The Joke Can End Now… Really – Daylight Savings Time
In case you forgot (which IÂ normally do), you need to change your clocks tonight. It’s that whole Spring ahead thing, though thanks to the overzealous efforts of Congress, the earlier date ensures that it does not much look like spring outside.
They released a study recently that shows that Daylight Savings Time (as suspected) has completely and utterly failed at saving anything. It turns out that Indiana’s long time stance that “the cows still get up at the same time regardless of the clock†was right except that it took them thinking they were wrong to prove it. Such a shame, as we are now stuck with a national albatross around our neck.
Daylight savings time started out as a joke. Ha-ha. That good old Ben Franklin sure knows how to make fun of people (though, making fun of the French is not too hard, even in the modern era) but he was just kidding right? Change the clocks so that we don’t use as much resources… Pshaw… That will never catch on.
But like life, stupidity will find a way. And now we change our clocks twice a year.
During WWII, it made sense. We needed lights out. We needed darkness to evade the possible enemy. We needed to feel like we were sacrificing something because the boys overseas were sacrificing so much. But the fact of the matter is, all we are sacrificing these days is an hour’s sleep and a late night TV infomercial.
Daylight Savings Time costs money, it costs lives and it is a pain in the ass. Write your local congressperson and tell them that this is one joke whose punch line is long past being funny.
We could always just ignore it and not change our clocks…..sure we will be late for appointments and miss our favorites shows but get some points for be recalcitrant.
I have to ask – how does it cost lives? Not saying you’re wrong, this is just something I’ve never heard of on the ‘it’s a bad thing’ side of DST.
Car accidents increase after the time changes due to the fact that people are operating outside of their internal clock and are somewhat more sleep deprived.
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/03/300.asp
Well, I for one, LOVE LOVE LOVE Daylight Saving Time and wish we observed it all year round.
Actually, it’s Daylight Saving Time– no “s” at the end of “Saving”.
I love DST despite the flaws. Especially after a miserable winter like the one we’ve just had up here in the Great White North (you digging out today, Hanna?). Feels like spring is ever-so-slightly closer, despite what the thermometer says.
I love daylight saving time too! It looks like Spring here in Cali-fournia and am enjoying the extra daylight. It was a little hard to get up at the usual 7 am though, it was dark still.
When I lived in Arizona, they didn’t do DST. The sun was shining 350 days a year anyway, so why bother getting excited over one more hour a day? Here in grey, gloomy damp WA, it just means that at 6 AM I am once again getting up in the dark. :=(
The Cheap Vegetable Gardener – Viva the revoltion!
Kylee, ilex, Cathy – It’s not the time itself that is a problem for me. I would actually just rather keep this Spring schedual. I just hate this changing the clocks thing!
Janet – Bingo!
Just wanted to say I agree. I hate DST. Especially now that I live in Texas. It doesn’t start getting light until almost 8! I also have little ones that I need to get in bed early. It’s very hard to do that when it’s still bright and sunny out in the middle of summer.
I need to move to Arizona with my sister!
I love Daylight Saving Time, but I grew up with it in California. I’m not a morning person, so it doesn’t matter to me that it’s dark later in the morning. But I love that the sun doesn’t set until later in the day–it really elevates my mood.
Get rid of the other time. I LOVE DST. I have horrible seasonal depression that starts right after the clocks switch from DST back to regular time. I hate how soon the sun sets and I spend the rest of winter depressed. I celebrate the day DST because my mood visibly shifts immediately.
You are absolutely right on !
Benjamin Franklin started it as a joke and it has stuck.
This stupid Puritan $hit thrust on us all. From wikipedia… ‘Robertson Davies, however, detected “the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves”,’
DST doesn’t save $hit, per National Bureau of Standards studies. On the contrary, it causes disruption in our sleep cycles.
President Obama, are you listening ? Please stip DST for good !
DST should be abolished and the sooner the better!
We are already sleep deprived and DST makes it only
worse.www.standardtime.com