From: Robert Bannister on
Andrew Usher wrote:
> Owing to the inconveniences which attend the shifting of the calendar,
> and attempting in passing to create a more perfect Church calendar, I
> say the following:
>
> 1. That Christmas day should be fixed to a Sunday, and this should be
> the Sunday between Dec. 21 and 27, and that in all civilised countries
> the Monday should be considered a holiday, or the Saturday if not
> normally.
>
> 2. That similarly Easter day should be fixed to the Sunday which is 15
> weeks following Christmas.
>
> 3. That the leap year rule be changed to have a leap year occur every
> fourth save that it be delayed when the leap year would start on a
> Thursday, and that this gives 7 leap years in every 29, which is near
> enough.
>
> 4. That the perpetual calendar can be made, by considering the first
> day of the year of weeks to occur on the Sunday after the Assumption,
> and if this is the first possible calendar day, it is called week 1,
> and otherwise week 2, and every year runs through week 53. And this
> calendar ensures that everything can be fixed to a day of a certain
> week, in particular the American Thanksgiving must be made 31 days
> before Christmas.
>
> 6. This is surely the best possible arrangement that can be made,
> without disturbing the cycle of weeks or that of calendar days
> inherited from the Romans.

If you are going to try to make it sensible, then please give us 13
four-week months with one or two specially named days at the end of the
year to even it out. The first day of each month should be a Monday.


--

Rob Bannister
From: Andrew Usher on
On Feb 19, 6:07 pm, Robert Bannister <robb...(a)bigpond.com> wrote:

> > 6. This is surely the best possible arrangement that can be made,
> > without disturbing the cycle of weeks or that of calendar days
> > inherited from the Romans.
>
> If you are going to try to make it sensible, then please give us 13
> four-week months with one or two specially named days at the end of the
> year to even it out. The first day of each month should be a Monday.

Once again, I said that I excluded having days outside the week. And
the first day of the week is Sunday, not Monday - that is an
incontrovertible fact.

Having 13 months, in addition, would screw up a bunch of things ; in
particular, 13 can't be divided.

Andrew Usher
From: Andrew Usher on
On Feb 19, 1:38 pm, António Marques <antonio...(a)sapo.pt> wrote:

> Easter is the central feast of Christianity, would be an end in itself if
> nothing else, and of which all the particulars have the highest religious
> significance. (Regardless of whatever pagan festivals coincide with it in
> date or outward meaning.)

I agree, but how does that mean we must celebrate Easter at the full
moon? (which the Orthodox don't, anyway)

Andrew Usher
From: Robert Bannister on
Cheryl wrote:
> Andrew Usher wrote:
>> On Feb 19, 3:07 pm, Ant�nio Marques <antonio...(a)sapo.pt> wrote:
>>
>>>>> The reason I fix Christmas to a Sunday has been my observation that
>>>>> arranging a family Christmas is substantially more convenient when it
>>>>> falls on a weekend than in the middle of the week. Given that
>>>>> Christmas
>>>>> is the most important holiday in the year, should we not all get at
>>>>> least a 3-day weekend, which we have for lesser holidays?
>>>> Less than around 30% of the world population cares about Christmas or
>>>> Easter or think that "Christmas is the most important holiday in the
>>>> year".
>>> Well, but for those who don't it doesn't really matter one way or the
>>> other
>>> what day Christmas and Easter Sunday are, does it? So what relevance
>>> do they
>>> have for you to bring them along? Or was it just the desire to sound
>>> clever?
>>
>> Right, and I figure that my calendar would be no worse than the
>> present for those that don't.
>>
>> Indeed, I considered this problem purely as a logical one; as I've
>> stated, I don't consider myself Christian, I adopted the Church
>> calendar as a base only because it makes the problem more interesting.
>>
>> I didn't consider my calendar complete until I worked out my new leap
>> year rule (Rule #3) - it not only ensures that both Christmas and
>> Easter are within 7-day periods despite being a constant distance from
>> each other and having leap day in between, it simultaneously causes
>> there to be exactly 52 Sundays in every year if you take out Nov. 1
>> which is All Saints' day; this immediately allows te to draw up a
>> permanent list of the Sundays in the year with their traditional
>> Christian designations, and then follow the perpetual calendar.
>>
>> And I moved the start of the week numbering to August from Nov. 1 so
>> that the academic year and the US football season would be on the
>> fixed schedule, and I think there can be no objection to that. The
>> holidays I consider are Christmas and Easter (and of course the Church
>> festivals fixed to them, but hardly anyone cares anymore), and US
>> Thanksgiving - but other civil holidays could easily be fixed to the
>> same if they are now observed on a Monday, say, or otherwise not fixed
>> to a particular date.
>>
>> Andrew Usher
>
> Which academic year are you considering? I can think of several
> variations - K-12 vs universities and colleges, to begin with, and there
> are even variations among the K-12 school years in different
> jurisdictions - and even within the same one, in places where some
> schools have a year-round schedule.
>
> I will confess to being totally indifferent to the US football schedule.
> In fact, I couldn't tell you what it is now, except for a vague
> impression that it occurs in the fall, or possibly winter.
>

