openly one’s hatred of another person or group of people. But I also believe that some people are deserving of a large helping of hatred. And they keep giving us new reasons to despise them, like the recent news that the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife Ginni was part of the Jan 6^th insurrection efforts.

I must admit that these feelings are made worse by a feeling of helplessness to do much about anything going on out there. So, one way I going to try to be a little helpful is donate to an organization doing humanitarian work. I noticed during a couple news segments a Chef I’ve seen on television before. His name is Jose Andres who is using his organization “World Central Kitchen” to help feed the displaced Ukrainians during this time of great need. I plan to give to this organization soon.

—Bob Lane

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What Time Is It?

On March 14, 2022, the United States Senate passed the “Sunshine Protection Act” which would make Daylight Savings Time effective the year around (it has not been passed by the House of Representatives yet, and its introduction to Congress occurred when the earth was being impacted by a solar flare, which may have had some effect on the Senators’ thinking processes). The purpose would be to eliminate the changing of our clocks twice a year, but it has other implications that we should consider, such as how we got started on Daylight Savings Time in the first place.

Before radio communication and the creation of time zones, local time keeping was done by sun reckoning. Noon was 12 o’clock, when the sun was at its highest point in the sky (zenith, or midday), which was halfway between sunrise and sunset. This worked well as long as you stayed in one location, but once you travelled either east or west, your watch would not agree with local time. This became a real problem with the advent of transcontinental railroads, which would constantly have to correct their clocks to local time.

In 1878 Sandford Fleming proposed a system of 24 worldwide time zones, allotting 15 degrees of longitude for each zone (to make a total of 360 degrees). The Prime Meridian that was selected was marked at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. In December of 1884, the International Prime Meridian Conference in Washington, DC., codified this system, which is still in use today. It is the basis for all geographic data, even the GPS navigation system used by our cell phones today. The system was adopted by the railroads in the US in the late 1800s, and in 1918 Congress passed the “Standard Time Act,” which codified the boundaries for the US time zones. Time zone boundaries were adjusted slightly to avoid splitting population centers into different time zones. If you resided in the center of a time zone, your solar noon (zenith) would coincide with your clock time (Standard Time); if you lived on the western edge of a zone, your solar noon would e about ½ hour later than Standard Time, and likewise the solar noon occurs ½ hour earlier at the eastern edge of a time zone.

All this seems good; you can get a pretty good idea of what time it is by observing the position of the noonday sun, regardless of what season of the year it is. Your internal biological clock is pretty will synchronized with solar time. Then some folks (probably golfers) decided that the extra daylight on long summer days could be utilized by setting your clocks ahead, forcing you to get up earlier to utilize the evening daylight, and thus so-called Daylight Savings Time was born (for some reason people can’t just get up earlier to capture these extra hours without setting their clocks ahead). However, not all states went along with this; Utah stayed on MST year around up until the mid-sixties, while California went on DST in the summer, years prior to Utah. The move to Daylight Saving Time became standard in the USA in 1966, with the passage of the “Universal Time Act” (only Arizona and Hawaii opted out). When it first was implemented the clock time changes occurred on the last Sunday in April and the last Sunday in October; this has shifted over the years to the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November, so we are on DST most of the year.

Recognizing the inconvenience and problems of resetting clocks twice a year (and the increase in accidents and sleep disruptions that accompany this), the “Sunshine Protection Act” has now been introduced in Congress, as previously mentioned. But isn’t this a silly way to solve the clock resetting problem?  Let’s consider the implications of this proposal:

1.Noon (midday) would completely lose its original meaning: the center of each time zone would have solar noon occurring at 1 pm all year long.  If you reside on the western edge of a time zone (for example, in the Salt Lake Valley) solar noon will occur about 1:30 pm in the afternoon. Sunrise will occur an hour later than Standard Time, even in the winter months, so that during most of December sunrise will occur about 8:30 am on clock time (and even later if you live near our eastern mountains). This means sending children to school in low light conditions, with all the traffic hazards that come with this.

2. Our internal biological clocks, which are important in regulating our sleep cycles and other physiological functions, will be permanently out of sync with solar time. This may seem trivial, but recent studies have shown many unsuspected effects can result from disruptions of our internal biological clocks; these internal clocks have evolved over millions of years of human evolution and have mostly been ignored as factors relating to our health and well-being.

In conclusion, going to DST the year around seems to be a strange way to solve a problem that was created unnecessarily to begin with. Daylight Saving Time doesn’t save a second of daylight, and Arizona and Hawaii still stay on Standard Time the year around, and seem to do just fine (as we did in Utah until the mid-1960s.) If a person wants to capture that extra daylight from long summer days there is no need to set the time earlier on your clock (or the rest of the country’s clocks, for that matter); just set your wake up alarm an hour earlier and leave the rest of our clocks alone!

—Art King

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