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February 29 babies seek leap in recognition
Source: Agencies |
February 29, 2012, Wednesday
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SOME people devote their lives to ending world hunger, some to lifting children from poverty, and still others to getting Leap Day the respect it deserves.
The cause may seem frivolous but it is not the least bit trivial to leapers, those born on February 29, a date that appears on calendars once every four and occasionally every eight years.
Leapers face a range of troubles over their birthdays, from computer snafus to police suspicion during traffic stops to hearing about delivery room negotiations to alter their birth certificate to a day earlier or a day later.
"I've had people tell me to my face, 'Who cares?'" said Raenell Dawn, who with Peter Brouwer in 1997 created The Honor Society for Leap Year Day Babies. The online club for people born on February 29 boasts more than 9,000 members.
"I'll tell you who cares. One in 1,461 of us do," Dawn said, citing the chance to be born on Leap Day. There are just over 200,000 leapers in the United States and 5 million worldwide, she said.
Lest non-leapers dismiss leapers' complaints, leapers point out that employees are working for free today since paychecks are based on a 365-day year.
February 29 is not recognized by some computer services and software programs that power everything from banking to life insurance, Brouwer said.
"Leap year deniers claim February 29 is an invalid date," said Brouwer, who said he was told by Crown Life Insurance Co that March 1 had to be listed on his policy because its computer system balked at February 29.
Leap Day has tripped up Google, whose Blogger program will not allow existing users born on February 29 to update their profiles. A spokesman said the company plans to fix the glitch.
Leap years occur every four years, except those ending in double zeros - such as 1900 and 2100. There are exceptions, however, as years ending in double zeros that can be evenly divided by 400 - such as 1600 and 2000 - are in fact leap years.
Microsoft's Excel, the world's most popular spreadsheet, does not realize that 1900 was not a leap year and as a result myriad other companies' programs, in order to be compatible, have had to put the error in their code. Microsoft has no plans to correct the mistake as "fixing it now would cause greater impact to customers," a spokeswoman said.
Dawn and Brouwer have lobbied calendar companies to mark Leap Day as a notable day, like New Year, and prodded Facebook to clear the block on February 29 as a birthdate on user profiles.
Facebook complied, but the calendar effort has so far been largely unsuccessful, they said.
"We're not curing cancer or stopping world wars but it's still significant. It affects the whole world," Dawn said.
The cause may seem frivolous but it is not the least bit trivial to leapers, those born on February 29, a date that appears on calendars once every four and occasionally every eight years.
Leapers face a range of troubles over their birthdays, from computer snafus to police suspicion during traffic stops to hearing about delivery room negotiations to alter their birth certificate to a day earlier or a day later.
"I've had people tell me to my face, 'Who cares?'" said Raenell Dawn, who with Peter Brouwer in 1997 created The Honor Society for Leap Year Day Babies. The online club for people born on February 29 boasts more than 9,000 members.
"I'll tell you who cares. One in 1,461 of us do," Dawn said, citing the chance to be born on Leap Day. There are just over 200,000 leapers in the United States and 5 million worldwide, she said.
Lest non-leapers dismiss leapers' complaints, leapers point out that employees are working for free today since paychecks are based on a 365-day year.
February 29 is not recognized by some computer services and software programs that power everything from banking to life insurance, Brouwer said.
"Leap year deniers claim February 29 is an invalid date," said Brouwer, who said he was told by Crown Life Insurance Co that March 1 had to be listed on his policy because its computer system balked at February 29.
Leap Day has tripped up Google, whose Blogger program will not allow existing users born on February 29 to update their profiles. A spokesman said the company plans to fix the glitch.
Leap years occur every four years, except those ending in double zeros - such as 1900 and 2100. There are exceptions, however, as years ending in double zeros that can be evenly divided by 400 - such as 1600 and 2000 - are in fact leap years.
Microsoft's Excel, the world's most popular spreadsheet, does not realize that 1900 was not a leap year and as a result myriad other companies' programs, in order to be compatible, have had to put the error in their code. Microsoft has no plans to correct the mistake as "fixing it now would cause greater impact to customers," a spokeswoman said.
Dawn and Brouwer have lobbied calendar companies to mark Leap Day as a notable day, like New Year, and prodded Facebook to clear the block on February 29 as a birthdate on user profiles.
Facebook complied, but the calendar effort has so far been largely unsuccessful, they said.
"We're not curing cancer or stopping world wars but it's still significant. It affects the whole world," Dawn said.
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