Beat the clock: Does anybody really know what time it is?

Published in the Portland Phoenix and the Boston Phoenix

“The Earth is a terrible timekeeper,” says Geoff Chester, the spokesman for this country’s official clock-master, the US Naval Observatory in Washington, DC.

The first problem is the Earth, but the second problem is us. We cheat to make the movement of the Sun and Moon match up with the calendars on our office walls, and, at a more rarefied level, we cheat so that physicists and astronomers can synchronize their scientific watches.

The Earth doesn’t rotate exactly 365 times during a full revolution around the Sun. (It rotates 365.2422 times, on average, if you must know.) To make up for that, since the time of Julius Caesar (45 BC), we have added a LEAP DAY to the calendar every four years. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII made a slight modification, saying a leap day would not be added in years that are evenly divisible by 100, unless the year was also evenly divisible by 400 (which is why 2000 was a LEAP YEAR; 1900 was not, and 2100 won’t be, either).

That’s still not good enough, though, so we need more cheating.

The Earth doesn’t cooperate with physicists’ super-specific definition of “one second” (derivation of which is so complicated we’ll just mention the outermost electron in a cesium-133 atom and skip the parts about microwave radiation, vacuums, and magnetic fields). That definitely doesn’t change, but the Earth’s rotation is generally slowing (because of resistance from ocean tides and the movement of molten rock at the planet’s center). From time to time, to keep things matching, we need to add a LEAP SECOND. The last one happened on December 31, 2005; the next may happen on December 31, 2009, but maybe not, Chester says, depending on how much the Earth’s spin actually slows between now and then.

We could avoid leap seconds altogether if we were like the physicists who want time to run based solely on the atomic clocks. But that would force some other adjustment at some point. Some propeller-heads have proposed passing the buck to future generations via a scheme requiring someone to add an entire LEAPHOUR to some year a little more than 1000 years from now. Not likely. So we’re probably stuck with leap seconds. Adjust your watches accordingly.

Could be worse: some people are burdened with much, much more. Accountants and other people who need a fixed number of exactly-seven-day weeks per year use an occasional LEAP WEEK, giving some years 52 weeks and some 53. That makes them happy, but is too confusing to the rest of us and generally of very little import.

And then there are the people who use a LEAP MONTH. “The Moon does not go around the Earth exactly 12 times in a solar year,” says Chester. It’s about 11 days behind, which is why events on a lunar schedule (such as Easter in the Christian calendar, and nearly every holiday in the Jewish calendar) are “movable feasts” — i.e. their dates move around a bit from one year to the next. The Hebrew calendar uses a leap month every two or three years to keep itself relatively close to the solar calendar.

Perhaps you’re ready to give up. (I know I am.) If so, try out the Islamic calendar, which is a purely lunar calendar, and ignores the solar calendar completely, not using leap days, weeks, months, or years. Happy February 29!

Press Releases: Gender confusion?

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Press Herald watchers have long since tired of editor Jeannine Guttman’s roughly weekly “Editor’s Note” columns, which more often than not should be called “Painfully Obvious Self-Promotion.”

At least then we’d be warned in advance about the rewritten corporate memos that Guttman passes off as her thoughts on the news business and running the paper. Take as an example her January 27 quote from a middle-level sports editor that the writers the Press Herald spent thousands of dollars to send to Arizona would “cut through the media circus that is Super Bowl week.” She went on to say those writers would bring “Maine perspective and insight” to an event on the other side of the country in which a team from another state competed for a national title.

But Guttman shows herself to be even more out of touch with reality in her latest column, “Poll Shows Gender Gap in News of Interest.” After the muddled headline, Guttman spends 1000 words (including nearly 300 words of direct quotes) summarizing a 980-word report from the Pew Research Center, and still somehow completely ignores the study’s most interesting finding.

She spends most of her space explaining why “gender differences” are the reason “newspapers offer different kinds of content sections and pages — from lifestyle to sports, from recipes to NASCAR.” That’s not entirely accurate: newspapers publish niche-topic sections as much to draw advertisers as readers.

Guttman even appears to find the major point, but then skips over it — twice. She does discuss the study’s report that both men and women are very interested in breaking news and the top stories of the day — including topics such as the presidential campaign and the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. But she treats that idea as an aside, going on to highlight more differences between what topics men and women are interested in, and from what mediums they get their news.

Even in a study attempting to delineate differences, the Pew researchers found similarities. Among the study’s lists of specific recent news stories preferred by one gender over the other were subjects in which both genders reported very significant interest: tensions between the US and Iran, tornadoes in the South and Midwest, and the recall of toys made in China.

