A4
East Oregonian
Saturday, January 11, 2020
CHRISTOPHER RUSH
Publisher
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Owner
ANDREW CUTLER
Editor
WYATT HAUPT JR.
News Editor
JADE McDOWELL
Hermiston Editor
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
Tip of the hat
A
big tip of the hat to Pendleton
City Councilor Scott Fair-
ley, who died Tuesday while
vacationing with wife Kimbra Cook
and their son, Lieden, in Mexico. A rare
aneurysm of the hepatic artery burst,
killing Fairley at the age of 53.
Fairley always seemed ready to help.
He stepped onto the city council in 2016
and was set to complete his first term at
the end of this year. Fairley was more
than just another name on a city council
list or a state agency phone roster.
Fairley was in a very real sense a
local man who carved out a special
niche for himself while he dedicated a
good part of his life to public service.
While Fairley’s contributions at
the city council level are perhaps well
known, it was his work for Business
Oregon where he became a well-known
and key personage across Eastern
Oregon.
Fairley communicated and convened
with city and county lawmakers across
the region on a regular basis in his role
for Business Oregon and his profession-
alism was his hallmark.
He worked diligently at Business
Oregon not only to help his commu-
nity but the greater Eastern Oregon
region. In some ways his job could
have appeared thankless, but for all
the officials and elected leaders who
grew to know and work with Scott, his
demeanor and willingness to help stood
out.
As a public official at Business Ore-
gon, Fairley quickly gained a reputa-
tion for fairness and knowledge, and
his relationship with the regional media
was another one of his great strengths.
In his Business Oregon post, Fairley
was often called upon to speak to news-
paper executives and reporters across
the region, and he always seemed
eager to help, and more importantly, to
answer questions. If Fairley didn’t have
the answer to a question, he found one.
Government often takes more than
its share of lumps in our country and
criticism of the bureaucratic system that
functions under the limbs of our repub-
lic can be a convenient scapegoat for all
sorts of ills. Fairley, though, never pre-
sented himself as anything more than
an individual in a position to help local
counties and cities find ways to be pros-
Photo contributed by Dan Haug
Scott Fairley holds onto a mug while camping in Hells Canyon just below the mouth of the
Imnaha River on April 7, 2018. Fairley, a Pendleton city councilor, died Tuesday at the age of 53.
perous. That’s probably because Fairley
was an Eastern Oregon native and he
understood the unique lifestyle and per-
spectives of the land where he grew up.
His passing merits more than a pass-
ing glance because his work while on
this earth was so critical for so many
across a wide swath of the state.
Fairley’s optimism, outlook and pro-
fessionalism will be greatly missed.
YOUR VIEWS
Republicans have no
sense of decency
Have you no decency?
These are the brave words spoken by
Joseph Welch to Joe McCarthy, which
helped start the end of his tyranny over Con-
gress and the American people. Where is our
Joseph Welch? Certainly not Greg Walden or
any other Republican that I know of, because
their decency has long been smothered by
their fear of the Trump machine.
Trump has purposely brought us to the
brink of yet another war in order to dis-
tract us from his impeachment and upcom-
ing trial. “Imminent danger.” Sound famil-
iar? How about WMDs? Where is the proof?
Nowhere, because this has been the plan of
the chicken hawks like Pompeo and Bolton
for decades. Start a fight and then blame the
other guy for fighting back. This is Trump’s
mess and the Republicans are standing by
watching him destroy our democracy and
reputation in the world.
Walden’s statement on the killing of
Suleimani shows his typical lack of spine
and integrity in his failure to call out
Trump’s utter lack of foreign policy, diplo-
macy and planning. His next job better be
worth selling his soul for.
Trump and his Republican enablers pose
a greater threat to our safety, way of life,
democracy and position in the world than
Iran ever has.
Have you no sense of decency, Mr.
Walden?
Susan Lannak
Hood River
FROM THE HEADWATERS OF DRY CREEK
Calendars without underpants
H
appy New Year to all y’all. My inter-
est in calendars began in early 1953,
when my dad brought home a huge
boxful of 1952 calendars given to him by an
itinerant calendar salesman. In those days,
pictures on calendars were about the only
visual art hanging in working class homes
that sported knickknack shelves contain-
ing salt and pepper shaker collections, or 20
ceramic hunting dogs. Few contained framed
artwork. The images on calendars were what
we knew of the Old Masters.
I lugged the box upstairs to my bedroom
and began my arts education session. About
15 deep, below the golden retriever puppies
and Autumn in New England and Poppies
in Flanders Fields and The Resurrection and
Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, I found a picture that
changed my appreciation of both time and art
forever.
