Dear editor:
Once again, we find ourselves subjected to the annoying calendar event that occurs twice each year. You can set your clocks by them, pun intended. These circumstances are concurrent with the last Sunday in November and the first Sunday in March.
I refer to the predictable whining and stale commentaries offered by so many in the media surrounding the change from standard time to daylight savings time as spring approaches and the reverse process in the fall.
Beginning a couple of days before either of the offending incidents and extending for a few days afterwards, as reliable as a Timex, the lead story of a morning or evening newscast is the imminent pandemonium about to befall the country as a result of advancing or turning back our clocks one hour.
Viewer/listener polls, interviews with scientists; opinions and personal anecdotes by anchors and weatherpersons are all crafted to tell us that we should be concerned about body clocks, academic disruption and waning performance in the workplace.
There is an entire research industry, probably paid for, at least in part, by taxpayers, which, twice a year, gets it’s seventeen minutes in the spotlight.
“Sleep experts” tell us the consequences of disrupting circadian rhythms. Elected lawmakers cite “studies” that, depending upon the bent of said person, support a permanent daylight savings time or a permanent standard time.
A philosophical question: if we have a daylight savings time, would the opposite be daylight squandering time?
The very terminology of daylight savings time, if one really examines it, is eerily Orwellian, e.g. old is new, green is red and, well, you get the point.
The term reminds me of the story of the wise village elder who listened patiently to an explanation of daylight savings time.
At the conclusion of the explanation, the sage said, “So… you cut off one end of a blanket and sew it to the other end to make it longer.”
Amidst ground coffee, juice, gasoline and bathroom tissue prices all 30% to 40% higher, millions of persons with unknown intent pouring across our country’s no-longer-acknowledged borders (yes, plural), increase in violent crime in all communities and daily occurrences of outright defiance of law enforcement, the changing of our clocks, nonetheless, remains the lead story twice each year.
The topic is an empty suit in itself. Go to bed, get your sleep, go to work, go to school. In the words of my wise late father-in-law, “This too shall pass.”
Sincerely,
Phil Van Horn
Cheyenne
