This isn’t going to be a long blog but I’m annoyed, therefore I rant. All over my Facebook wall are people posting memes about tomorrow, Friday the Thirteenth coinciding with a full moon.

Let me count the problems I have with this.

First: Friday the Thirteenth is just another day. There is nothing lucky or unlucky about the numeric day and weekday of one day over another. I wrote a longer blog on this subject here. We happen to have a twelve month calendar with varying length months between twenty eight and thirty one days. The conjunction of days and days of the week is merely random happenstance with no meaning. What if we had a six month calendar with sixty days per month? Or an eighteen month calendar with twenty or so day months? It’s just an arbitrary assignment of names and numbers to the length of time the earth takes to orbit the sun.

Ok, enough of that.

Two: The full moon is something that happens every 29.53 days based on the time it takes the satellite to orbit the earth. Once again it is a cyclical event that has no effect on humanity. Don’t believe me? Trust Wiki.

III: This is a biggie everyone. A huge one. An enormous one. Keep this one in mind the next time you see something on the internet. I’m going to whisper it because it’s a crazy, revolutionary idea that may not have occurred to many people. It’s not a full moon on Friday. The internet may have lied to you. Remember that fact. Remember. Remember. Remember. Remember.

Stay skeptical my friends.

Tom Liberman