A Clockwork Purple

You know an idea in Congress is a bad one if everyone on both sides of the aisle supports it.  Such is the case with making Daylight Savings Time permanent.

Actually, most senators voted for this rule change because U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) sponsored it in a routine series of procedural votes and the Senate was eager to get them over with.  Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) wanted to object to it, but he thought it was more important to get it out of the way to spend more time on addressing the Ukraine crisis. 

The Senate is actually celebrating this vote as a major accomplishment, but it's a major accomplishment in the sense that airline deregulation was a major accomplishment - another bad bipartisan idea, which, in that case, led to cramped coach seating and general passenger discomfort.   Permanent Daylight Savings Time would make sunrise occur much later in the morning during winter - in late December and early January, the sun wouldn't come up in the New York City area until after eight o'clock - and it would affect our bodies' natural physical an mental rhythms which correspond to the sun.  We can tell ourselves that it's one hour later than it actually is all year round, but our bodies would know better and act accordingly.  We'd feel more tired and more depressed as a result.  And teenagers - who get the least sleep and are in a developmental state, would be the most affected, having to adjust their body cycles - called "circadian rhythms" - to an official time one hour off.  

Is that all worth it to have the sun set at 5:30 on Christmas Eve?

The reason Rubio supports it is because Florida is the southernmost state in the continental U.S. and already has more daylight hours than New York, New Jersey or Connecticut even in standard time.  This law would apparently be uniform nationwide, because noted turncoat Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who was ecstatic about the bill's passage, represents Arizona, a state that doesn't even observe Daylight Savings Time presently.  But its geographic location is similar to Florida's, which means it would certainly benefit from this bill.  (Those of us who have laptops with antiquated systems that wouldn't automatically adapt to permanent Daylight Savings Time? Not so much!)

Look, I had no problem with the start of Daylight Savings Time moved to the first weekend in April back in 1986, because it was reasonable to start it a few weeks earlier to reduce traffic accidents, but when Daylight Savings Time was expanded to between the second weekend of March and the first weekend of November, I found that to be a complete act of stupidity, because it put the start of Daylight Savings Time in astronomical winter, and snowstorms can happen between the second weekend of March and March 31.  And they have - one hitting New Jersey less than a week after the first time Daylight Savings Time started in March, in 2007.  "Wow," I thought, "an extra hour of daylight to shovel snow!"

Oh yeah, this bill is called the "Sunshine Protection Act."  Maybe Congress should consider protecting children, who would have to walk to school in the dark in wintertime if this "Sunshine Protection Act" passed and possibly get hit by cars.  Not to mention crossing guards having to begin their morning shifts in total darkness.

My area had strong to severe thunderstorms blow through yesterday, something that isn't supposed to happen in mid-to-late March. If Congress tried to stop messing with our clocks and focused more attention on climate change, or even funding to fight COVID, we'd all be better off.

Happy spring.