Philip Greenspun's Weblog

A friend who blames Jews for all of the ills that he perceives in American society asked me if it was a Jew who started using “BCE” (“Before the Common Era” rather than BC or “Before Christ”) for dates of events that occurred more than 2004 years ago.  Being a techie rather than a historian he had only recently come across this coinage and was convinced that it was part of a contemporary Jewish plot to deestablish Christianity as America’s default religion.

My response was that I believed BCE/CE instead of BC/AD was a bit of 19th century academic pedantry from Europe or England.  I remember seeing the term on yellowed labels next to objects in museums that had been gathering dust for 50+ years.  Given that Jews had only recently escaped from their ghettos in the 19th century and that most classics or Bible scholars would have come from wealthier families, I thought it highly unlikely that a Jew coined the term.  Most likely I thought it was Christian scholars who wished to employ a bit of jargon to make their professional work appear more scientific.  The only etymological reference that I could find was this Word IQ article, that talks about the appearance of the term “Common Era” in a 1908 encyclopedia published by the Roman Catholic Church.

Anyone have a better source for settling this question?  The Oxford English Dictionary and first Supplement don’t contain “BCE” or “Common Era”.

A trip to an expensive hotel/restaurant on the Eastern Shore revealed some trouble for American automakers.  The customer parking lot contained not a single American-brand car.  Jaguar, Ferrari, Porsche, Volvo, Mercedes, and Audi are apparently able to sell cars to people who have enough money to buy what they want.  There were a couple of American-made pavement-melting SUVs, including a Hummer H2, that made me wish I’d had some “I’m funding Al-Qaeda one tankful at a time” bumper stickers printed.  But slightly smaller Japanese SUVs such as Acura and Lexus were more popular.

There were some shabby old American cars in the adjacent staff parking lot.  But basically if the fad for monster SUVs dies down it looks as though the American automakers will be slugging it out in a pure price competition with Hyundai and Kia.  This is going to be brutal for their shareholders.  Perhaps the shakeout will hasten the debut of the $3000 Chinese car.

My trip to Maryland included a cruise in the Chesapeake Bay on my brother’s sailboat.  Afterwards I encountered an administrator from Howard University medical school (“the oldest black med school in the country”) who said that he was trying to figure out whether to take up boating or flying as a weekend activity.  Boating seems like a more sociable activity.  Everyone with a boat in the Washington, DC area heads east toward the Bay on Friday evening or Saturday morning (those government jobs are fantastic but they result in terrible beach traffic jams because nobody ever has to work on a weekend).  The marina is packed with boats and people, some of whom are hanging out on their boats without even bothering to leave the dock.  Once on the water there are dozens of boats within sight at all times and the captain must exercise constant vigilance to avoid colliding with a fellow weekend enthusiast.  If one’s boat is equipped with a VHF radio one is required to monitor Channel 16 at all times.  This channel is a non-stop chatter of hailing and emergency messages.

The drive to a general aviation airport, by contrast, is usually free of traffic.  Airplanes are big and need to be spaced apart from each other.  Nobody wants to hang out inside his tiny Cirrus or Piper unless the plane is about to depart on a trip.  You’re likely to run into someone you know at the airport but not likely to run into any particular friend.  One in the air and above the traffic pattern altitude you’re unlikely to see more than a handful of airplanes even on a 300-mile trip.  Until September 11th there was seldom a need to monitor a radio frequency for a trip in clear weather and even in these times of paranoia and strife there might only be one transmission on 121.5, the emergency frequency, every 10 minutes.

Flying seems like a better way to keep mentally young.  You are challenging yourself to think and react quickly and rationally despite a sometimes frightening environment.  I ran into a former MIT professor at the helicopter school in Nashua, NH.  He is 69 years old, has been flying airplanes for years, and is now taking up helicopters with the intention of buying a Robinson R44 (on my wishlist of airplanes).  I was shocked when he said that he was 69 because he doesn’t seem older than 50.

Thoughts from those who are both boaters and pilots?

… if he’ll let us fly his Boeing 757 for a couple of hours.  Taxiing off Runway 11 this evening at Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford, Massachusetts I noticed that Kerry’s personal airliner had been updated with a “Kerry-Edwards” graphic.  The plane has always looked fabulous and though all of my pilot friends are terrified of Kerry winning (because of the inevitable airspace restrictions around New England that would ensue) those of us with multi-engine ratings have agreed that we would definitely vote for the man if he would let us fly his 757.

Speaking of Kerry, does anyone know where exactly in Massachusetts he is supposed to have grown up?  His official biography says that he “returned home” to Massachusetts but doesn’t say anything about which town.  Given how different in character the towns of this state are, I’m surprised that they aren’t more specific.  Anyone know?

[Flying down to the Eastern Shore of Maryland on Friday I got a good preview of what life will be like for New England pilots should Kerry be elected.  Flying over Connecticut on a magnetic heading of approximately 230 I was monitoring 121.5 megahertz, the standard emergency frequency.  I heard the following call "Aircraft heading 230 at an altitude of approximately 4200':  This is the U.S. Air Force.  You are in a restricted area and must immediately turn to a heading of 360 or you may be fired upon."  Note that the Air Force did not say where the plane was, not even which state.  I assumed that this was a puny Cessna somewhere near York, Pennsylvania where Kerry and Edwards were doing a tour but could not rule out the possibility that it was my plane.  I was at 8500' but the Garmin transponder in my airplane has a history of flakiness so conceivably it could have been telling Air Traffic Control that I was instead at 4200'.]