​Happy New Year, supposedly. Now that we’re well into the so-called 21st century, we need to change our calendar. We need to start the new year on the winter solstice. The Caesars and the Popes blew it centuries ago.

We need to pull the whole 365-day calendar back 10 days. Jan. 1 would begin at 12 a.m. on what is now Dec. 21. Every month would begin 10 days earlier. Then, new year would mean something, a new beginning as the days start getting longer in the Northern Hemisphere.

We should keep the months as they are, except pluck Jan. 31 and March 31 and give them to pitiful little February. We would attach Leap Year’s extra day anywhere we want.

Why didn’t the Romans do this centuries ago? Maybe they didn’t know about solstices and equinoxes. Maybe it just didn’t occur to them. They thought they were so dang smart.

Michael Greer, Cottonwood Heights