(Will LeeQuod be immediately flat on his back, out cold, or will the missing comma be noticed first? Tune in tomorrow!!)

http://www.sandraboynton.com/sboynton/hippobirdiecards.html

("The Year of Living Dangerously" - yup; perfect!)

Hey Kevin, thanks so much for the joke! I passed it on to a Jewish friend whose wife is Chinese, and he thought it was hilarious.

In a similar vein, I'd previously passed on to him this link: http://www.soyvay.com/

Happy Rosh Hashana to LeeQuod!

Happy Birthday to Jason!

Happy Birthday to Gina!

And, Ellen, I will wish you a happy birthday when it's appropriate, so don't think I've forgotten you! It sounds like you've already planned a "fun" birthday for yourself, and I'm glad. Everybody should have the most fun they can on their birthday!

Don't worry Lee. I intend to joke just as much about the Vile Heret...I mean followers of a differing faith tradition. After all, besides being pirates they committed the blasphemy of not putting Jason's Birthday at the beginning of the Jewish New Year.

Jason, in the Julian Calendar your birthday would be on a different day every 400 years or so. That would no doubt cause great consternation to your legions of adoring fans in 2811 A.D., so I suggest you swallow your Protestant pride and get on the ecumenical bandwagon.

Besides, Chuck Colson is active in "Evangelicals and Catholics Together", and several bloggers and others at PFM are Catholic - as are some commenters also. We can joke a bit, but we don't want to offend.

FYI, here's a website that not only delves more into world calendars, but even has some geek cred because you can try plugging in dates and press buttons to see what happens:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/calendar/

Thanks all for the birthday wishes. My birthday falls on the day I help out in my son's first grade classroom, so I'm going to ask the teacher if I can bring in CUPCAKES! But, I'll drive the speed limit to get them to class. It's also AWANA night at our church. The younger grades meet in the afternoon and the older grades meet in the evening, so we usually have a potluck dinner with the other families and leaders who have kids in each session. So, I'll get to celebrate my birthday with some of my church family, what could be better? As my husband might not be home from deer hunting, I'm happy to have a captive audience for my birthday dinner. ;)

Lee, as a child I discovered my mother's driver's license and then gleefully told her that I knew her age. Her response: "So?" Later, one of my older sisters lied about her age, so when she turned 32, her work associates celebrated her 30th birthday and she felt pretty silly. So on the 5th you don't have to plead the 5th; you can simply wish me a Happy 45th. :)

(There! No one can accuse me of not being transparent.)

I, too, wish you both a very Happy Birthday ('very Happy Birthdays'?).

Re Rosh Hashanah, I heard a joke about a teacher saying to her students, "In the Jewish calendar, this is the year 5736, but in the Chinese calendar it is the year 4935. What does this tell you?"
After a brief silence, one student raised his hand and offered, "Um, it was 800 years before Jews could get Chinese food?"

your welcome on this papist september 29.

I don't know what my birthday would be in the pre-Gregorian calendar. Another examples of the evils of popery no doubt!

Thank you, LeeQuod! And happy birthday, Jason, and happy early birthday, Ellen! :-)

Gina, since Alan's around again, a thought occurs to me: can you think of any discussion groups so cordial as to wish each other well in this manner? Most of them I can think of are so focused on the issue under discussion that relational pleasantries are quite rare.

Oh, and your own was recent or is imminent, IIRC, so happy birthday to you, too!

Happy birthday, Jason!!

And should a better opportunity not present itself, happy birthday in advance, Milady!! Although I'm honestly a bit nervous, since some ladies are rather sensitive about anything age-related, so I typically take (cough) the 5th. Or, as Rolley might say in one of his pitch-perfect imitations of CB Radio lingo, "10/5, good buddy!"

Happy Birthday one day early, Jason. Since were speaking of birthdays, my birthday is one week from today.

It is also my birthday tomorrow,Lee . Apparently Jews are wise enough to count my Birth as the beginning of creation.

Happy New Year, everyone! It is, of course, the first day of the year 5772.

http://www.science.co.il/Jewish-Holidays.asp?s=5772

I always wondered whether one could make this some sort of bar-bet: when was that span of ten days when not one person was born or died?
Curiously, too, I think the difference/change in calendars led to Shakespeare and Cervantes dying on the same date, but not the same day.

Actually, Jason, I've thought about this issue for quite some time. :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time

(The best feature of that Wikipedia page is that it follows the typical format, so it contains a section named "History" with no mention of the irony. I see it has a reference to a science fiction story that may be of interest.)

But I love your droll humor about civilized, modern Catholics versus those rabid slathering barbari- uh, those people of a different liturgical heritage.

How big a problem is is for historians, when they try to reconcile events for different civilizations, where one (such as the Romans) had a calendar system, and another (say, Vercingetorix or some other Celtic group). Or even when both had calendars, but they differed in their point of reference?


Good one, Carol! I'm imagining them using a single tone as their theme music: "BBBeeeeeeeeeP!"

I loved Mr. Naughtie's name the first time I read through this! Trust the English to come up with the most endearing names!

LeeQuod, did you consider "renaming the station(s) to 'the BBBP'"????

This reminds me of Protestants and Orthodox delaying the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar by about two hundred years. This reluctance to adopt the Gregorian Calender was caused by the fact that Catholics considered Protestants to be vile heret...-I mean Followers of Other Traditions of Faith, Protestants considered Catholics to be the Liberated Woman of Babylon and their dialogue with each other had a lot to do with the influence of Pikes and Muskets. Times have changed and we have found factions we each agree is even more vile then the other and thus Protestants have adopted the Gregorian Calender as a gesture of either tolerance or economic efficiency. Probably the later.
Have you got all that, Lee?

I share your lightheartedness about this, Gina. They may soon ban all Naughtie words from the BBC, if he won't tow the line.

But slightly more seriously, I hope this is the start of all-out calendar warfare. Indeed, dividing the times into "CE" and "BCE" is extremely arbitrary, and how does one not know that "2011 BP" doesn't refer to some date in the distant future as measured from the founding of the British Petroleum corporation?

It's actually enjoyable, really, to read dates in the Old Testament and even some at the start of the NT being reckoned by "x number of years after the start of the reign of King So-and-so". After the earthly appearance of the King of Kings, all such other dates became ridiculous by comparison.

So I hope this argument devolves into intellectual battle, hopefully giving us all an opportunity to explain to others why a particular year should be Year 1, versus any other year. What event is more important in all of human history?

And of course we can wrangle about whether or not those who dated the Incarnation got it wrong. But, even that puts the focus where it belongs.

P.S.: How about renaming the station(s) to "the BBCE"? ;-)