Getting Ready for the Eclipse: An Essay, a Poem and a few Facts

An app you can download gives precise countdown.

We've all heard the expression "Too little, too late." I suppose that there are a lot of people who have now experienced the expression as well, rushing off at the last minute to try and find a pair of special glasses that would enable us to watch first-hand Monday's upcoming solar eclipse, the first total eclipse in the U.S. in 38 years.

Two nights ago I scooted off to Wal-Mart because the newspapers said they had the glasses, but when I got there they only had an empty display. Best Buy had nothing and that was that.

Then last night I needed a fluorescent bulb and used that as an excuse to see if I might find those special glasses at the hardware store. C'est la vie. Nada. nothing. They'd had them, but were now sold out and didn't expect to get any more.

Even without the glasses you can sort of have an experience by making a pinhole projector. I remember the eclipse of 1979 and ended up writing a poem about it in my journal. (see below)

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People who are into astronomy in a big way have been counting the days since last year, I think. Here is a link to a page of 25 facts about this year's eclipse. It's probably been used by journalists as a background source for the past month in preparation for the story. It's a pretty big event, though it's not having the same "end of the world" effect as the last day of the Mayan calendar. For the record, everyone in the U.S. will be able to see at least a partial eclipse. At least, in theory.

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After failing to find glasses to watch it with, I decided to look for an app that might help make this event an even more special experience. It turned out to be a pretty easy business. Go to the app store on your smartphone and you will find quite a few to choose from. This C-Net link is also a useful guide.

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Another way to prepare for the Eclipse would be to read Annie Dillard's essay Total Eclipse, reprinted temporarily at The Atlantic online. I'm not entirely sure why the essay has such a short online lifespan, but their plan is to only leave this posted until the day after the eclipse and then to remove it, a somewhat strange notion to me. Then again, there are a lot of strange things in life, and one of them is the behavior of nocturnal creatures when the sun hides its for a brief spell. Here's a doodle that Annie sent me once. How appropriate it feels for this special event.

Total Eclipse

In the days of the Solar Eclipse

when the sun for a time hid its face

the creatures of night all emerged to explore

the strange world of non-light at mid-day.

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Here's a strange thought. Is there a reason that the sun and the moon both appear the same size when we look up and see them in the sky? The sun is 93 billion miles away and massive. The moon is quite near, relatively speaking, and one-sixth the size of the earth, a relatively small heavenly body. The sun is 400 times further from the earth than the moon. What are the odds that these two bodies would match up so perfectly when one passes before the other. And considering the vastness of the sky, what are the odds of these two bodies occupying the identical spot in the sky simultaneously?

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The Countdown is underway. At this moment, it's now 2 day, 4 hours and 39 minutes.... Enjoy!

Black Friday Mayhem Symptom of Larger Problem

By now, nearly all of us have heard about it. People were talking about it over drinks on Spirit Mountain at the AMSOIL Duluth Nationals Snocross event here last night. People are going to be talking about it over breakfast tables this morning.

A Fox News version of the story begins like this: “Black Friday took a grim turn when a New York Wal-Mart employee died after bargain hunters broke down the doors to the store, pushing him to the ground.” One man was killed and four others sent to the hospital in the madness. Evidently the mob turned even uglier when the store had the audacity to announce they would close briefly to tend to the dead and wounded.

In an unrelated West Coast event, two people were shot to death at a Toys R Us. Probably not gang related.

So the question is, how badly do you need that 52 inch flat panel television set or GPS device that was on sale?

No, that is not what we should be asking. The real question we should ask is how did it come to this that people are so self-centered and rude that they would be this out of control.

A fellow I was talking with at the snocross event actually went shopping yesterday morning. He said it was unplanned, but since he and his wife were lying awake, why not get up and go to the store to see the madness and take advantage of some bargains. At one store, there was congestion due to the crowd just inside the door. He said a group of women huddled together in the parking lot, then, ran toward the doors, forming a wedge of blockers like in a football kickoff return, and crashed into the store through the bulk of shoppers blocking their way. He’d never seen anything like it.

Oprah, in her magazine O, addressed the issue of rudeness earlier this year. She asked Jerry Seinfeld his biggest pet peeve and he said “a lack of civility.” The article, Are you rude? Maybe you should think again highlighted the following points:
Eighty percent of Americans think rudeness is a serious national problem
Ninety-nine percent of same people say that they themselves are not rude
Going through life rude and angry can make you sick, author says
To see rudeness in action, look in the restaurants of America

I was struck by the second point here, that the majority think they are not rude. Reason being, I am rude sometimes and know that I am. And I know it's wrong. And, I really am trying to change. How can you change if you don't think you are doing anything wrong? How can 99% of Americans see that rudeness is a problem, but only one percent see themselves as being rude?

The answer is that a lot people believe they have a right to be rude sometimes but don’t call it rudeness. Impatience is one way we demonstrate uncivil behavior and justify it. And yes, the Oprah article is correct, restaurants do give you a fairly accurate reflection of how rude we are. Restaurant waitresses have to routinely deal with rude people who are impatient when their food is not served immediately after it is ordered. It is our right to be so served, is it not? We tend to demand fast service, AND service with a smile, no matter how badly we treat those who are serving us.

In an article titled The Social Epidemic of Rudeness V.C. Higuera writes, “It amazes me how rude people are today. I am sure that this type of behavior has always existed. Maybe I was raised different. Growing up I noticed that my parents always showed consideration for those around them. If we were driving in the parking lot of the grocery store, they would always stop the car to allow pedestrians to walk. If they walked into a store, they always briefly held the door for the person behind them. The strangers who receive my parent’s kind gesture were always appreciative and demonstrated this with a hand wave or a thank you. I grew up thinking that this was the proper way to interact with others while in public.”

There it is. People were once trained to be polite as part of their upbringing. At least some were so trained.

But then, isn’t it our nature to want everything our own way? Today’s rudeness may be directly related to the “Me Generation” coming of age. It is my right to be treated with respect, like a god. We drive down the highway this way: Everyone out of my way. I am coming down the road. Get out of my way. And we consider it an insult when someone cuts us off, even if unintentionally.

I used to think a “high-powered executive” was one who gets results. Maybe it is someone who excels in rudeness, in pushing people to get them to do what he needs to get done so he achieves those results. I never saw it that way until I read this article about hospitals trying to reign in rude doctors.

“High-powered physicians, some with bad tempers, are not new. But increasingly, hospitals… are attempting to curb the reputations of rude or arrogant surgeons and doctors by instituting policies that hold all employees accountable for their behavior.” ~ E.B. Solomont, Hospitals Try To Rein in Doctors' Rudeness, N.Y. Sun

Hmmm. The same can probably be said for high-powered executives.

And the mobs yesterday at Wal-Mart stores across America? It was only a matter of time before something like this would happen. I don’t think we need more laws to fix this problem. We just need to practice day to day what we all know is a good and true maxim for life: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Making the world a better place begins with me.