JUDGE RULES PENTAGON RESTRICTIONS ON PRESS ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL

A federal judge tossed parts of the Pentagon's restrictions on news outlets, saying they violated the First Amendment, in a lawsuit brought by The New York Times. 

The judge ordered the press passes of seven journalists for The New York Times to be restored. 

GUEST BLOG / By Erik Wemple, The New York Times reporting from Washinton DC--A federal judge today ruled that the Pentagon's restrictions on news outlets violate the First Amendment and issued an order tossing parts of the department's policy, handing a victory to The New York Times, which filed suit in December over the restrictions. 

Judge Paul Friedman, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, also ordered the Pentagon to restore the press passes of seven journalists for The Times. They had surrendered those passes in October instead of signing the policy, which empowered the Pentagon to declare journalists "security risks" and revoke their press passes if they engage in any conduct that the Pentagon believes threatens national security. 

A spokesman for The Times said the ruling "reaffirms the right of The Times and other independent media to continue to ask questions on the public's behalf," adding that "Americans deserve visibility into how their government is being run, and the actions the military is taking in their name and with their tax dollars." 

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Pentagon policy took effect in October and drew condemnations from numerous mainstream outlets for penalizing newsgathering methods long protected by the First Amendment. Dozens of journalists who had press passes to the Pentagon turned them in rather than sign the new policy. The Defense Department then welcomed a new set of credentialed media members, most of them pro-Trump commentators or influencers. 

At a March 6 hearing in the case, Judge Friedman signaled his frustration with the rules. A Justice Department lawyer representing the Defense Department, for instance, drew an animated response from the judge when he argued that journalists don't have First Amendment protections when they solicit the "disclosure of unauthorized information." 

"Why not? Why not?" Judge Friedman replied, adding that department officials can simply refuse to answer such inquiries from journalists, but there is "no proscription" on journalists asking questions. 

Judge Friedman had also appeared skeptical of a provision in the policy declaring off-limits certain journalistic tip requests. Though the Pentagon drew a bright line delineating prohibited tip requests from problematic ones, Judge Friedman said, "I don't understand that argument. I hope that the government can explain it." 

It is unclear whether the government will appeal the ruling. In the March 6 hearing, the Justice Department asked that the court send the rules back to the Defense Department for refining - so that the Pentagon could "rehabilitate the policy" - rather than vacate the disputed provisions. 

PillartoPost.org illustration by F. Stop Fitzgerald

SPACE CADETS / WHO DECIDED THE EQUINOX & SOLTICE DATES?

Ancient Mayans

They don’t teach you this in school, or if they do, it arrives dressed in diagrams and Latin words and leaves before it can settle into the bones.   

We are told the seasons begin on December 21, March 21, June 21, September 21. Dates clean enough to memorize, tidy enough to print on a wall calendar. It gives the impression that someone, somewhere, made a decision. A committee perhaps. A royal decree. A bureaucrat with a pen and a fondness for symmetry.   

But no one decided anything.   

The Earth did.   

Not by intention, but by posture.   

Our planet leans. Not dramatically, not enough for us to feel it underfoot, but enough. About twenty-three and a half degrees. A slight tilt that changes everything. It means that as we circle the Sun, we do not face it evenly. We arrive at it, then withdraw, then arrive again from the other side, like a dancer who never quite squares her shoulders.   

Around June 21, the Northern Hemisphere tips forward, offering itself to the Sun. Light lingers. Evenings stretch. People stay out longer than they should, convinced time has loosened its grip. This is called the summer solstice, though it feels less like a term and more like a permission.   

Six months later, around December 21, we lean away. The light thins. The day folds in on itself. The same streets feel narrower, the same lives more interior. That is the winter solstice. No decree, no announcement. Just the quiet recognition that the Sun has stepped back.   

Between those extremes come the equinoxes, in March and September, when the Earth, for a moment, neither leans toward nor away. Day and night reach a kind of temporary agreement. Balance, not as a philosophy, but as an accident of geometry.   

Among the periodic builders of Stonehenge

Ancient people noticed this long before we named it. They stood in fields and watched where the Sun rose, where it set, how far it wandered along the horizon before turning back. They marked stones, aligned temples, built entire belief systems around a pattern they could not control but could depend on. Not because they were primitive, but because they were paying attention.   

We, on the other hand, prefer our versions neater. Meteorologists begin the seasons on the first of the month. December 1. March 1. It makes the ledgers cleaner, the charts easier to read. And there is nothing wrong with that, except that it replaces the sky with a filing system.   

The older method—the one tied to solstices and equinoxes—still carries a faint sense of wonder. It reminds us that the calendar is not entirely ours. That somewhere beneath our schedules and deadlines is a slower, older rhythm, indifferent to our preferences.   

Early Nile River civilizations

So when December 21 comes around, nothing has been decided. No switch is flipped. No season officially begins in the way a meeting begins.   

The Earth has simply reached a point in its long, patient arc where the light changes.   

And if you’re paying attention, you change with it. 

Ancient Asian Civilizations