And have you taken the southern hemisphere into consideration? Our
scholastic year is quite different.

--

Rob Bannister
From: Robert Bannister on
Androcles wrote:
>
> "Cheryl" <cperkins(a)mun.ca> wrote in message
> news:7u8gk9FirvU1(a)mid.individual.net...
>> Andrew Usher wrote:
>>> On Feb 19, 3:07 pm, Ant�nio Marques <antonio...(a)sapo.pt> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>> The reason I fix Christmas to a Sunday has been my observation that
>>>>>> arranging a family Christmas is substantially more convenient when it
>>>>>> falls on a weekend than in the middle of the week. Given that
>>>>>> Christmas
>>>>>> is the most important holiday in the year, should we not all get at
>>>>>> least a 3-day weekend, which we have for lesser holidays?
>>>>> Less than around 30% of the world population cares about Christmas or
>>>>> Easter or think that "Christmas is the most important holiday in the
>>>>> year".
>>>> Well, but for those who don't it doesn't really matter one way or the
>>>> other
>>>> what day Christmas and Easter Sunday are, does it? So what relevance do
>>>> they
>>>> have for you to bring them along? Or was it just the desire to sound
>>>> clever?
>>>
>>> Right, and I figure that my calendar would be no worse than the
>>> present for those that don't.
>>>
>>> Indeed, I considered this problem purely as a logical one; as I've
>>> stated, I don't consider myself Christian, I adopted the Church
>>> calendar as a base only because it makes the problem more interesting.
>>>
>>> I didn't consider my calendar complete until I worked out my new leap
>>> year rule (Rule #3) - it not only ensures that both Christmas and
>>> Easter are within 7-day periods despite being a constant distance from
>>> each other and having leap day in between, it simultaneously causes
>>> there to be exactly 52 Sundays in every year if you take out Nov. 1
>>> which is All Saints' day; this immediately allows te to draw up a
>>> permanent list of the Sundays in the year with their traditional
>>> Christian designations, and then follow the perpetual calendar.
>>>
>>> And I moved the start of the week numbering to August from Nov. 1 so
>>> that the academic year and the US football season would be on the
>>> fixed schedule, and I think there can be no objection to that. The
>>> holidays I consider are Christmas and Easter (and of course the Church
>>> festivals fixed to them, but hardly anyone cares anymore), and US
>>> Thanksgiving - but other civil holidays could easily be fixed to the
>>> same if they are now observed on a Monday, say, or otherwise not fixed
>>> to a particular date.
>>>
>>> Andrew Usher
>>
>> Which academic year are you considering? I can think of several
>> variations - K-12 vs universities and colleges, to begin with, and there
>> are even variations among the K-12 school years in different
>> jurisdictions - and even within the same one, in places where some
>> schools
>> have a year-round schedule.
>>
>> I will confess to being totally indifferent to the US football schedule.
>> In fact, I couldn't tell you what it is now, except for a vague
>> impression
>> that it occurs in the fall, or possibly winter.
>>
>> --
>> Cheryl
>
> The USA doesn't have a football schedule. The rest of the world plays
> football, the USA calls that soccer and then plays it's own version of
> parochial handball.
>

'Scuse me, what's rubbish about the rest of world playing that scoreless
drama with a round ball? Footballs may be different sizes and weights
and even the shape varies a bit, but they are basically ovoid. The other
game is for kids in the street.

--

Rob Bannister