The semi-annual grumbling commenced Sunday with the arrival of Standard Time. It will surely emerge again on March 8 with the arrival of Daylight Savings Time.
The complaints are similar. If you work a 9-to-5 job, Standard Time means you have to turn your lights on in the car on the drive home and any designs of doing some yard work after you get home must be delayed until the weekend.
Conversely, Daylight Savings Time means rising before the sun and yawning your way through the morning work hours.
In both cases, the change in time is met with a chorus of boos and demands that we stop making these infernal “spring forward, fall back” changes.
Although Daylight Savings Time is mandated by federal law, individual states can opt out. Hawaii and Arizona stay on Standard Time the whole year. Over the years, some states have considered going to other way and observing Daylight Savings Time year-round, although none have managed to make it law.
This week an Alabama state legislator proposed a bill that will keep Daylight Savings Time year-round.
That means, if you live in, say, Vernon and work in Columbus, you will leave for your 9 a.m. job at 9:30 until March which sounds pretty cool until you realize that when you leave work at 5, you won’t get home until 6:30. Not cool!
Daylight Savings Time, first implemented in 1916, has come and gone over the years, but finally “stuck” in 1966. The idea behind the time changes is to provide more morning hours of sunlight in the winter and more evening sunlight in the summer.
It has been unpopular almost from the start. A recent Rasmussen poll shows that only a third of Americans like the bi-annual time changes.
In warmer climates, Daylight Savings Time is generally the more popular time (although, we still grumble some, of course). In northern states, where winters are far harsher, the preference is for Standard Time.
The only thing we all agree on generally is that whatever the time change, we definitely don’t like it.
It’s like politics that way. Which reminds us, be sure to get out to the polls tomorrow. They open at 7 a.m. … Standard Time, of course.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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