Dear Otus,
Once again this Sunday, America will be subjected to "spring forward" and setting all our clocks an hour ahead. Why in the name of all that's holy do we still have to do this odious chore?
-- Gail Edward,
Cabot
Dear Gail,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and to join you in your outrage and consternation.
Readers of this column going back to 1980 well know that I stand at the forefront in opposing daylight saving time as an assault upon our tenuous diurnal sensibilities. What may have seemed like a good idea in wartime has long lost any advantage.
Let's review.
Standard time and time zones were first implemented in 1883 to allow trains to run on schedule. The concept of DST was attempted during World War I to "conserve resources for the war effort." It was a resounding failure and repealed in 1919 over President Woodrow Wilson's veto.
The measure was again undertaken in 1942 during World War II when the country went to year-round DST. In 1946, the nation was plunged into saving-time chaos until the federal Committee for Time Uniformity cobbled together a compromise. On April 13, 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill that created our current daylight saving time.
Now, the grim reality is that at 2 a.m. Sunday, the vast majority of Americans (except in Arizona and Hawaii) will rise from their slumber to manually reset their watches, clocks, microwave ovens and other items that display the time to read 3 a.m. It will result in, on average, a lost of 27 minutes of sleep before staggering back to bed.
Fortunately, a increasing number of devices that display the time (such as cellphones and atomic clocks) will change automatically. That does not lessen the burden on most of us.
Setting the clocks ahead before going to bed is not allowed by Public Law 89-387. It must begin precisely at 2 a.m. or not at all. If you miss setting your clocks ahead at the proper time, you must wait until Nov. 4 when we officially "fall back" an hour.
The insidious result of DST is that sunrise and sunset Sunday will be about an hour later than they were/are today. That comes will a plethora of psychological problems that translate into genuine health concerns.
To be more precise, sunrise in Little Rock this morning was at 6:26 a.m. Sunset will be at 6:12 p.m. for a total day length of 11:46:15. Sunday's length of day will be about two minutes longer -- 11:48:26, but the sunrise will be at 7:25 a.m., with sunset at 7:13 p.m.
Ponder that for a moment.
The vernal equinox will not take place in Little Rock until 11:15 a.m. March 20. That marks the moment when the Sun crosses the celestial equator from south to north and the length of night and day are almost equal.
The vernal equinox marks the first official day of spring and leads to the eventual June solstice, when astronomical summer begins.
All of that is a gradual process, giving our bodies time to adjust to the coming misery of the annual humidity pods. What will transpire tomorrow is another matter. No daylight is actually "saved." What happens is that an hour of daylight is taken from dawn and switched to dusk.
Medical experts speculate that something akin to mass jet lag will affect millions of Americans for up to two weeks. Monday morning commute accidents will increase 18 to 21 percent. It's a dangerous time.
Fortunately, there's a growing movement inspired by then-Gov. Mike Huckabee's famous "Stench Speech" of April 4, 1997. It was then that Huckabee stood before the imposing Christ of the Ozarks statue in Eureka Springs and banned daylight saving time in Arkansas.
Citing as his source Hezekiah 3:14, Huckabee declared,"Yea, verily, nowhere does it say, 'and God called forth the daylight saving time and the darkness was upon the face of the earth an extra hour in the morning; and in the evening the light shone upon the waters an hour more.'"
Huckabee then pronounced DST "a stench in the nostrils of God." A plaque was dedicated in January on the spot where Huckabee stood. Sadly, his executive order was subsequently successfully challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Until next time, Kalaka reminds you to fight the good fight and sign the online resistance at petition2congress.com.
Disclaimer
Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of
Z humorous fabrication X
appears every Saturday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Disclaimer: Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of 👉 humorous fabrication 👈 appears every Saturday.
HomeStyle on 03/10/2018