From: Skitt on
Andrew Usher wrote:
> Brian M. Scott wrote:

>>>>>> And trying to come up with a new calendar fixating on
>>>>>> Christmas is about as logical as fixating on Waitangi
>>>>>> Day.
>>
>>>>> This is just West-bashing.
>>
>>>> Don't be silly: New Zealand is part of the cultural west.
>>
>>> But what the day commemorates is not.
>>
>> You should have checked to see what it actually does
>> commemorate before posting such nonsense.
>
> As far as I know, it's used today as just another excuse for white
> guilt. It hasn't been continuously observed since the event itself,
> like out July 4 has been.
>
> And even if I'm wrong, it's no more important than July 4, and I don't
> base my calendar around that, either. I chose the Christian holidays
> because they are international, and fitting other US days is a bonus.

July 4th is my (Latvian) Name's Day, so I always celebrate it in some way.
http://www.behindthename.com/namedays/lists/lat.php
(My original first name is the middle one listed there.)
--
Skitt (AmE)

From: António Marques on
On Feb 21, 1:09 am, Andrew Usher <k_over_hb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> Mike Barnes wrote:
> > Adam Funk <a24...(a)ducksburg.com>:
> > >From man 5 crontab:
>
> > >   When specifying day of week, both day 0 and day 7 will be
> > >   considered Sunday.  BSD and AT&T seem to disagree about this.
>
> > But they presumably agree that day one is Monday.
>
> But 0 is the start of computer indexing - at least in real programs. 0
> = Sunday.

Ahem. In low level, pointer oriented languages such as C and its
family. And those who chose to imitate it.
From: Andrew Usher on
Mike Dworetsky wrote:

> > I agree, but how does that mean we must celebrate Easter at the full
> > moon? (which the Orthodox don't, anyway)
> >
> Come on, the answer to a question about why a particular religious festival
> must be celebrated on a day fixed by the phases of the Moon is, "Because".
> So unless you plan to enforce an order to the Catholic Church to abandon a
> practice that is central to their rituals and celebrations, you are on a
> hiding to nothing.

The Catholic Church has stated, I believe more than once (it's linked
to somewhere in this thread) that fixing Easter to a particular week
would be acceptable.

> Possibly you could have a "civil" calendar and leave the Gregorian calendar
> for "ritual" use only, the way the Orthodox calendar is used, but the point
> about the way in which the whole world adopted the Gregorian calendar for
> civil purposes, even if they were Buddhists or Jews or Shinto or Tao or
> Atheist, is that it led to standardization and a common agreement about
> dates for civil and international matters.

Yes, and that is why I propose no change in actual day numbering, just
in Christmas and Easter and perhaps other holidays and scheduled
dates, and finally in a standard week numbering starting in August.

Andrew Usher
From: António Marques on
On Feb 19, 10:09 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...(a)csuohio.edu> wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:38:08 +0000, António Marques
> <antonio...(a)sapo.pt> wrote in
> <news:hlmpb4$c42$1(a)news.eternal-september.org> in
> sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage.english:
>
> [...]
>
> > Chocolate bunnies and eggs, you can put them everywhere
> > you like, but that's  not Easter.
>
> For me, growing up, that was exactly Easter.  It was a minor
> holiday, along with Thanksgiving and Hallowe'en; the major
> holiday was Christmas.

Well, those holidays aren't organised by people who are still growing
up.
From: Brian M. Scott on
On Sun, 21 Feb 2010 13:28:27 -0800 (PST), Ant�nio Marques
<entonio(a)gmail.com> wrote in
<news:3f5cc21c-5e58-47e9-8715-9de5097afc15(a)k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>
in
sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage.english:

> On Feb 19, 10:09�pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...(a)csuohio.edu> wrote:

>> On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:38:08 +0000, Ant�nio Marques
>> <antonio...(a)sapo.pt> wrote in
>> <news:hlmpb4$c42$1(a)news.eternal-september.org> in
>> sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage.english:

>> [...]

>>> Chocolate bunnies and eggs, you can put them everywhere
>>> you like, but that's �not Easter.

>> For me, growing up, that was exactly Easter. �It was a minor
>> holiday, along with Thanksgiving and Hallowe'en; the major
>> holiday was Christmas.

> Well, those holidays aren't organised by people who are
> still growing up.

From which you can safely infer that my experience reflects
my parents' view of the matter.

Brian