The Most (Un)wonderful Time of the Year

So we're coming up again on the annual aggravation called the Time Change, when Daylight Savings Time kicks in.  On March 13, we set our clocks forward one hour.  In November, we'll set them back again.

Every year at this time, there are articles circulating about the health issues that are affected by this time change--I saw one yesterday online from the American Medical Association.  By changing people's biorhythms, the body's systems are stressed.  Yet we still do it.

Farmers have hated it for years--because their animals do not change with the humans.  If you try to change the time schedule for milking your dairy cows, it is not going to go over well.  And no, you can't just explain it to them.  But we still do it.

The original reason for adopting DST was to save energy, by lowering the use of lighting.  In recent years, lighting for home use has gotten a lot more efficient.  Many of us are using LED light bulbs--to get the same amount of light as a 100 watt incandescent bulb only takes 12 watts for an LED.  So the energy savings are a small fraction of they once were.  But we still do it. 

DST used to start later in the spring, and end earlier in the fall.  During the energy crisis caused by the Arab Oil Embargo in the 1970s after the Israelis won the Six-Day War, the starting and ending dates were changed to the current ones.  That was 49 years ago, and now some Arab nations are making peace treaties with Israel.  But we still do it.

I can see a possibility that it may have more benefit in some areas of the country than others.  I live at the western edge of the Eastern Time Zone; maybe people on the east coast get more out of it than we do out here.  But I don't particularly like them imposing it on people who don't get as much out of it--that's selfishness.  But we still do it.

I read years ago that one of the early proponents of the idea of Daylight Savings Time was a British lord--he wanted more daylight in the evenings for golf.  So did he adjust his schedule to allow more time?  No, he pushed for making his whole country make the change he wanted.  That is as good a case of arrogance and selfishness as you are going to find.  But we still do it.

Personally, I think that if Trump, or DeSantis, or Cruz, or anybody else wants to win the presidency in a landslide in '24, they could make doing away with DST the number one plank in their platform and clinch the deal.  Maybe the political class likes it (I don't know why!) but ordinary people don't.