Self-Deception

From AP: Lawmakers from the House and Senate agreed Thursday to include a provision - part of a larger energy bill - that would start daylight-saving time three weeks earlier, the second Sunday in March, and end it a week later, the first Sunday of November

As it stands, there is a week in April and October each year that is terribly inconvenient for travelers because we are on daylight savings time, but Europe and most of the rest of the northern hemisphere is not. Now this adds a whole extra month. The travel industry, and every industry that has to coordinate across continents, is extremely upset, for good reason.

I'm annoyed for another reason. I don't like daylight savings time. I advocate changing work schedules in the summer for sure, but there is no reason to do so, but pretend we're not! To quote the movie Lawrence of Arabia, "A man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it." Changing our clocks but pretending that we haven't is a form of self-deception that, I believe, promotes dishonesty generally. There's a connection between lying about what time it is and the little signs at Costco that say they are checking your receipt "to ensure you are not overcharged and received all the items you paid for" rather than "to see if you are stealing." Or the little voice that says your phonecall to Comcast is being recorded "to ensure quality service" rather than "to see if our agents are making personal calls." Or the doublespeak we hear all the time, from "downsizing" (taking away people's livelihood) to every "convenience fee" charged by your bank. I grew up in Arizona where we did not participate in the daylight savings silliness, and it was fine. We had enough daylight, by the way. It would be a good beginning of a return of honesty to public life to abolish the daylight savings system and just say that starting around April 1 each year, we should all get to work and leave an hour earlier. It also would increase environmental awareness. Where people suffer under daylight savings time, they become estranged from nature. Time changes suddenly and the sun arrives or disappears by fiat. I remember the days gradually getting later, 2-3 minutes longer each day, from December through June. Then back again. There was a rhythm to life. The sun was always highest at noon. You could use a sundial. Those who labor under daylight savings time don't realize how it subtly, but decisively, disconnects them from living IN the world to living, well, around or in spite of it.

Then we could also choose to participate or not, instead of mandatorily being jetlagged in April, even if you like the cooler weather after the sun has gone down. Worse, in some parts of the country, daylight savings is a positive hazard. Traffic studies show that driving in twilight is the most dangerous time. In many places, DST puts the rush hour at twilight for almost twice as long. In the north, it means driving in the dark or twilight in the morning towards the end and beginning of the period, when that would never happen.

It's also just getting loony. Under the new plan, "standard" time will exist for just over 4 months, and "daylight" time for nearly 8. Shall we just start saying "short winter time" instead? Maybe it's time just permanently advance our clocks by an hour. The Russians do that. But then advance yet another hour for 6 months of the year. That's the next step.

Next rant: the metric system and other evils...