We all recognize that Afghanistan is only barely emerging from its own sort of dark ages.<\/p>\n
Major Chuck Z. may have accidentally discovered a way to move the process along?<\/p>\n
From over at his place:<\/a><\/p>\n Afghans, it seems, have their own slavish adherence to regulations, at least in terms of religion.\u00a0 The call to stick your ass in the air came about 20 minutes early today.\u00a0 I was in my office at the Border Police headquarters I have several offices, this one is where I work from to ensure that our mentorship and partnership with these WOGs goes well) but that’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax.<\/p>\n Anyway, there’s a PA system in my office.\u00a0 Lots of lights and buttons.\u00a0 May as well put a “wet paint” sign on it too–I’m going to play with it.\u00a0 I pushed a couple buttons, and the pre-recorded call to prayer starts up.\u00a0 I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal, people would check their watches and realize the error.<\/p>\n Allah is never off time, it seems.\u00a0 About 20 seconds into the recording (while I was pushing buttons, again, to make it stop) the mosques around the Headquarters started playing the call to prayer.\u00a0 All the Afghans started filing out of offices and barracks to go pray.<\/p>\n I asked one of the terps about this–he said that when the prayer call is heard, you go pray, period.\u00a0 Not everyone has a watch or can tell time, but everyone can hear the call to Allah.\u00a0 And if a call is heard by a mosque, they will make their call and the others will follow.\u00a0 Then they will adjust their clocks, so the next call is sounded at a set time from the last call.<\/p>\n So, I may have figured out a way to establish Chucks Daylight Savings Time.\u00a0 Just adjust by a couple minutes every day, and soon, I can get Afghanistan off the weird 30-minute time shift (Afghan Time is +30 minutes to everywhere else in the time zone) and eventually have them on Eastern Standard Time.\u00a0 Sure, their prayers would all be in the middle of the night, but Allah wants what Allah wants.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n To be sure, humans are creatures of habit that CAN be screwed with regardless to their ethnic\/religious\u00a0 background, but the image of\u00a0 Chuck frantically trying to un-fuck the situation cracked me up.<\/p>\n I never knew Chuck before he got blown out of his tank in Iraq, but gotta wonder if maybe he has developed a sort of perverse TBI symptom that subconsciously makes weird stuff happen to him.<\/p>\n A\u00a0 few days ago the timing of his bowel movements <\/a>saved him from getting blown up yet again so my question ain’t as silly as it seems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"