USA TODAY trots out the "quaint Hoosiers" attitude we all know and love so much:
Indiana joined the rest of the nation in turning back the hands of time this morning, but the debate continues to rage in the state over just what time it should be, WTHR-TV reports.
The switch to Standard Time from Daylight Savings Time comes with barely a murmer across the USA, but in Indiana it's time for the annual argument over the state's switch from Central time to Eastern Time in 2006.
When's the last time you've actually seen a debate rage. Makes it sound like civil war time, with brother against brother and the whole state up in arms. Yeah, those backward Hoosiers. They're just so set in their ways. Can't stand change.
Crap. There are a few arguments, maybe a few more this time of year, and a couple of interest groups that try to stir things up. But, guess what? It's been five years, and most of us have moved on. Actually, once you've seen the daylight seem to last a litte longer for awhile then get yanked back to normal for a while, it's really no big thing.
Comments
I've gotten to the point where what I would most like to see (above elimination of DST or moving to Central Time) would be to shorten the duration of DST. I'd suggest going from equinox to equinox. (Roughly 3/21 - 9/21).
Now that my kids are a little older, having 9:30 p.m. daylight in the middle of the summer isn't as annoying as it once was. But, for me, the late sunrises in late September and October really make me sluggish in the mornings. I know that tastes vary, but that has much more of an impact on me than earlier sunsets this time of year.
I can get used to anything, so long as it's a gradual adjustment. Its the sudden one hour shifts that really throw me off.
Perhaps the government could simply mandate that all watchmakers design their instruments to run slow for half the year and fast the other half. About twenty seconds per day should do the trick, and we'd never even realize we'd lost/gained an hour.
Time is money. They take an hour away from us every spring, return it every fall, without compensation.
Since 6% for 60 days is 1%. With six months of DST every year, that's 3% of a hour every year. Fort Wayne was on year-around DST for years. It was about 1964, IIRC, when they started taking an hour of sleep away from us every spring, returning us that sleep in the fall, making us tired and cranky during the best half of the year every year.
That means we've had 1.5 hours apiece in foregone interest on our time. Think of it as a tax, and it's OK. We expect to pay taxes. It's patriotic to pay our fair share, and this certainly is a tax that falls equally on the just and the unjust. On the other hand, I've scoured the federal budget, and I can find NOTHING that accounts for how this time is spent. NOTHING!
Obviously, it's graft. Whether you're Tea Party or Occupy (or both), I call upon you to join me in calling the Congressional Budget Office on the carpet, demanding that they account for the spending of this time.
If government officials are contemplating their navels, or leaning on their shovels to keep the world from sliding sideways, fine and dandy, but I suspect they are using the time frivolously in waste, fraud, and finger-twiddling.
My objection to DST is simply that there is no good reason for it. Very few people tie their daily jobs or other activity to the actual position of the sun.
Study after study shows it doesn't save energy.
But it wastes my time and tests my patience resetting all those damn clocks twic a year. Since everything is electronic these days, it seem like everything a clock built in. All my kitchen appliances - including my cheap little coffeemaker - have built-in digital clocks.
And can anyone with a late-model car really remember how to reset the dashboard clock? Mine's built into the aftermarket radio/CD player and requires pushing three buttons simultaneously to "fall back." I feel like a one-armed paper-hanger with a parasitic infestation.
Leo:
MY God, the end timesmust be imminent, because I'm in AGREEMENT with littlejohn...
Yes, there is NO reason why we should HAVE to change back and forth with theime...
It does about as MUCH good as teats on a damn bull.
And since every clock is not an "atomic clock" they won't CHANGE THEMSELVES.