Well we made it into Daylight Saving Time (saving is singular, not plural) again. Personally, I\u2019m happy about it. I like the longer daylight hours in the evening. Since I usually don\u2019t have to urgently be anywhere early in the morning, the later sunrise doesn\u2019t bother me. DST is just another indication of Spring to me. Of course a lot of people don\u2019t like the practice of messing with time and there is more and more people speaking out against it. They don\u2019t like being robbed of that hour of sleep and, probably legitimately, make the argument that the supposed \u201creasons\u201d for it just don\u2019t hold water. Daylight Saving Time started (at least on a large scale) in Germany during World War I. The reason was to reduce demand for lighting and save coal for the war effort. During World War II, the United States observed DST year-round for pretty much the same reason.<\/p>\n
The whole idea that you gain or lose an hour actually doesn\u2019t happen \u2014 only the government believes that you can cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket. I don\u2019t think a lot of people have ever grasped exactly what we were doing or why we were doing it. Benjamin Franklin supposedly proposed DST as a means to save the number of candles burned, and even today, most people say we observe it as an energy savings initiative. However a number of studies dispute the energy savings. Last evening on the news, it was reported that heart attacks surge by 10 percent on the Monday and Tuesday after moving the clocks ahead an hour each spring.
\nSome people believe DST was adopted for farmers, giving them more daylight to work in the fields. The fact is that farmers were the only organized group to lobby against daylight saving in the history of the United States. Many\/most farmers still don\u2019t like DST, especially dairy farmers that find that cows\u2019 natural milking schedules don\u2019t adapt easily to a sudden shift.<\/p>\n
Good or bad, for or against, DST generates some interesting stories every year.
\nTo keep to their published timetables, trains cannot leave a station before the scheduled time. So, when the clocks fall back one hour in November, all Amtrak trains in the U.S. that are running on time stop at 2:00 am and wait one hour before resuming their journey. Overnight passengers are often surprised to find their train at a dead stop and their travel time an hour longer than expected. In the spring, it\u2019s different \u2014 at the DST change, trains are instantaneously an hour behind schedule at 2:00 am, but they just keep going and do their best to make up the time.
\nMy favorite DST story occurred in 1999. The West Bank was on daylight Saving Time while Israel had just switched back to standard time. West Bank terrorists prepared time bombs and smuggled them to their Israeli counterparts, who misunderstood the time on the bombs. As the bombs were being planted, they exploded \u2014 one hour too early \u2014 killing three terrorists instead of the intended victims, two busloads of people.<\/p>\n
My theory when I was a member of the work force was to not futz around with Daylight Saving Time, just shorten the workday so I didn\u2019t have to get up while it was still dark.
\nSo the controversy will continue, DST or no DST. I still like it\u2026. it lets poor people experience jet lag.
\n\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n
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Well we made it into Daylight Saving Time (saving is singular, not plural) again. Personally, I\u2019m happy about it. I like the longer daylight hours in the evening. Since I usually don\u2019t have to urgently be anywhere early in the … Continue reading