Chasing Daylight

Attention, People Who Decide These Things:

Can we please do away with this daylight-savings farce? If there's ever anything that's truly outlived its usefulness, it's Daylight Savings Time.

Oh, sure, there are some crybabies who will claim, "but we get an extra hour of daylight in the summer!" or "but our children will have to go to the bus stop in the dark!" Suck it up, I say!

First off, Daylight Savings does not magically add hours of sunlight to the day. There's no astronomical solar voodoo going on - that hour of summer sun at 900p is given up by (read: robbed from) the morning. And I have to say, it just irks me when people say we get "an extra hour of sun". No we don't - count 'em up, it's still the same.

Second, if that extra hour of evening daylight is so great in the summer, why can't we have it all year round? It's getting dark at 430p now, it seems.

Third, as we approach the winter solstice, kids will again be walking to the bus stop in the dark. Funny thing, that angle of the earth's axis.

Fourth, the chore of resetting clocks is ridiculous. It's a completely unnecessary complication. Particularly this year, when DST lasted an extra week. Thanks, programmers everywhere, for making electronics like my car smart enough to change time on its own. Too bad your program was written before the DST date adjustment. And there's always the clock in your house or on your wrist that you forget, and you come across it four weeks later, have a fleeting moment of panic that you're late, only to have Father Time shout "psych!" People all across the country wake up an hour late or early, depending on the season, which does not foster good will towards DST, trust me.

I grew up in Indiana, one of the last states to adopt DST (RIP 2006, whyWhyWHY?). We never changed our clocks, ever, so it was a quaintly foreign concept to me. Our TV programs would shift by an hour, and times were listed as "700p, 800p in Michigan" - or maybe 800, 700 in MI. I don't remember, and don't feel like doing the math right now. My point is that I never had to reset a clock until I moved to CA, at age 24. Fall back, spring ahead, indeed. What the heck does that mean to a DST neophyte? Do we win an hour of sleep or lose it? I'll tell you what I've lost - time thinking about how superfluous it all is. When you really think about it, time - as it's been standardized in recent centuries, thank you railroads - is a largely artificial human construct. And here we persist in making time even more arbitrary by shifting things an hour for half the year because we can't leave well enough alone.

Let's get rid of DST and just keep our clocks the way they are next fall.




Footnote: Speaking of Indiana/Michigan, the area is called Michiana - no lie. But that sounds completely natural to my ears. On the opposite end of the state is Kentuckiana, which never fails to elicit a snicker from me. Do other states do this? Is the Florida-Georgia border called "Florgia"? (let's hope not) Was there a proposal for Indiucky (which may only be marginally sillier than Kentuckiana)? Wyodaho? There's the ArkLaTex and DelMarVa, which sound a lot sexier than they look. I saw a street sign in Tampa recently - Floribraska Street. Really? People, I can guarantee you that Florida and Nebraska do not share a common border. Pick one or the other - you cannot have both in this case. I won't have it.

Addendum to Footnote: Dang - I hate when I write something and then I find out later that it's already been done. Seriously, I've had that bit about Florgia written for months.