Eclipse notes
Linda and me being amazed.
The Great American Eclipse of 2024 has come and gone. Even though we could see only 89 percent of it in the Kansas City area, it was spectacular. The light took on an eerie quality, the grass turned a vibrant green, and the temperature dropped noticeably as the moon passed across the face of the sun. Awesome!
The next eclipse likely to be visible around here is not until 2044, when I would be 96, so I don’t expect to see that one. I saw the one in 2017, of course, and I recall one other, though I can’t recall when it was.
These being odd times, some odd things happened in and around the eclipse.
A friend in Lawrence (hi, Missy!) says she had to take her son out of school so he could witness the event. She was told the school wasn’t allowing students to view it because some didn’t believe in it.
Say what? It may be that the school wanted to avoid potential legal trouble if a student looked at the sun without proper protection. Or maybe some were frightened by superstitions promoted by some churches.
Yeah, the idea that the eclipse might be part of a “rapture” scenario was being pushed by a lot of people who should know better. Simply put, the “rapture” is a cruel hoax. It’s extrabiblical and nonbiblical.
The notion was created around 1830 by a wacko Brit named John Nelson Darby, and it’s been part of wacko fundamentalist “theology” for about a hundred years now.
The passage of time does not make it any more true today than it was in 1830, but millions of people still buy into it, sad to say. The idea that Christ will return secretly and zap special people off the planet is nonsense. The Second Coming will be a major event that no one can miss! You won’t have to be in the path of totality to witness it!
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Speaking of hoaxes, about the blasphemous “God Bless the USA Bible,” I will say little. There is a fundamental difference between the Bible and the U.S. Constitution and other foundational national documents (unless, of course, you think that Thomas Jefferson was directly inspired by God, but think about that for a minute).
Still, if you want to put $60 in the pocket of a rich swindler for a King James Bible you could buy for ten bucks elsewhere, it’s your money to waste.
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So what do you do with those eclipse glasses you bought especially for this event? You could keep them as a souvenir, or you could hang on to them for next time, though I get mixed signals about whether the plastic lenses will be any good by then.
If you act by Aug. 1, you also can send them to a place that will pass them on to Latin Americans who can use them in a few months when their country is in the path of totality for the next eclipse. Yes, they happen several times a year, just not often where we can see them. The address is:
Eclipse Glasses USA
PO Box 50571
Provo, UT 84605
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I was rooting for Caitlin Clark and her Iowa teammates on Sunday, but they couldn’t quite pull off the NCAA women’s championship. Clark reached 3,951 career points during the game – a record. Or maybe it isn’t. Seems that Lynette Woodard got 3,649 points during her KU career, and none of those was a three-pointer.
These are the things that some sports fans quibble over endlessly. I guess that’s part of the game, as it were, and why I’m not a sports fan. Life’s too short, I say – though I know others think that arguing these things over a beer is the spice of life.
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German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged by the Nazis on this date in 1945.