Friday, 3/10

I don't like the bill. I hope it doesn't pass if it ever comes up for a vote.

As we're coming up on another temporaly-challenged weekend (i.e. a weekend where we have to change the clocks forward an hour) the bill in the Michigan House to have the state stop observing Daylight Savings Time comes to mind. Now, I don't claim to be an expert on time and time changes, and I know that there are some people who so dislike any law that they want them all repealed, but I have to wonder why anyone would introduce a bill that would make Michigan an oddball state.

Maybe because we're now unique enough as it is?

Considering Michigan's already stretched across two times zones as it is, does it make sense that we'd keep our clocks the same while the rest of the country switch theirs? Does that mean that those of us who live in the eastern U.P. would be in the Eastern time zone part of the year and the Central time zone the rest? And does that mean that the four counties that border Wisconsin would stay in the Central time zone part of the year, and then revert to, what, the Mountain time zone the rest of the year?

You gotta wonder.

While that would seem to be creating a problem that doesn't currently exist, here's my real objection to the whole bill. Right now, with Daylight Savings Time, the sky starts to get light during the summer just after 5 am, and stays light until 1030 or 11 pm. That's kind of cool. But if we didn't switch our clocks, the skies would start to get light right after 4 in the fricking morning, with sunrise on the shortest day of the year at an unnatural 4:57 am.

And there are people who say that Daylight Savings Time screws up their body clocks now? Can you imagine if we didn't have it?

Now, I realize that Marquette and Houghton Counties, on the border between the Eastern and Central time zones and as far north as we are, are unique cases. I realize the rest of the state is different, and wouldn't be affected as much by a scraping of Daylight Savings Time as the rest of Michigan. But shouldn't we get a say in the matter? After all, we'd be among the people most affected by the change. Not only would the sun start rising while vampires are still out working, but we'd also lose those glorious evenings when the sun never seems to set and we can be out enjoying those few fleeting weeks of summer.

And that would be a bummer.

That's my opinion on the matter. Yours may be different, and that's fine. But seeing as how we actually do have to change our clocks this weekend, I just thought I'd bring it up.

Speaking of which, don't forget to change yours before you to go bed Saturday night. Otherwise, when you come back to read this next one of these Monday morning you'll be out of sync with the rest of us, and we all know how painful that can be, right?

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)