This was a national study, so it didn’t test people’s interest in Maine’s biggest stories. It did look at general subjects, though, and found large proportions of both men and women follow news about local government, consumer issues, and the weather. The biggest gender “split” is in sports; the rest are in niche areas such as science, religion, finance, and health.

But when concluding her column, Guttman observes that the Press Herald is a “general-interest medium,” and professes uncertainty about “how to keep the content useful, valuable and newsworthy to a broad audience that includes both men and women.”

The Pew study’s road map is clear: cover major news stories, which are of very strong interest to both genders. Maybe she missed that while looking for story ideas on NASCAR or cooking.

Three firsts at NEPA

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Portland Phoenix contributing writers and staff took three first-place awards at the New England Press Association’s annual awards banquet February 9, and three second-place honors as well.

In first place were: for LOCAL ELECTION COVERAGE, the staff and freelancers, for work published between September and November 2006; for COVER DESIGN, “Why Bath Stinks,” a gas mask against a fetid background by Phoenix staff, published April 6, 2007; and for HEALTH COVERAGE, “What’s Wrong With Healthcare in Maine?,” first-person accounts of dealing with the healthcare system by contributing writers Sam Pfeifle and Caitlin Shetterly, published July 27, 2007.

In second place were: for RACIAL OR ETHNIC REPORTING, “‘I’m Done Killing Hyenas,’” excerpts from a Telling Room non-fiction writing project by local high-school students Ali Mohamed, Aruna Kenyi, and Kahiye Hassan, published May 4, 2007; for GENERAL NEWS, “Unvarnished,” former staff writer Sara Donnelly’s story about the Brookings Institution study of Maine’s economy commissioned by GrowSmart Maine, published September 29, 2006; and for GOVERNMENT REPORTING, “State: One Santa Okay; Another No Way,” about state censorship of beer-bottle label graphics, by managing editor Jeff Inglis, published December 8, 2006.

Behind the mask: What we don’t know about the Valentine’s Phantom — and why that’s a good thing

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The identity of Portland’s Valentine’s Phantom is the city’s best-kept secret, bar none. And that’s not changing here, so if that’s what you expect from this article, turn the page and see what someone else will do for love, because we won’t do that.

In a city where secrets are few and far between — the PortlandPSST blogger; how much Reynolds Wrap the Tinfoil Man uses each year; the real meaning of the “Tracing the Fore” sculpture — this one has lasted. And lasted.

Each year since 1976, someone (or some group) hangs white pieces of paper with bright red hearts on doors, windows, and walls all over town, and caps off the display with a few large banners and flags slung from prominent buildings (though not the Time and Temp Building yet — we’re waiting...). A similar phenomenon has been going strong in Montpelier, Vermont, since the early 1990s, and someone from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, posted a Craigslist note in December expressing interest in bringing the tradition there.

The most surprising thing is that people don’t actually want to know who is doing it. Even here in the office, as we tried to score an interview with one of the perpetrators, we didn’t want to know. It would have been an anonymous interview. It’s much nicer to not know, really. (One person we talked to did relay a message said to be from the Phantom, saying the Phantom doesn’t want to be contacted, and that if the Phantom wanted to surface, it would have happened long ago.)

The first report of a Valentine Phantom in Portland was in the February 14, 1976, issue of Portland’s Evening Express: a photo and a long caption describing the sudden appearance of red hearts on white paper taped all over the city on Valentine’s Day morning. (The three-year-old girl pictured with the unexplained decorations, now an adult living in Wisconsin, says she remembers it “like it was yesterday,” and has a copy of that picture in her family photo album, but disclaims any knowledge of the people behind the hearts.)

There have been other media mentions throughout the years, in local papers and TV stations, and even on CNN. But only once has anyone actually interviewed the Valentine’s Phantom (and nobody has asked him, or her, or them, whether “Phantom” is the preferred term — “Bandit” is the word as often used in conversation).

That was back in 2005, when Portland City Council candidate Carol Schiller claimed to have started the tradition in the early 1980s (see “City Council Race Hearts Up,” by Beatrice Marovich, October 21, 2005).

As we said earlier, the Valentine’s Phantom doesn’t like publicity, but he apparently likes even less the idea of someone else taking credit for his work. He promptly responded with both paper evidence and a phone call to the Phoenix offices, in which he provided, among other tidbits, a receipt from a now-defunct Forest Avenue printing shop, purportedly for making the signs for the 1977 banditry (see “She Said, He Said,” by Sam Pfeifle and Sara Donnelly, November 11, 2005). And he offered more info on the phone, including the night-time temperature on February 13, 1979 (8 degrees), and the number of people helping out that evening (six).

