Mulligan Night (also sometimes called “do-over” or “fall-back” night, or hour) refers to the fact that, in jurisdictions practicing the custom of daylight savings time, on a particular Autumn evening, the clock is officially turned back one hour. This causes an hour of time to be erased and redone. This strange custom is based on a primitive societal belief that the laws of man are powerful enough to alter the normal flow of time. Daylight Savings Time is, therefor, on par with attempts to legislate the value of Pi, in demonstrating the hubris of legislation.

Like all over-reaching laws, this one creates unintended side effects. Fortunately, in this case, these side effects can be a lot of fun. Because society believes that this hour disappears, all lingering social consequences must also disappear. Anything embarrassing that may happen during this “lost hour” is officially erased.

To see why this is true, consider the legal concept of “alibi.”

If a bank robbery occurs at 1:30 AM on Nov 1st, and I can prove conclusively that at 1:30 AM on Nov 1st, I was 50 miles away, having a drink at a bar with a dozen unimpeachable witnesses, I am off the hook. I couldn’t possibly have done it. If the prosecution tries to insist that 1:30 AM actually happened twice that night, this is just going to confuse the jury and is unlikely to lead to conviction. Of course, any lingering physical evidence can still be an issue. If the stolen money is found under my bed, or the prosecutor can produce recorded images of me with my ear pressed against a vault door as I rotate the tumblers, then I am still likely to get convicted, despite my clever alibi.

All of the above leads us to the rules of a Mulligan Night Party:

• 0.) A Mulligan Night party can only happen once a year. (Although God is Dead Day has similar aspects) Mulligan night usually happens wherever Daylight Savings Time is practiced, on whatever night it ends and the clocks are officially turned back. However, like all holidays, it is somewhat permissible to move the night of celebration by a few days to accommodate other scheduling issues. Furthermore, ex-patriots are permitted to celebrate Mulligan Night, even if they happen to be in a country that does not believe political officials posses magical powers allowing them to control the flow of time.

• 1.) Mulligan night should be officially announced. People will react differently when they know that they are not socially responsible for their actions. So in order to maximize fun, everyone at the party should be made aware when the lost hour is starting. Five minutes before (usually 12:55 am) the host of the party should announce that the “lost hour” is about to commence and ask everyone to remember where they are standing and what they are doing. This is also a good opportunity to explain Mulligan Night to the woefully uninformed.
• 2.) No cameras or other recording devices. Since documentation of the events can ruin the illusion that “it never happened”, technology for producing such documentation is discouraged during the “lost hour”.
• 3.) No social repercussions. Since the laws of society have deemed that the “lost hour” never happen, there shall be no social repercussions. This is the fun part of Mulligan Night. It is an opportunity to do anything that you would really like to do, but would normally feel inhibited from doing during for fear of lingering social stigma. We spend most of our lives projecting a fictitious consistency of behavior that conforms to some social norm – during the “lost hour” you are free from that – you can do whatever you really want to do.
• 4.) Beware of lasting effects. If someone gets pregnant or seriously injured, it is quite likely that someone else will still be held responsible the next morning. This may also apply to any psychological trauma deep enough that it goes beyond the level of mere social embarrassment. So try to retain some level of good judgment.
• 5.) Mulligan night should be officially ended. At the end of the “lost hour”, the host of the party should ask everyone to return to exactly where they were and what they were doing when it started. The clock is then rolled back and things proceed as if nothing had happened. (Optionally, the host can then declare that “lost hour” rules still apply for the rest of the night – that the record will be again wiped clean in the morning.)

And that’s it. Have fun!

He finished his most famous work “The Law” shortly before he died, and I am re-reading it today in his memory.

He knew that he was dying of tuberculosis when he wrote it, and I think it is intended as the best possible last advice from a very smart man to both his peers and to future generations, that he might affect the world for the better.

It is well written, as poignant today as ever, and I highly recommend it.

If you read only one book by a 19th century French political economist/philosopher this season, read this one:

http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/The_Law.pdf

Frédéric Bastiat

(1801-1850)

This may seem a strange thing to ask Christians to celebrate, but please allow me to continue and explain my thinking.

If GOD is spending today dead – then he is not watching. Today is a day free from divine punishment or reward. Today you can behave as you would regularly choose to behave, if no GOD in heaven was watching you. Today is not only a holiday where you get the day off work, but one in which you also get a break from external moral judgment.

Today you, and you alone, will be responsible for the morality of your own freely chosen actions.

Regardless of your belief, “God Is Dead Day” is an excellent day to think about your own code of behavior. What if no one but you would judge your actions – would your personal code of morality be different than it is now? Given a day free from judgment by others, would you act differently? And if so, then are you really a moral person the other 364.2425 days a year?

If your moral behavior stems only from a fear of divine punishment, or even just what other people might think, is it really morality or is it just fear?

