Leap Thursday

Leap Day falls on a Thursday this year for the first time since 1996.

I remember 1996.  It was a year when you didn't have to worry about climate change so much, when a blizzard in January happened not because of climate change but because it was January.  And even though it was the year that a Christian nationalist named Eric Rudolph bombed a park in Atlanta, you didn't have the President of the United States say he was a fine person for the other side of the cultural debate.

I also remember when you were just as likely to hear Rush on FM radio as you were to hear Rush Limbaugh on AM radio, because even though the Telecommunications Act passed that year eventually ruined radio, you didn't need to get satellite radio to hear rock music because it was still available on terrestrial radio.  In fact, we didn't even have satellite radio in 1996.

And the fact that you could still hear rock on terrestrial radio meant that you could avoid the Macarena.

I have some personal memories of 1996.  I remember getting my first 9-to-5 full-time office job since graduating from college.  ("But Steve," you say, you graduated from college in 1988!"  I know . . ..)  My mother and I got our kitchen redone for the first time since we moved in.  I visited the Winterthur gardens in Delaware for the first time.  And I drove to Cleveland to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which had just opened a year before.  On my way home, I drove through northern Pennsylvania on scenic U.S. Route 6.

Given that's happened with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since, I remember the trip home on Route 6 more fondly.  Probably because I stopped at Presque Isle State Park on Lake Erie in Pennsylvania along the way.  No, I think it was because the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame started inducting pop, non-rock acts soon after.  Well, I still liked Presque Isle State Park.

Also, we didn't have social media, which mean that I couldn't meet any top fashion models, but it also meant that a foreign adversary couldn't meddle in our elections.  We did have "Seinfeld," and it's damn hard for me to find any sitcom as funny as that today.  But at least I can find old TV favorites on YouTube, which also didn't exist in 1996.

Mmm . . . You know, on balance, I think 1996 was a better year.  And I don't expect to look back fondly on 2024 if I'm still around for the next Leap Thursday in 2052.  

With a Soulful, Bounding Leap . . .

The most recent polls suggest that Joe Biden is going to win South Carolina and win big. Any Democrats nervous about the possibility of Bernie Sanders as the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee and are secretly rooting for Biden but don't want to admit it to avoid being seen as uncool should feel comforted by that.  Because the national polls suggest that, despite the Ukraine flap, Biden could still beat Trump in November like a drum.

Biden hopes to use this Leap Day contest as a springboard for the rest of the 2020 campaign, but problem is that, even if Biden wins the South Carolina primary today, he only has three days to capitalize on his victory for the Super Tuesday contests, and given Sanders' huge support in key states like California, Biden might not get very many delegates out of his momentum.  Even worse, there are still six other candidates for the Democratic residential nomination who show no sign of withdrawing or have no reason to withdraw.  Except for Tulsi Gabbard, who, despite her spectacularly vacant candidacy, is not going to withdraw either.

Tom Steyer may have gotten out by now if he weren't doing so well in South Carolina himself.  Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar have pockets of support to sustain them.  Elizabeth Warren is hell-bent on staying in, and Michael Bloomberg has vowed to stay in until "the bitter end."  That is, New Jersey.  The Garden State's last-in-the-nation primary on June 2 may be the Democrats' last chance to avoid a brokered convention, as Super Tuesday will likely resolve nothing.  Bloomberg has the money but not the momentum; after South Carolina, Biden may have the momentum, but he doesn't have the money.  Sanders has both, but the jury is still out whether he can win in November; analysis of his chances in the media is as divided as Americans' political opinions.

Thus, even if one or two candidates do withdraw after Tuesday's fourteen primaries and caucuses, the Democratic presidential nomination campaign will still be as confused as ever.  Thank goodness that, like Leap Day, this ritual only happens once every four years.    

February 29

It's February 29, the extra day to compensate for the remaining six hours of the solar year not accounted for by the calendar for the previous four years! Here are some fun facts about Leap Day you can amuse your friends with!

An extra day every four years to keep the calendar accurate was a Roman innovation. In 45 B.C. (the Roman year 709), Julius Caesar decreed that an extra day be added at the end of February, then the last month of the year, on a quadrennial basis. The Julian calendar, as it was thus called, was adopted by the Christians centuries later, but with January 1 as the start of the year.

The Julian calendar was slightly off, running eleven minutes and fourteen seconds longer than the time it takes the earth to revolve around the sun. By 1582, the calendar was off by ten days, causing Pope Gregory XIII to drop that number of days from the year. He figured out that if only end-of-century years with numbers divisible by 400 (1600, 2000), and not all end-of-century years, were leap years, it would keep the calendar accurate to the minute going forward. (Great Britain and its colonies didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752.)

February 29 falls on the same day of the week once every 28 years, except between years ending centuries that lack a leap day, skewing this cycle by as little as twelve years and as much as forty years. Example: February 29 fell on a Wednesday in 1888, but the lack of a leap day in 1900 meant that it would fall on a Wednesday again in 1928 - forty years after. February 29 fell on a Sunday in 1896, but without a leap day in 1900, it fell on a Sunday again a mere twelve years later, in 1908.

February 29 will fall on a Wednesday again in 2040.

The entire Gregorian calendar repeats itself every four hundred years, according to Wikipedia. This works out to 20,871 weeks with 97 leap days. In this period , February 29 falls thirteen times on a Sunday, Tuesday, or Thursday, fourteen times on a Friday or Saturday, and fifteen times on a Monday or Wednesday. When February 29 is observed in an end-of-century year after 1582 (1600, 2000, et. al.), it always falls on a Tuesday.

February 29 falls on different days of the week in this order, except when end-of-century years with numbers not divisible by 400 interrupt the cycle: Tuesday, Sunday, Friday, Wednesday, Monday, Saturday, Thursday.

People have a 1 in 1,461 chance of being born on February 29 and thus having birthdays only once every four years.

British subjects born on February 29 legally turn eighteen on March 1 of the relevant year.

Among celebrities who were born on February 29: actress/singer Dinah Shore (1916-1994); actor Alex Rocco and astronaut Jack Lousma (born 1936), actor Dennis Farina (born 1944), and; motivational speaker Tony Robbins (born 1960).

February 29 is also the day women propose to men. Right. I don't think any woman is going to propose to me in a million (four million?) years. And on that note, I think I'll wrap things up.