AS IT STANDS: As It Stands: 10-10-10: What are you doing today?

Sunday, October 10, 2010

As It Stands: 10-10-10: What are you doing today?

By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard

Posted: 10/10/2010 01:24:54 AM PDT

There are three possible outcomes for today's unique date, 10-10-10. Something good will happen, nothing special will happen or something bad will happen.

There's something special about dates: George Orwell's “1984”; the cannabis culture's call to action -- 420 -- and Proposition 19; the Y2K Bug in 2000; and the world coming to an end in 2012 are examples that seem to spark the imagination.

We respond to the date 9-11 with anger and sadness. We call 911 when we're in trouble and 10-4 is a common police, ham radio, and military term for “I hear you” or “yes.” Cats are reputed to have nine lives.

One national thing happening today is an environmental event titled “Global Climate Awareness Day.” The organizers ask the public to “Please leave your cars at home (can you imagine everyone walking to work on the freeways?) and consider your impact on the environment.”

An environmental group, www.350.org (named for the targeted number of CO2 particles per million in the earth atmosphere), is sponsoring a Global Work Party Day today. It's an Earth Day of sorts for companies and organizations -- a time-out for employees to work together on a green solution for their company or to go out into their community and participate in one of the thousands of events listed on the group's website.

I think it's a good idea to be as environmentally conscious as possible without joining groups. If we recycle and pay attention to other small things in our everyday life, we can make a difference. I'm all for getting rid of the “throw-away mentality.” Fix things instead of buying new ones.

Moving on, here's another interesting thing about today: Both a yin and Yang situation are incorporated into this date. For example, 10-10-10 (base two binary) equals 42 (base 10). Oddly enough, this is evenly divisible by the number of days in the week (the lucky number 7); and equally as odd, it's also divisible by the number 6, thought to be an unlucky number.

In addition, the binary attribute of 101010 lends itself to use by the sciences of fractals (recursive geometric shapes) and chaos theory (the butterfly effect). When you think about it, this day sums up to be interesting.

The number 10 is considered special for many other reasons, but think how often we hear it nearly every day. For example, how about those ubiquitous Top 10 Lists? You know the ones I mean.

We have the Top 10 Musical Hits for the Year; Top 10 Jokes of the Year; Top 10 Dumb Things to Do; Top 10 Serial Killers; Top 10 Cake Designs; Top 10 Amusement Parks; and countless other Top 10 lists of activities involving animals, people and travel locations.

The only exception to the number 10 as something positive occurred when I was in Vietnam. The locals told us GIs our trading offer was “Numba 10” when they thought it was a bad offer. If they didn't like you, they'd say you were “Numba 10.” For whatever reasons, the Vietnamese thought the number 10 sucked.

Just because we have an unusual date doesn't mean something will happen. However, if something really fantastic happens today, we won't have any trouble recalling it years from now.

”Remember 10-10-10 when the Democrats and Republicans finally agreed on a law that actually meant good news for the average American?” Now, that would be something, don't you think?

I don't ask for miracles today. However, I allow my innate optimism to have its way and I won't be too surprised if something good does happen.