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Quotes of the Day: Daylight Savings Crime
Recently, Ricochet’s Arizona Patriot wrote a post highly critical of Winston Churchill. As an admirer of Churchill, especially his warning the world about the dangers of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, I had real problems with his condemnation of that great man. That is, until I came across the following quote from the Prime Minister: “An extra yawn one morning in the springtime, an extra snooze one night in the autumn is all that we ask in return for dazzling gifts. We borrow an hour one night in April; we pay it back with golden interest five months later.” Sure, he might have saved Western Civilization, but you may wonder if it was worth it as you groggily reset all your clocks.
Another leader during WWII had a more sensible attitude. President Harry S. Truman called Daylight Saving Time “a monstrosity in timekeeping.”
The most sensible defense of DST came from that great thinker, Victor Borge, “I don’t mind going back to daylight saving time. With inflation, the hour will be the only thing I’ve saved all year.” Sadly, a joke that again fits our times.
On the other hand, another great thinker, Dave Barry, said, “You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.”
Really the best quote about Daylight Saving Time comes from our wisest quote maker, Anonymous, “Daylight saving time: Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.”
I really did believe last year that Congress would get rid of DST. But I guess that would involve their getting something right.
Published in Humor
Yesterday evening we changed the 16 various clocks in the house; this morning I changed the 10 clocks in our other two buildings and on the cars and motorcycles. It’s always interesting to see what we forget. The dogs and chickens don’t care what the clocks say.
Grrrr.
I take it you don’t like DST.
Just be glad the adjustment isn’t 37 minutes or some such. I’m sure some expert can argue that an hour isn’t the correct amount, but 37 minutes is.
I’m always amazed at the continual obsession with this change that’s been in effect for 57 years now.
All my clocks except three re-set themselves, and I’m not particularly groggy when I do those three, because I set them before we go to bed.
Someone on here (Drew?) makes the case every time it comes up that if not for the change, folks in many the northern states wouldn’t see the sunrise in mid-winter until 9:30-10:00 AM.
We cannot be friends.
I love the twice-a-year time changes.
Yep. And in the summer, before 4:00 am, which is a waste of good daylight hours. And also means the Robins start screaming outside my window beginning at 3:00 am.
Leave my clock-switching alone. In a day or two you’ll be fine and you won’t remember what the fuss was.
Besides, it’s good for you:
I remember the year that we stayed on DST. In January the school adjusted starting time so that most of my classmates weren’t driving to school in the dark. Then in the Spring we adjusted ahead to match DST. I take the annual rise in the level of this discussion to be a sign that we don’t have enough kids in this country anymore.
I like afternoon/evening light, and early morning light is useless to me, so DST weekend is my happy weekend.
Back when I lived in New England, going back to standard time was brutal, because by December the sun was setting just after 4:30 PM. (In northern/eastern Maine, winter sunsets are before 4 PM.) So if you’re going to argue that winter DST causes morning commute accidents, remember that the darkness just switches from morning to afternoon commuting. In the northern states, winter days are very short.
If you want no clock changes, give me DST year round. Start school later if you want.
I lived in Indiana for a year back when they stayed on standard time all year. Summer sunrise was so early you needed blackout curtains in the bedroom to get up at a reasonable time of day.
Regardless (or irregardless as the case may be) of the friends you’ve lost here because of this untimely issue, at least you and I can find common ground on one thing.
Not least because, this morning, for the first time in months, I was gifted with four lovely fresh eggs, courtesy of my four old-lady hens who should be so far past their “prime” window that they’re just a charity project by now.
I guess they know that the light is coming, too.
Never give up.
DST year round.
So let it be written.
So let it be done.
Put everyone on Zulu time. Stuff can open and close whenever people decide. No confusion ever, again.
That’s b/c school starts too early, school should start later anyway so kids can get enough sleep. Let’s not use one stupid policy to justify another stupid policy.
You want to live east of your job so you won’t be blinded by the sun on the way to work and/or on the trip home.
Kids “should” be up by 6:00 am.
The Wikipedia entry on Daylight Savings Time is pretty extensive.
I think it makes much more sense to get rid of DST, allow people to appreciate the natural rhythms of the planet, and for businesses to post “winter hours” and “summer hours”.
The world is smaller now, and it’s really difficult to schedule international meetings around this time of year when every state, or country, is changing their clocks in different ways on different schedules.
Get rid of? They wanted to make it permanent!
Indeed, and it’s one reason I was very happy for Congressional inaction. Then again, I prefer them inactive, but this was worse than usual as they seemed to think they had some kind of mandate. Spring mornings should be lovely and bright and not dark and gloomy; noon should be at or close to when the sun is overhead; and evening doesn’t have to run to 10 pm in the summer. That last is hell on getting kids to maintain a decent bedtime. The year that DST was maintained all year resulted in kids walking to school in the dark and, IIRC, a few fatalities. If anything, it should be standard time all year. The flipping back and forth have been shown to disrupt sleep for several weeks in each direction. And nothing is being saved: same amount of daylight regardless of the clock. Who are they fooling???
The fatal nature of DST for school children in winter is, as far as I can determine, an urban legend.
I lived under all-year Standard Time for a year in Indiana. We had to improvise blackout curtains for our bedroom windows so we could sleep until the alarm went off. Sunrise was absurdly early.
I don’t believe reports of weeks of disrupted sleep. A couple days maybe. We’re just talking an hour here. It’s not like international jet-lag.
Yes. When I read of people posting that their lives are massively disrupted by DST, I wonder: did they ever travel?
That would be far more complex and annoying than just changing the clock.
Yes, those chores don’t do themselves.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Every State should operate by Its’ Own sundial.
It was a rough morning.
I was up at 5 (ok 5:20-ish) to be at work at 7…
Just a suggestion: go to bed earlier.
Yup… I was in bed before 11.
11 Daylight time? That would have been a decent night’s sleep for me.
If you waited until 11 Standard time to go to sleep, you probably would feel tired. For me there would be a big difference between 6 1/4 and 5 1/4 hours sleep.
Old fashioned time. Normally I get about 6 hours sleep on a work night or day… Its shift work so it changes every 2 weeks…
Better yet, every county should.
The US Tried Permanent Daylight Saving Time in the ’70s. People Hated It
For the whole article, go here. One paragraph:
“And yet the early-morning darkness quickly proved dangerous for children: A 6-year-old Alexandria girl was struck by a car on her way to Polk Elementary School on January 7; the accident broke her leg. Two Prince George’s County students were hurt in February. In the weeks after the change, eight Florida kids were killed in traffic accidents. Florida’s governor, Reubin Askew, asked for Congress to repeal the measure. “It’s time to recognize that we may well have made a mistake,” US Senator Dick Clark of Iowa said during a speech in Congress on January 28, 1974. In the Washington area, some schools delayed their start times until the sun caught up with the clock.”
The worst thing about Daylight Savings Time is that the extra hour of daylight burns the grass.
The next paragraph in that article:
Each individual death is of course a personal tragedy, but +2 is not evidence that the cause and effect hypothesis is valid.