Fight the Amoral Fight

Martius

Posted by: sp34n119w, 9:35 PM GMT on March 01, 2012

What can one say about March in Southern California? There will be flowers. There will be sun. There will be wind. There may be rain. There may be snow in the high places. It's pretty much like early Spring anywhere else, but, milder. Except when it isn't. Spring, and March in particular, is notoriously unpredictable.

March brings the Spring equinox, falling this year on March 20th, at 5:14 UTC. That should be, um, March 19th, at 10:14 pm PST, I think. Unless the time changes before then, in which case it will be, er, 9:14 pm PDT. Somebody check me on that.
[oopsies. I was supposed to fix this days ago!]
[EDIT: somebody did check me on that - no surprise, it was LowerCal in comment #9 :)
Correct time = Spring Equinox March 19 at 10:14 PDT ]

The Romans called this month Martius, named for the god of war, Mars. It is no coincidence that the verb “march” means, among other things, “to walk in a procession; walk in a disciplined military manner” since it was at this time of year that armies began military campaigns, especially of conquest. Nobody fought in winter in the olden days.
In the wikipedia article on March (linked above) I learned that the term "Lent" comes from the Saxon name for this month.

I've always liked Mars/Ares. He's a bit of a coward, actually, and a wimp. He likes to incite violence but isn't always all that great at winning his own battles, so tends to run away a lot. He has no tolerance for pain. I find him comical, and a typical warmonger.
If you ever watched the tv shows “Xena” or “Hercules” I think that their version of Ares pretty much nails it, at least as far as I've read of the old stories. In fact, Ares is the main reason I watched any episodes of those two tv shows.

Ok, now I'm sad. Something I wrote up there got a song stuck in my head and then I remembered Kevin Smith (Ares) and the two kind of go together. Not least because both are pretty cheesy ;)
So I'll post the song …

And here is Kevin Smith being not Ares :)

…..

Sallying Swirls:

For the bigger picture, have a look at the NE Pac WVloop.

Contentious Clouds :

Resistant Rain:

Rallying Randomness to follow in the comments …

Updated: 7:26 PM GMT on March 08, 2012

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When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. - Edmund Burke

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Chapman Farms Santa Paula, CA
Elevation:	239 ft
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APRSWXNET Santa Paula CA US Santa Paula, CA
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