I just read an article that has me scratching my head in amazement. Can you believe there is actually a scientist - a Johns Hopkins astrophysicist to be precise - who is advocating we dump our current "365 days in a year except for leap year" Gregorian calendar system?

In place of that, he's advocating a permanent calendar in which your birthday, Christmas, July 4th, etc. would always occur on the same day? Oh, and under his plan, there are 4 Friday the 13th's in each year...

What's more, under his system, there are only 364 days in each year -- but we catch up with a "leap week" every five or six years!

The Johns Hopkins professor is Professor Richard Henry, and the new calendar is referred to as the "Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar."

I'm not kidding, I read this in my newspaper this morning, and I've done Google research for more information.

This article I initially read was published in the Contra Costa Times.

But I've found several other references to this. Here's one from a science site.

And here's a link to Professor Henry's own website at Johns Hopkins.

Guess this is not a joke. So what say you about the concept that we could toss that old rhyme," Thirty days hath September..."

It makes sense, in a way, to have the months of equal length. But I don't think the US would go for it. After all, we still aren't using the metric system! :-)

Anne, Haven't read up on this subject but did see that they'll be two more Friday the 13th's this year. And those Friday 13th dates are 13 weeks apart, seeming laughably eerie! IMHO. Every now and again somebody gets the bright idea to change the norm. Who makes the final decisions on stuff like this? Can't get that ole rhyme out of my head; it's been there forever.

Can't these scientists think of anything better to mess with besides our calendars? If it ain't broken, don't fix it!