It never, ever ends. Hoosiers really, really don't like change, except when they're trying to undo a change they really, really hate:
A group that wants to move all of Indiana into the Central Time Zone is asking state legislators to reopen the time debate.
We may take different positions on the wisdom or folly of daylight-saving time. We can argue over the merits of this or that county being in the time zone its in -- 80 are now on Eastern time and 12 are on Central. But putting the entire state, which lies where two time zones collide, in the same zone is just too preposterous to even consider. So stop it already!
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I admit my sarcasm meter isn't as finely tuned as it used to be. But of course extreme conservatism and parody of extreme conservatism are difficult to distinguish. (Google "Poe's Law.")
So I'm going to assume you're kidding and that of course the entire state, which is aligned north-south, ought to be in the same time zone. Looking at a time-zone map, we clearly belong in the Central Time zone.
But this is Indiana, where women's suffrage is still contoversial.
The state is about 150 miles wide. The natural time zone between east and central, as measured from Greenwich as the arbitrary starting point and dividing the earth into 24 even time zones, falls somewhere near Mansfield, Ohio.
When you say "preposterous," to quote Inigo Montoya, "you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means."
When I say preposterous, I mean "completely contrary to nature, reason or common sense." What do you think I mean? You both insist on making time zones a simple matter of geography. But it has a lot to do with patterns of economic activity, which is why the federal government determines them. I wouldn't consign the folks in northwest Indiana, for example, to Eastern Time Zone hell and make them give up their connection to Chicago. But you'd be perfectly willing to make the Eastern counties that deal with Louisville and Cincinnati hostage to your unified vision.
Good lord, you weren't being sarcastic. You don't see the value of putting an entire state in the same time zone as its capital city?
Using loaded words like "hostage" doesn't really help.
Time zones were developed by the railroads for practical business reasons. Let's keep them for those reasons. Other people deal with being "hostage" to their time zones. Let's stop being the nation's laughingstock. Well, OK, that's not gonna happen.
What part of "the federal government sets the time zones" isn't sinking in? If you look at a time zone map ( http://www.worldtimezone.com/time-usa12.php ), you might notice that where time zones meet, such as Eastern and Central or Central and Mountain, there are lots of state with dual time zones. Why should Indiana, of all those states, be the laughingstock?
If you, sir, look at a map, you will notice that we are the only narrow, vertically aligned state with more than one time zone. We aren't Kentucky, which, as I assume you can see, is a wide, east-west state. Does that answer your question?