I, like many, can't help but constantly quote the sunrise and sunset times up here at Latitude 65. It creates shock and awe in the winter AND the summer. For instance, I must share that today's times are:
Sunrise: 2:58 am
Sunset: 12:47 am
Makes for a short night, to be sure. Just think of the poor souls doing pilot training and trying to fulfill their night hours requirement!
People ask me what the trick is to sleeping this time of year. (In December, they asked me how we stayed awake past 4:00 pm!) Personally, my summertime sleep tools include:
My friend Kevin suggests: 1 bottle of vodka and 3 sleeping pills, but so far I haven't needed that! The biggest nighttime problem is Luna--she is raring to go with all the daylight, and just won't sleep. Doctor Bob recommends--I kid you not--Doggles, eye shades for dogs. We may have to give them a try, or else dose her with Kevin's vodka and pills!
I enjoyed today's Letter to the Editor in the Daily News Miner. Local resident Jude Henzler has some different thoughts about the sunrise and sunset. Read on...
Sunrise: 2:58 am
Sunset: 12:47 am
Makes for a short night, to be sure. Just think of the poor souls doing pilot training and trying to fulfill their night hours requirement!
People ask me what the trick is to sleeping this time of year. (In December, they asked me how we stayed awake past 4:00 pm!) Personally, my summertime sleep tools include:
- eye shades
- cheap-but-effective paper window blinds in the bedroom (Home Depot)
- ear plugs (just to desensitize as much as possible)
My friend Kevin suggests: 1 bottle of vodka and 3 sleeping pills, but so far I haven't needed that! The biggest nighttime problem is Luna--she is raring to go with all the daylight, and just won't sleep. Doctor Bob recommends--I kid you not--Doggles, eye shades for dogs. We may have to give them a try, or else dose her with Kevin's vodka and pills!
I enjoyed today's Letter to the Editor in the Daily News Miner. Local resident Jude Henzler has some different thoughts about the sunrise and sunset. Read on...
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
No, the sun doesn’t rise
To the editor: If you think about it, honest to God, it’s ridiculous. It’s been more than 400 years since Copernicus correctly pointed out (as did some Greeks earlier), contrary to what we anthropocentrically thought, the sun doesn’t move over our world; instead, we inhabit a modest planet that circles the sun and, at the same time, spins like a top. Hence, at lower latitudes, there are 12 hours of night and day. Nowhere does the sun “rise,” nor does it “set.” Aryabhata, an Indian astronomer, suggested this earthly spin by 499 C.E., and Isaac Newton, among others, deduced it from the work of Copernicus and Galileo, though it took another 200 years to prove.
Schoolchildren know this, but it eludes writers and weather page editors who only scribble about “sunrises” and “sunsets.” This is a conceit we should get over; it’s not good for us. Thinking we are the center of something or other makes us vain, self-righteous and bellicose; we should be humble, meek and pacific.
Consider the Japanese, a remarkable people and an accomplished culture; alas, one of many with martial history. The “Land of the Rising Sun,” indeed. What if they correctly identified their home as the Land of the Sinking Horizon? Would there be cruelty in Nanking or death marches? You see what I’m at.
Think what a world it would be; probably, there would even be peace in our time once writers stop the nonsense about sunrises and sunsets and, rather, be agog over earthsets and earthrises. The Catholic Church, in only 400 years, has forgiven Galileo for being right. Weather page editors are a harder case. They are people of science, and I’m old enough to remember what difficulty biologists had convincing geologists to consider plate tectonics. It will be hard to eliminate “sunrises” and “sunsets” from our vocabulary, but we should try. Contact your newspaper and the weather channel.
Jude Henzler
FAIRBANKS
No, the sun doesn’t rise
To the editor: If you think about it, honest to God, it’s ridiculous. It’s been more than 400 years since Copernicus correctly pointed out (as did some Greeks earlier), contrary to what we anthropocentrically thought, the sun doesn’t move over our world; instead, we inhabit a modest planet that circles the sun and, at the same time, spins like a top. Hence, at lower latitudes, there are 12 hours of night and day. Nowhere does the sun “rise,” nor does it “set.” Aryabhata, an Indian astronomer, suggested this earthly spin by 499 C.E., and Isaac Newton, among others, deduced it from the work of Copernicus and Galileo, though it took another 200 years to prove.
Schoolchildren know this, but it eludes writers and weather page editors who only scribble about “sunrises” and “sunsets.” This is a conceit we should get over; it’s not good for us. Thinking we are the center of something or other makes us vain, self-righteous and bellicose; we should be humble, meek and pacific.
Consider the Japanese, a remarkable people and an accomplished culture; alas, one of many with martial history. The “Land of the Rising Sun,” indeed. What if they correctly identified their home as the Land of the Sinking Horizon? Would there be cruelty in Nanking or death marches? You see what I’m at.
Think what a world it would be; probably, there would even be peace in our time once writers stop the nonsense about sunrises and sunsets and, rather, be agog over earthsets and earthrises. The Catholic Church, in only 400 years, has forgiven Galileo for being right. Weather page editors are a harder case. They are people of science, and I’m old enough to remember what difficulty biologists had convincing geologists to consider plate tectonics. It will be hard to eliminate “sunrises” and “sunsets” from our vocabulary, but we should try. Contact your newspaper and the weather channel.
Jude Henzler
FAIRBANKS
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