...hard in Austin this morning. Since Sr. Dilys wends his little roadster around hilly roads on the way to his daily breaking and mortaring of legal rocks, the morning eye-opener includes checking the weather via the radar map. And determining the trajectory of the storm, partly by checking the time on the map. 13:47 UTC means 8:47 a.m. in Central Texas.
UTC. UT, "Universal Time," or, as we here grew up calling it "Greenwich" or "Greenwich Mean Time." -wich is a street; a village; a castle; a dwelling; a place of work, even an exercise of authority. In this case, a green one. Universal is a cold abstraction, even an abstraction of abstractions, common to all purposes, conditions, or situations, and thus applicable to any. In-between specific and general, are the US geographical divisions, Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific Standard Time.
Time anchored to space. Language anchored to history, and geography. We are not prepared to collaborate in our thinking, to universalize and bleach a venerable verdant village, at the dividing line of so many things, into a blank abstraction providing fodder for the pounding or humming machine of some generic future. Especially since it's the same time, for all but extremely technical purposes. Greenwich is still the meridian from which the day is counted.
Now. Hot-pink crepe myrtle shedding translucent drops from massed green leaves at the end of the rain. Everywhere we look, we see the windows of a dwelling, a space of work, an opportunity to exercise authority over our world.
The Universal and Its technicians will take care of Itself. Us, that's our job.