It’s that last tidbit — long assumed by those who spend much time thinking about it — that makes this annual tradition most interesting. The fascination goes beyond amazement at the increasingly brazen and difficult nature of some of the displays — hanging a heart on Fort Gorges (the same night a Casco Bay ferry reported just barely avoiding running over a small boat containing as many as seven people), running a flag up the Central Fire Station flagpole, hanging huge banners from the Portland Museum of Art and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. The mystery surrounding the Phantom/Bandit’s secret identities is an integral part of the tradition.

If there were just one person involved, the secret could be easily kept, even for more than 30 years. But if six people helped in 1979, how many more have participated over the years? How many of them have roommates, partners, parents, children who might have noticed a door opening and closing late on Valentine’s Eve?

There are a lot of people who claim to know someone who is involved; we’ve talked with dozens of them this week. Perhaps we have actually talked to the Phantom him- or herself, but nobody admitted anything. That’s the most fascinating part of the secret — we’re keeping it from ourselves. We really don’t want to know.

“Historically, graffiti has been about fame,” says local legal-graffiti artist Tim Clorius. (He denies being part of the Phantom group or even knowing anyone who is; we are pretty sure we believe him.) Graffiti artists seek to get their tags in as many visible public places as possible, earning props from peers for particularly difficult-to-reach or especially prominent spots. But in this effort, the tag being distributed is simply a heart, making the anonymity itself the art.

Clorius sees the hearts as a suggestion for something more. He would love to see small, simple, non-destructive works of art all over the city. There is potential, Clorius says, for “all this site-specific work” to move beyond the basic, friendly message of a red heart on Valentine’s Day and raise deep, pressing questions about our society.

The Phantom’s pioneering work in this realm has made for us a model of direct artistic action, aimed dead-on at the general public — unfiltered by the media or a gallery — and with a message whose impact is heightened by serendipity.

Which, it seems, is the precious Valentine the Phantom is really giving us. That secret, at least, is out.

Heart history
1976 The first Valentine’s Phantom strikes in Portland, and garners reports in the Evening Express and Maine Sunday Telegram newspapers.

1977 Printing the flyers cost $22 at Colonial Offset Printing on Forest Avenue; a Portland Press Herald effort to discover the Bandit’s identity fails.

1978 Hearts went up a day late, and bore a note: “It’s not only ONE day!”

1979 The weather was 8 degrees and windy, according to notes made by one of the six bandits.

1984 Massive heart banners, roughly 20 feet by 35 feet, hang from the Cumberland County Civic Center and the Portland Museum of Art.

1986 A heart banner is hung on Fort Gorges in the middle of Casco Bay.

1991 Down East magazine imagines that “the phantoms roam the city in a pack, dressed in red or white capes emblazoned with huge hearts.”

2001 A heart flag flies from the roof of Portland’s Central Fire Station; a fire lieutenant denies any knowledge.

2005 A heart banner hangs from the roof of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute on Commercial Street.

OCTOBER 2005 Portland City Council candidate Carol Schiller claims to be one of the phantoms.

NOVEMBER 2005 An anonymous phantom responds with information that his effort predated hers, and that she has never worked with them.

2006 CNN mentions Portland’s Valentine’s Phantom in a national report.

DECEMBER 2007 A would-be Portsmouth Valentine’s Bandit posts a message on Craigslist, hoping to get some pointers from Portland. No dice, apparently: “If anything does happen in Portsmouth, it won’t be any of my doing.” Sure. Like we’re supposed to believe that.

Defending the universally loathed: TV: Shopping channels

Published in the Portland Phoenix, the Boston Phoenix, and the Providence Phoenix; part of a multi-part story

TV: Shopping channels
As detestable as they are, someone loves those shopping channels on TV. They bring in more than $10 billion a year to the washed-up non-celebrities pitching second-rate knives, dresses, jewelry, and cleaning supplies.

There is, however, a very compelling reason you, too, should love the shopping channels, and thank your lucky stars they exist: your cable bill would be higher than it is now — by as much as a few bucks a month, depending on where you live — if the “basic cable” package did not include shopping channels.

In many markets, cable companies are required by federal regulations to carry shopping channels. As a result, the cable companies don’t pay to transmit shopping channels (just as they don’t pay to carry other local broadcast stations or community-access channels). But unlike those other channels, shopping networks kick back a percentage of their sales revenues. So the more knives sold, the less likely your cable bill is to rise.

(Sure, nothing is stopping your cable company from racking the rates, except competition from satellite TV and Internet video, but if the feds require cable companies to sell channels individually, you’ll pay more for the same channels, and losing that shopping-network revenue is part of why.)

So every now and again, when you’re feeling bored, check out a shopping channel, and make sure you have a knife for every occasion. If you’re missing one for, say, cutting out your own appendix, go ahead and buy it. It’s just $9.99, you can pay in 15 easy installments of just 67 cents each, and you’ll keep your future cable bills down, too.