Give this some thought, and then spend today doing all the things you would like to do, safe in the knowledge that no one is watching, and your only judge today will be yourself.

Have a happy GIDD everyone!

Every collective idea-organism has its traditions that are practiced to create a sense of group unity and used as signals of belief so that fellow members of the group (and infidels) can be identified. These include everyday behavior such as clothing worn, hair styles, jewelry, make up, language spoken (or at least sub-dialect jargon) – and they also include specific days of celebration that require specific religious observances. While such tokens of belief are mostly harmless (at least they are today in places with a more secular society) they risk being incompatible if you are trying to be a member of more than one religion at the same time.

My most recent thoughts on this matter were inspired by an article today in the Jerusalem post about some Jews who are also trying to be Environmentalists. They have started a campaign to warn other Jews that burning Hanukkah candles produces unnecessary Carbon Dioxide:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195546797524&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere.

The campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won’t need another miracle,” said Liad Ortar, the campaign’s cofounder, who runs the Arkada environmental consulting firm and the Ynet Web site’s environmental forum.

So you see, a custom honoring the story of a miracle performed by the God Jews believe in can be thought of as contributing to our damnation based on the story of the Hell Environmentalists believe in. Mr. Ortar (quoted above) who makes a living from Environmentalism (so I suppose we could call him one of its holy men), apparently also considers himself to be a Jew. However, he believes that GOD would rather get the short count on his sacraments than be bothered to perform any miracles to save mankind from Chanukah candle generated green house gases.

It is interesting to note that Environmentalism has impacted other religious traditions as well. (So they are not just persecuting the Jews.) The Christmas tree is a common Christian tradition. However killing a tree is probably the least green thing a person can ever do – other than maybe digging up and burning the millions of year old remains of sacred dead tree corpses just to stay warm. (If you were a proper natural sort of animal you’d have fur for that!)

So what is an Environmentalist who wants to remain Christian supposed to do?

A plastic tree was once an acceptable solution for those who didn’t want to kill a tree, but these days plastic is considered evil too. Apparently it doesn’t biodegrade in the ground and this makes it bad – even though rocks that don’t biodegrade in the ground are not bad – including shale which has the same chemicals in it as plastic. And when you think about it, its not surprising that plastic doesn’t biodegrade in the ground considering that it is made from a liquid that is found naturally in the ground. But somehow, the process of pumping a natural liquid out of the ground, removing part of it to make plastic, and then putting that part back into the ground where (by not bio-degrading) it is guaranteed not to hurt anyone or anything, has been deemed sacrilegious by Environmentalists.

So the only environmentally righteous solution is a live tree. (At least until the extension of plant’s rights prohibit tree-napping as a crime) But to bring a live tree into your house, you have to also include a lot of dirt and roots. This reduces the size of the tree that can be used. Much like lighting one less candle, a smaller tree with a lot of dirt attached can be seen as an apt metaphor for the reduction of competing religions that the growth of Environmentalism is causing.

And the majesty of the symbol is indeed reduced. New York City’s celebration of Xmas has only been influenced by Environmentalism to the degree that the tree lights are the more efficient LED rather than incandescent bulbs. However, the small Westchester village I live in (just north of NYC) has gone for the live tree this year. Consequently, our government sanctioned official Christmas tree is actually smaller (unless you include the huge stand full of dirt) than many of the trees in Westchester living rooms.

It is particularly ironic that the Christmas tree symbol being degraded is actually an old pagan religious symbol that Christianity co-opted and that this symbol was based on older versions of nature worship.

If Environmentalism continues to grow in mind share, it will probably have to do something similar in co-opting the symbols of other religions. In fact, the whole Hanukah story of one day worth of oil lasting for eight days could easily be co-opted as a symbol about conserving resources. What other religious symbols could be turned into environmentally conscious messages? I wonder if the Romans ever re-used those crosses for the next batch of criminals? They would certainly have recycled the nails – metal didn’t just grow on trees back then.

Recycling old religious symbols and holidays might seem particularly appropriate for Environmentalism, but it is something every collective idea-organism does as it takes over previous belief systems and/or mutates from one form to another. Is Environmentalism already doing this? Maybe so.

Environmentalism’s big holiday, called “Earth Day” is celebrated on a different day in the United States than in other countries. There is no doubt that many of the organizers of the first such celebration were also Vietnam War protesters which included many people with strong communist leanings. So it might not be just a coincidence that, while the rest of the world celebrates Earth Day on the more appropriate Vernal Equinox, in the United States the official holiday is a month later, and that the very first such Earth Day observance on April 22nd, 1970 marked the 100th birthday of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov.

In the United States, we observe Environmentalism’s high holiday on the birthday of a famous mass murderer – a man who was more widely known by his pen name, Vladamir Lenin.