A Brief Comment by Doug Draper
Is it time to turn the clocks ahead one hour already? Damn!
They call it “daylight savings time,” and I don’t get it. If it means having to get used to getting up in the pitch black again to feed the cats at 7 o’clock in the morning – just as I was starting to enjoy the sun rising at that hour – then where does the daylight part come in?
I’ll be thinking about that when I get up in the dark this March 11 to feed the cats and do what we all have to do on that date – turn every damn clock in the house ahead one hour so we can begin an extra hour of light in the evening, when it is still technically winter and too early in the year to start the gardens or sit out under a tree reading a book..
I’m all for doing what we used to and waiting another three or four weeks to turn those clocks back when it’s warmer outside and there is more daylight to enjoy in the evening and the morning. What do you think?
Niagara At Large 
Ah, Doug. Many of us are confused by this. While I work with a community group for the WInter Solstice (much camaraderie there), this one flummoxes me. Well, we all know, do we not, that this is to conform with George W. Bush’s prefered dates? Lemmings, us. I guess….
G. B.
LikeLike
Well said Gail. Someone did a study recently and found that George W.’s “Texas” Daylight Saving actually saved Nothing.
Of course, in Texas, the average day is closer to 12 hours long, year-round, while in Niagara, it varies from 8 hours long in December, to 16 in June. And farther north at 61N, I’ve read a newspaper outdoors at midnight in the 3-hour-loonnnng sunset-rise….
Too bad we’re so dependent on the USA (our largest trading partner) and couldn’t be like Atikokan or Saskatchewan that just let the rest of the world go by, while they enjoy daylight as God created it … on Standard Time (ok, so Sir Sanford Fleming created Standard Time, but you get my drift about Doug, his cats and natural diurnal cycles).
PS. You’ve heard of the watch that shows the correct time twice a day? Well, I have one that does it twice a year – I left it on Daylight Time last fall, and it just got back into sync….
LikeLike
We are long past the good old days when daylight savings time served any useful purpose. As I recently read,,,if you cut a foot off one end of a blanket and sewed it onto the other end of the blanket,,,the blanket is still the same length.
In the reality of today, we still can’t avoid the accelerated hydro rates so why bother. There must be an easier way to remind us to change our smoke alarm batteries.
LikeLike
The 2007 change was intended to save 1% energy usage in the the United States. Studies vary as to whether any savings can be attributed to the earlier change. On a personal note I suffer from sleep apnea and other sleep irregularities. Even with the CPAP machine, I still wake up very early and usually in the dark, so that part doesn’t bother me. I know it will take me at least two weeks to make the physical adjustment, which usually entails daytime fatigue and grumpiness (more than usual).
LikeLike
Don’t ask me. I think I have jet lag. i’m going to take a nap.
LikeLike
The whole “Daylight Savings Time” idea should have been scrapped — but instead George W Bush(league) extended it! George only did things that would help his buddies in the oil industry (or arms industry).
Nuff said!
LikeLike
I do not think that the oil or arms industry care what time it is when they make money. I think that Will MacKenzie would find something wrong with our wonderful weather and try to affix blame for it on George Bush.
LikeLike
Never mind changing twelve to fifteen battery operated clocks and watches and when I got to my office, I even tried to change the time on my security alarm and it took forty minutes before I learned the thing was automatically set ahead … like, duh! I always wondered why we go to this trouble.
LikeLike
Almost as crazy as women changing their Family names upon marriage, eh?!
LikeLike