Home Fires and calendar reform SPOILERS

Dave Tallman · 26 Jan 2011, 16:55 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: davetallman at msn.com (Dave Tallman)
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2011 09:55:22 -0700
Subject: (urth) Home Fires and calendar reform **SPOILERS**
Message-ID: <AANLkTi=-eVirgC=xL5E3KCemNTTsaeLmbke-8fCh9X-v at mail.gmail.com>

In "Home Fires" there is never a mention of months or month names. There are
days, weeks, hundred-days, and years. What sort of calendar reform is this?
Asimov proposed a uniform calendar abolishing the old months, with 91 days
per period. Four of these gives 364 days, a reasonable fit with the solar
year. But four hundred-days is 400, which seems unreasonable. Does this
calendar just let the years fall where they may?  It seems impractical for
things like birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries (none of these things are
mentioned within the story).

The solar year is slowly getting longer, but it takes centuries to add
minutes. This story doesn't seem to be set that far in the future. One
possibility is that uniformity for business purposes has trumped all other
practical considerations. Possibly it was mandated by the power-mad
politicians. Or it may be another separation of religion and state, like the
contracts replacing marriage. Religious holidays would be observed based on
seasons and solstices, not a particular day of the year.
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