You’ll have to pardon my language, but who had the rabbit-ass idea to extend Daylight Savings Time by four weeks? I see in our daily newspaper that Congress had voted to extend the “summer,” starting DST the second Sunday in March, and ending it the first Sunday in November, to go into effect March, 2007. In my opinion, they should be canceling the whole thing, not extending it. Perhaps it’s because I live in the south, but in the hot months, I’d just as soon that sun went down a tad earlier.
Conserving energy is what they’re saying is the reason. I’ve never been able to figure out how that works. When it’s hot we have our ACs tooling away 24 hours around the clock, light or dark, right?
Additional “benefits” touted in the newspaper article go like this:
No. 1, “Making it safer to drive home from work.” Say what? Are there going to be fewer drivers on the road?
No. 2, “Reducing the number of muggings.” Let’s see, by October, darkness is settling in when I leave work, no matter what the timepieces say. And what about getting to work in the additional dark mornings? Do muggers sleep in?
No. 3, “Boosting the economy by allowing more people to shop in the evenings and go out to dinner.” Now come on. Are we actually beating it home after work instead of doing the above activities because of the time?
No. 4, “Allowing gardeners and sports enthusiasts to stay out longer.” This sounds like it actually has some merit, but think about late October. Dark is dark, whether it’s 6:00 or 7:00 p.m.
No. 5, “Giving kids an extra hour of trick-or-treating on Halloween night.” Like we really need that. And do they indeed stop going door to door when it gets dark? I hadn’t noticed that.
And my absolute favorite is No. 6: “Getting more voters to the polls on Election Day.” Really? How about having a real choice of who to vote for, and some real hope that your vote will count. THAT will get voters to the polls.
The article DID point out the reality that changing the clocks means more daylight in the evenings, but more dark mornings. This causes children waiting for school buses or walking to school to be doing so in even more dark than usual, especially in March and late October.
An added comment in the article mentioned dairy farmers, who feared it could disorient their cows. I’m not sure why extending the DST hours would increase cow disorientation; do they keep tabs on what time the sun comes up and goes down? I guess farmers arriving earlier or later than usual could possibly cause cow disorientation, making a point for abandoning the whole daylight savings time thing altogether, if for nothing more than keeping those cows on an even keel. However, I have a feeling dairy farmers do the milking as usual, regardless of the time.
A truly respectable reason for doing away with DST relates to keeping the United States in synch with the rest of the world. For the United States to arbitrarily change their time for part of the year would seem to be a needless complication.
Well, it’s a done deal, with the government, as usual, doing whatever it darn well pleases, regardless of what we the people might want. To make the best of it, I suggest we have a talk with our cows (and pets as well, who take a dim view of kibbles and bits appearing late in their food bowls) to minimize disorientation in the animals. As to getting our own heads and bodies adjusted when the time gets jerked around, it would appear we’re on our own.