It Is Time To Change Time Change
November 11, 2009
Last week, a local DJ (Larry Larson on WMLB, The Voice of the Arts, 1690 AM) solicited comments from listeners about the change from daylight to standard time. Often I had wanted to chime in on this subject, and this gave me the opportunity. Therefore, I wrote the following, which he read on the air:
Your comments about the disorientation attendant upon the change from daylight to standard time (which apply to the reverse too) are apt and accurate. It is like jet lag, but with the added discomfort that it occurs within a milieu to which we look for comfort and stability, namely our own home and its immediate environs. After looking at the time in the ‘adjustment phase’, the number of times that one says to oneself (or to others), “It is actually…”, are too numerous to count.
However, the solution is not to retain standard time all the time. Instead, we should remain on what is now called daylight savings time–all these measurements are conventional and arbitrary–all the time. The desirability of the ‘extra’ daylight in the evening outweighs all other considerations.
So, our mantra should be “Daylight Savings Time All the Time!” Who wants to be standard, anyway? And let us give our time a new name, perhaps “Perceived Illumination Extension System (PIES).” I, for one, will take a piece of those pies.
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