A Mulligan in Time: A Radical Leap

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Nothing is perfect, except for the perfect things. It does not take a precise 24 hours and zero minutes and zero seconds for the earth to complete one spin on its axis; it takes slightly longer, but not so much longer that you could even call it a “tick.”

The earth’s rotation each day is only a tiny fraction of a millisecond slower than what we otherwise call a day, but these partial seconds can eventually add up. Twenty-six times since 1972, the international bureau of standards that handles time issues has added a “leap second” to all of our lives. The last year with a leap second was 2015, so if that year felt longer for you, there is a reason: It was. By one second. Clocks everywhere could have read “11:59:60” at midnight the night of the leap second, but they did not because no one makes clocks that do that.

The next leap second will delay the arrival of 2017 immediately before midnight on December 31.
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Today in History: September 13

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

“And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”—part of Francis Scott Key’s “Defence of Fort M’Henry”

Francis Scott Key watched the Battle of Fort McHenry through the night of September 13, 1814. He watched “the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,” the light from which “Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.”

He composed the four-stanza poem commemorating the successful American defense of the fort on this date 202 years ago; it was published in newspapers within days and set to song soon after that, when it became known as “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The music was added later.
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Zing! Went the Strings of My Wallet

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

How can something so sweeeeeet be artificial? It’s real to me …

* * * *
“But what is it?” my friend asked.

I repeated what I had just said: “It’s a Starbucks ‘Caramel Apple Spice.'” (I think I even said “Starbucks,” even though we were at that moment sitting in a Starbucks and we certainly knew where we were, because it is impossible to mistake a Starbucks for any other anything. But sometimes when I open my mouth, an advertisement flies out.)

“Yes, but caramel apple spice what? Coffee? Tea? Soup?”

I did not have an answer. What is it indeed? “I don’t think it’s coffee.” I fell back on the charm of insane repetition, something I have not perfected over the years: “Its a Starbucks Caramel Apple Spice,” and I used my eyebrows to tell my friend that she wanted her own cup of one, too. (Picture Groucho Marx.)
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