Posted on 03/05/2018 11:01:22 AM PST by Kaslin
I'm already dreading it.
On Sunday, March 11, at 2 a.m., daylight saving time, the practice of moving our clocks forward one hour in the spring and backward one hour in the fall, will commence.
When I wake on March 11 at my regular time - which will depend on the pub I was drowning my DST sorrows at the night before - I will be short by one hour.
I will be in a stupor, for the most part, until November, when I must set my clocks back one hour - at which time I will officially resume my perpetual confusion about what the heck time it is.
Come Sunday, half the clocks in my house - those that have been off by an hour since November - will display the correct time.
The other half, which have displayed the correct time since November, will be wrong.
Thus, when I have business meetings or social engagements to attend, I'll be one hour late or one hour early, but hardly ever on time.
Daylight saving time was first implemented in Thunder Bay, Canada, in 1908. The goal was to squeeze an extra hour of daylight out of a typical day.
The United States adopted the concept in 1918, but, reports TimeandDate.com, without uniform rules across all states, it resulted in widespread chaos in commerce and transportation.
The Uniform Time Act of 1966 addressed that challenge by synchronizing the switch dates across the country.
In an effort to save energy following the 1973 oil embargo, Congress changed DST dates again - then changed them again in 1976.
From 1987 to 2006, the country observed yet another set of DST dates - which changed one more time in 2007, to our current March-and-November cycle.
Millions of Americans have been befuddled ever since.
I think a grand conspiracy is under way in which clear-headed "morning people" are attempting to use DST to swindle us "night-time people" and swipe our girlfriends while we are in a continuous state of fogginess.
I also think Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts are in collusion to fatten profits.
Starbucks coffee has always been ridiculously expensive, but et tu, Dunkin'? I got a Dunkin Donuts iced coffee recently that was just shy of Starbucks' exorbitant iced-coffee cost.
I suspect price-fixing. I suspect federal officials are being bribed to keep adjusting DST rules, so that we are forever groggy and grumpy, conditions that allow Big Coffee to fleece us.
Where is Special Counsel Robert Mueller when you need him?
In any event, an endless DST debate continues.
Proponents of DST say it gives us more daylight in spring and summer, which gets us out of the house and makes us happier.
Opponents say it makes spring and summer mornings darker, which makes us less productive at work most of the year. They also say it causes us to consume more energy.
I'm unable to participate in the conversation, however, because I haven't finished my first pot of coffee.
As I see it, if DST is going to keep us forever disoriented, why adjust our clocks forward and backward by only one hour?
Why not move them forward to 2030 so I can begin collecting Social Security - or backward to 1984, when I had a 29-inch waist and was still able to date really good-looking ladies?
Whatever the case, my mother is especially worried about my difficulty adjusting to DST changes. She jokes that I'll be late for my own funeral.
Or an hour early.
I never understood why Texas participates. In the long hot summer I certainly want the sun to go down before 9:00 PM!
Dang it! I knew it! Too slow... :-)
It’s a dumb twice-a-year exercise, but no one has proposed a workable substitute.
The time zones were created for convenience, not logic. Maine and Michigan artificially agree to be in the same time zone. The Sun moves more than one hour’s worth between the two. It’s dumb, but there is no workable alternative.
It is not about the amount of Daylight as it is when the Daylight occurs!!! DST gives the working person more time to be outside when they get home from work!
I wish President Trump would try to get this straightened out....and stop this stupidity.
PLUS ONE!!!
There's no endless debate, you get a few cranks every time the clocks changes and in a day or two at most everyone forgets all about it and goes on with their lives.
I’ve seen a few local businesses adjust their hours to reflect the change in “clock time.”
Yeah, “Spring Ahead” is a pain. Nobody really complains that much about “Fall Back,” tho . . .Basically, it’s one time zone of jet lag - East in springtime, West in fall. In principle anyone should be able to do it without pain, but it takes a bit of discipline to go to bed a bit earlier for a couple of nights over the “Spring Ahead" weekend. Be a good idea to use 1 mg of melatonin so you actually sleep during that time, tho . . .
Which reminds me that I should pick up a new bottle.
And in Maine, it gets dark at 4:30PM in the Wintertime. Then in Spring they move the clocks forward.
Stupid stupid stupid!
We should be on Atlantic Time.
“How about daylight savings all year round?”
How about not !@#$%^& with the *&^% clocks in the first place?
Noon approximates “sun directly overhead” (variations allowed for geography across time zones).
Leave it at that.
Shifting it permanently by an hour buys us ... nothing.
We’ll forever then have to remember “noon” is “solar zenith minus 1 hour” for no good reason.
Just let “noon” = “solar zenith”.
End DST now. It’s stupid.
Stupid amounts of money are wasted trying to change those clocks - especially systems that are time-based but are hard to change times on (embedded computers).
Would be a whole lot easier if we didn’t screw with the clocks in the first place.
“no one has proposed a workable substitute.”
Yes we have:
STOP IT ALREADY.
You have my vote. Give as much daylight as possible into the evening. The east coast especially the farthest eastern reaches are miserable on standard time. It is pitch black at 4:00 pm. Give me the farthest western part of a DST time zone.
But don’t switch back and forth.
Actually Maine is an outlier, we're further East than anyone else in that time-zone. We should be on Atlantic Time.
That would justify the 1:20.
Arizona doesn’t change - but all the Foxnews shows are different
times.
“How about daylight savings all year round?
DILLY! DILLY!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.