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.
https://www.timeanddate.com/time/dst/history.html
While Germany and Austria were the first countries to use DST in 1916, it is a little-known fact that a few hundred Canadians beat the German Empire by 8 years. On July 1, 1908, the residents of Port Arthur, Ontario, today’s Thunder Bay, turned their clocks forward by 1 hour to start the world’s first DST period.
So, it was a WAR plan by Germany - that makes sense - confuse your enemy.
What doesn’t make sense is why the US and other nations did it. Changing the clock does not change sunrise & sunset.
Dumb, dumb dumb!!!!!
I have one:
Instead of going back and forth twice a year, move clocks ahead one-half hour and leave them there year round!
I hate daylight savings time!
Why don't we run the months ahead by one so Xmas will come earlier??? [/sarc]
Seriously, the problem you have is that altho you have plenty of advance warning, it’s hard to get to sleep earlier than your internal clock is set for. Buy yourself some 1 mg. Melatonin tablets, and take one of them an hour before your normal bedtime and go to bed. It’s not a drastic measure, melatonin is made by your body. My doc recommended it to me after asking how well I slept. Which wasn’t all that well before I started taking melatonin routinely.
New Mexico, which is a screwed up state to begin with, has a problem with DST. With standard time, there is a time zone change with Texas. During DST, there is a time zone change with both Texas AND Arizona! So if you’re driving from Amarillo to say Flagstaff on I-40, you gain two hours going and lose two coming back. I don’t know what to call that - highway lag??
I’ve tried Melatonin more than once. Zero effect. It doesn’t calm my body or brain down. Wish it did. Tried many other things as well. I’ve always ha a sleep disorder. Walk in my sleep often since I was a little kid.
Yea, old, young Ben, liked the ladies.
The crops will get a certain amount of light(per any given day) regardless of how humans set their clocks. Did you perhaps misquote what the farmers were saying? Or were you trying to be funny? Let say on any day...let’s say June 1st; no matter if you had dst or not, the amount of light is the same for the crops. The crops don’t care how we set our clocks....but you were just being funny, right?
That joke is fifty years old. Surprised you never heard it before. Your condescending explanation is quite unnecessary.
Daylight “standard” time, is, by definition, the standard. Just leave the clocks as they are right now.
And those of us in Texas (millions upon millions, apparently!) we don’t want to be outside more - it’s freakin’ hot, humid and the mosquitoes will eat you alive!
How about if it is so bad/good for business, farmers, chickens and space aliens; then perhaps THOSE entities can tell their workers when to come in to work and just leave ME alone with my sundial!
Tell your employer!!!
Why do we never hear night shift workers speak up about DST?
Try living in Tuba City, AZ!!
Nope; after...
Set your clock earlier next time!!
Yeah, that’s what I hear, but that seems like another good reason to have more pre-work daylight. Isn’t it a lot less hot, humid and full of mosquitoes then?
Just be glad that the whole world uses the Gregorian calender!
Oh...
Wait...
“How about going an hour earlier to bed?”
... and staying out of the pub!!
I love DST, would prefer it year round. HATE when it’s dark at 5pm. This year I beat those Dark Too Early Blues by leaving my Christmas tree up, fully lighted around the clock, until 1/25.
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