As the year 2022 begins, should it be followed by CE or AD?

When numbering years, the system using BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, which is Latin for “in the year of our Lord.”) is commonly used, especially in the Christianity-dominant part of the world. More recently, there has been a move to change BC to BCE (Before Common Era) and AD to CE (Common Era), a shift that I applaud. The actual numbering would not change since the switch from BCE to CE occurs at the same time as the switch from BC to AD, but the label would be more religiously and culturally neutral.

Miriamne Ara Krummel describes how the BC and AD system came about. She says that part of the motivation was to marginalize the competing Jewish calendaring system.
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More obituaries should be like this

Thanks to reader Birger Johansson, I learned of this obituary that celebrates a decidedly unconventional life.

Some obituary notices open with the grand achievements of a life well-lived, or the tender details of a person’s passing with loved ones at their side. The death in El Paso, Texas, of Renay Mandel Corren, however, was marked in somewhat more unorthodox fashion. “The bawdy, fertile, redheaded matriarch of a sprawling Jewish-Mexican-Redneck American family has kicked it,” it read.
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They include her birthplace of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, “where she first fell in love with ham, and atheism”; Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, “where Renay’s dreams, credit rating and marriage are all buried”; and Miami, Florida, “where Renay’s parents, uncles, aunts, and eternal hopes of all Miami Dolphins fans everywhere, are all buried pretty deep”.
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“Renay has been toying with death for decades, but always beating it and running off in her silver Chevy Nova,” the obituary states.

“Covid couldn’t kill Renay. Neither could pneumonia twice, infections, blood clots, bad feet, breast cancer twice, two mastectomies, two recessions, multiple bankruptcies, marriage to a philandering Sergeant Major, divorce in the 70s, six kids, one cesarean, a few abortions from the Quietly Famous Abortionist of Spring Lake, NC or an affair with Larry King in the 60s.”

It also lists her many talents: “She played cards like a shark, bowled and played cribbage like a pro, and laughed with the boys until the wee hours, long after the last pin dropped.”

“Renay didn’t cook, she didn’t clean, and she was lousy with money, too. Here’s what Renay was great at: dyeing her red roots, weekly manicures, dirty jokes, pier fishing, rolling joints and buying dirty magazines.”

Smash-and-grab raids

There are many films, too many to name and I am sure each one of us have our favorites, about grand heists, where an elaborate plan is made to steal something extremely valuable. The films are similar in the way that the place to be burglarized is carefully cased to take place when the place is closed, and the details of the security precautions carefully noted so as to find a way to enter and take take the goods without alarms going off and escape without being detected until much later when the thieves are well away from the scene of the crime and have got rid of any incriminating evidence and disposed to the goods. Much of the fun in these films (such as in The Italian Job) is seeing the planning and execution of the heist with split-second precision.
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Do they plan for things like this?

What happens if you are playing a violin solo during a major recital and a string breaks on your violin?

This happened to Ray Chen when he was playing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. While the orchestra played on, he exchanged his violin with that of the concertmaster and continued olaying, while the concertmaster exchanged it with another violinist and the damaged instrument kept getting shuffled around in the background.

He and the entire orchestra handled the situation with such aplomb that I wondered whether they anticipate such a possibility and plan for it. Chen was the person who posted this clip and he he says that it has happened to him before.

I recall once attending a string quartet recital and the last piece they played was a fairly long, very modern piece that involved quite vigorous use of the violin including tapping and plucking. It was not quite to my taste. Towards the very end, a string broke and since this was just a quartet, there was no sliding past it. They stopped and after a brief discussion amongst themselves said that in order to be true to the piece, they would start again from the top after replacing the string. My heart sank but I appreciated their commitment.

Not going far enough

Remember the fuss when the Norwegian women’s beach handball team was fined by the European Handball Federation during a tournament because their players ditched the regulation bikini bottoms in favor of shorts? In response to the charges of blatant sexism (since men were allowed to wear shorts), the EHF has quietly changed its regulations.

The International Handball Federation has responded to widespread accusations of sexism by changing its rules around women’s uniforms to allow bike shorts and tank tops instead of bikini bottoms and crop tops.
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At some point over the past month the IHF has quietly altered its regulations for beach handball, which now stipulate that “female athletes must wear short tight pants with a close fit”. Male athletes can still wear regular shorts as long as 10cm above the knee “if not too baggy”.
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Female athletes have spoken out against uniform double standards numerous times. Women are required to wear more revealing outfits in several sports, including track and field, beach volleyball and tennis.

In 2011, the Badminton World Federation decreed that women must wear skirts or dresses to play at the elite level in order to help revive flagging interest in women’s badminton.

The new dress codes still seem sexist to me, since they require women to wear ‘short tight pants with a close fit’ while men can wear regular shorts.

I don’t see any reason for any dress code. Players should be allowed to choose team uniforms that enable them to compete at their best while not giving them an unfair advantage over other competitors.

Irrational sports fans

In the T20 cricket World Cup currently being played in the United Arab Emirates, India (a dominant force in all forms of the game) has suffered a shock, losing its first two games to Pakistan and New Zealand and in danger of not qualifying for the playoff round. I mentioned in an earlier post that after their loss to Pakistan, some of the Indian team’s supporters, some of whose devotion border on fanaticism, vented their anger at people who had been cheering for the opposing team. While sports fans turning violent against supporters of opposing teams is sadly only too common in many sports, in India things went even further.
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Cricket fights

When I saw a story on NPR about ‘cricket fights’, I initially thought that it was referring to the attacks by Hindu students on Kashmiri Muslim students who had been celebrating after Pakistan defeated India in the T20 World cup currently under way. There has been a long-standing geopolitical antagonism between these two neighboring countries that has has spilled over into cricket, and Indian cricket fans are notorious for taking losses badly and venting their anger in violent ways. This loss particularly hurt because it is the first time that India lost to Pakistan in any World Cup format. People on social media even attacked a Muslim Indian cricketer for being a traitor. People take sports far too seriously. But the news item was nothing about that.
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On calling someone by their preferred name

There is increasing awareness these days of the importance of calling people by their preferred names and using their preferred pronouns, if they have stated them. This is a particularly sensitive issue in the case of members of the transgender community where ‘dead naming’ someone, i.e., using the name they have abandoned along with their former gender identity, is seen as wrong, especially if done deliberately.

But being sensitive to how people wish to be referred to and accommodating their preferences is a good thing to do under all conditions and at all times. This seems to me to be the minimal act of respect that we pay to others and why it has become controversial in some quarters is unfortunate. In some societies, people tend to be formal in addressing someone. The rules for how to address others are fairly explicitly laid out unless they are members of their family or close friends when the rules are relaxed. Ats a result, he chances of one committing a faux pas or an insult are small.
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