On Sunday, March 9, at 2 a.m. local time, the clock leapt forward by one hour, marking the shift to Daylight Saving Time (DST). This seasonal adjustment is designed to extend evening daylight in summer by setting clocks forward in the spring and back in the fall—hence the mnemonic: “spring forward and fall back.” While golfers may relish the extra light for late afternoon rounds, farmers, whose routines are dictated by their livestock rather than the clock, may view the change less favorably.
Travel is a cultivated and varied appetite. For most, it remains a moderate indulgence, though in later life, free from professional and familial obligations, it often transforms into a more prolonged alternative to life at home.
Recently, however, our approach to travel has shifted. The primary catalyst for this change is the political climate in the United States, where we have spent the past decade exploring. Compounding this is an increasingly unfavorable global landscape, with rising safety concerns reflected in official government advisories. The widening divisions between religious and racial groups have further estranged nations from one another.
The natural world into which all living creatures are born is, for the most part, self-sustaining. Birds and insects grow and survive without visible amendment, guided only by the forces of nature. The sun rises and sets; the seasons change; flowers bloom and wither; leaves come and go. Human beings, by contrast, distinguish themselves through deliberate and sometimes extraordinary modifications—not only to their own natural growth and evolution but also to the world around them. They alter agriculture and architecture, photography and cosmetics, music and language, even the alphabets they use. More remarkably, humans create entire fictions—narratives among and between themselves—that shape their perception of reality. This continuous process of revision and reinterpretation far exceeds the natural limitations of partnership, familial growth, and physical necessity.
Late last evening, just as I was crawling into bed, I noticed an email notification from my newest acquaintance and neighbor, Carolina. She wrote:
“Hello Bill, if you’re triking around 11 tomorrow, stop by the old pickleball courts (I think they’re green). Four of us who haven’t played in a year or two are going to give it a try.”
Within my personal vernacular, “schmaltz” is primarily reserved for music of a highly sentimental or conventional character. However, the word has another, less poetic but no less evocative meaning.
A rainy day on Hilton Head Island is rarely uneventful. Being directly exposed to the North Atlantic, with only modest sand dunes and Palmetto ferns for protection, the island often bears the brunt of unrestrained ocean weather. Rain here is seldom gentle; forecasts frequently warn of severe thunderstorms, wind advisories, and gusts reaching 80 km/h, making the air feel even cooler. When last evening’s forecast promised a stormy day ahead, I made an easy decision: I would forego my usual tricycling and indulge in the rare pleasure of sleeping late.
There once was a lawyer named Rex
Who was endowed with a small organ of sex
When tried for exposure, he replied with composure
De minimis non curat lex!
De minimis is a Latin expression meaning “The law does not concern itself with trifles”, a legal doctrine dating back to the 15th century by which a court refuses to consider inconsequential matters.
With the unfolding histrionics of Trump’s recent election, it is increasingly apparent that there is a rift between liberalism and libertarianism. One (liberalism) is openness to new ideas; the other (libertarianism) advocates minimal state intervention. The paradox (that is, the unanticipated conflict between social welfare and personal independence) is that anything which violates the entitlement of others to freedom from the conduct of others is interpreted as an invasion of that privacy. As a result, the dominance of the majority (specifically its putative rulers) becomes the priority. This in turn precipitates attack on anything which unsettles the unobstructed traction of the rulers’ interests. Examples of this transition include intolerance of minority religions, intolerance of minority needs and behaviour, intolerance of minority literature, division of labour interests, commercial and political governance, etc. Basically anything that disturbs the rule of governing interests is discounted. It must be expected that the universal human nature for preservation of its self-interest will prevail. There is no logical reason whatever that distances or defends that preoccupation. To imagine that the actors of the drama have attended some school of beneficence before assuming control is irrational.
It was a homage, a yearning to fulfill. I had to see the beach again. I had to rise upon the dunes and sense the wind across the sea. As I sailed on my tricycle along the winding pathway through the green corridor, I asked myself, “Would I admonish myself for not having tried?”
In control theory, backstepping is a technique developed circa 1990 by Petar V. Kokotovic, and others for designing stabilizing controls for a special class of nonlinear dynamical systems. These systems are built from subsystems that radiate out from an irreducible subsystem that can be stabilized using some other method. Because of this recursive structure, the designer can start the design process at the known-stable system and “back out” new controllers that progressively stabilize each outer subsystem. The process terminates when the final external control is reached. Hence, this process is known as backstepping.
The hype and international drama surrounding the latest White House meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy has caused emotions of many people to boil. Including my own. Though naturally I cannot speak for others, I have within the past twenty-four hours come to a radical reversal of my initial thoughts. Oddly enough my change of opinion has been prompted by social media. I know that will immediately prompt its own adverse reaction; but that too has become a source of different opinion. Social media for all its many faults – not the least of which include the publicity of falsehoods and intentionally devious distractions – is the medium by which much of the population of many countries relates to one another. Given the mounting objections to so-called press coverage through all the standard vehicles such as CNN, MSNBC and FOX NEWS, it is questionable whether they improve on what is being fed to the public. What has captured my attention in particular with what I have heard on TikTok in the past twenty-four hours are videos of qualified people addressing, not political positions so much as historical accounts. Some of these accounts are favourable to the American position, others are not.