It was a glorious photograph of Marilyn
Monroe, nude, on a background of red vel-
vet curtain-like material, lying with one leg
crossed over the other, left arm cocked above
her head, smiling, almost blushing it seemed,
with breasts fully exposed, nipples pointing
toward the upper left corner of the frame. For
the next couple of years, I and some of my
most privileged friends studied that calendar
daily. So, in honor of Marilyn, who, had she
not overdosed on fame, would’ve turned 93
on June 1, 2019, I’ve collected the following
facts for your study.
Most early calendars were lunar calen-
dars, based on the interval from one new
moon to the next. Egyptians used a calendar
with 12 months of 30 days each, for a total
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of
the East Oregonian editorial board. Other
columns, letters and cartoons on this page
express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
so that the Islamic calendar now has a lunar
of 360 days per year. About 4000 B.C. they
added five extra days at the end of every year year of about 354 days. As a result, the
months of the Islamic calendar, as well as the
to bring it more into line with the solar year.
Islamic religious festivals, migrate through all
These five days became a festival because it
the seasons of the solar year.
was thought to be unlucky to work during
When Rome emerged as a world power,
that time.
they considered even numbers as unlucky.
I agree with the Egyptians.
Their months were 29 or 31 days long, with
Eventually, smart folks calculated that
the exception of February, which had 28 days.
the solar year was actually closer to 365¼
However, four months of 31 days,
days, but instead of having a sin-
gle leap day every four years they
seven months of 29 days, and one
let the one-quarter day accumu-
month of 28 days added up to only
late. After 1,460 solar years, 1,461
355 days. Therefore, the Romans
Egyptian years had passed. As the
invented an extra month called
years passed, the Egyptian months
Mercedonius of 22 or 23 days. It
fell out of sync with the seasons, so
was added every second year. This,
that the summer months eventually
too, was a party month.
fell during winter. Only once every
The Roman calendar eventu-
ally
got so far off that Julius Caesar
1,460 years did their calendar year
J.D.
was
contacted by the astronomer
coincide precisely with the solar
S mith
Sosigenes
and the year 46 B.C. was
year.
COMMENT
made 445 days long, bringing the
Other folks had other ideas. The
calendar back in step with the sea-
lunar calendar that best approxi-
mated a solar-year calendar was based on a
sons. Then the solar year (with the value of
19-year period, with seven of these 19 years
365 days and six hours) was made the basis of
having 13 months. In all, the period contained the calendar. The months were 30 or 31 days
235 months. Still using the lunation value of
in length, and to take care of the six hours,
29½ days, this made a total of 6,932.5 days,
every fourth year was made a 366-day year.
while 19 solar years added up to 6,939.7 days, Caesar also decreed the year began with the
a difference of five weeks per century.
first of January, not with the vernal equinox
Bear with me through all this math.
in late March. This system continues to be
The 19-year period required adjustment,
used by Eastern Orthodox churches for holi-
but it became the basis of the calendars of the day calculations to this day. However, despite
the correction, the Julian calendar is still 11½
ancient Chinese, Babylonians, Greeks, and
minutes longer than the actual solar year, and
Jews. This same calendar was also used by
after a number of centuries, even 11½ min-
the Arabs initially, but Muhammad later for-
bade shifting from 12 months to 13 months,
utes add up.
By the 15th century, the Julian calendar
had drifted behind the solar calendar by about
a week, so the vernal equinox was falling
around March 12 instead of around March 20.
Pope Sixtus IV decided that another reform
was needed and called the German astrono-
mer Regiomontanus to Rome to advise him.
Regiomontanus arrived in 1475 and died
three days later.
Things were delayed until 1545, when the
Council of Trent authorized Pope Paul III
to reform the calendar. Most of this Pope’s
mathematical calculations were done by
Father Christopher Clavius. The immedi-
ate correction, advised by Clavius, was that
Thursday, Oct. 4, 1582, was to be the last day
of the Julian calendar. The next day would be
Friday, Oct. 15. Thus it is impossible to have
been born on this planet between Oct. 4 and
Oct. 15, 1582.
The Gregorian reform was not adopted
right away. Most Catholic countries quickly
changed to the pope’s new calendar in 1582.
European Protestants chose to ignore the
papists and continued with the Julian calen-
dar until 1700, when Germany and the Neth-
erlands changed to the new calendar. In Great
Britain, (and its colonies) the shift did not take
place until 1752, and in Russia not until 1918.
In Turkey, the Islamic calendar was used until
1926.
Luckily, for me and the other boys on the
block, the Gregorian calendar was firmly in
place in South Dakota by 1952.
———
J.D. Smith is an accomplished writer and
jack-of-all-trades. He lives in Athena.
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