Turn Back the Clocks? America Already in Retrograde

If there is one singularly ridiculous, man-made attempt to control the environment of America, it is the practice of turning back clocks to create a Daylight "Savings" Time. The Republican-dominated 109th Congress mandated in 2005 as part of an Energy Policy Act, that Daylight Savings Time would be further extended in 2007 by an extra three weeks in Spring and one in Fall.

During the tenure of the 109th, Iraq was spiraling out of control, the Bush administration was stomping all over the Constitution and Bill of Rights, mortgage brokers were over-loaning money to mortgagees, middle-class wages were fleeing overseas, New Orleans conjoined the Gulf of Mexico, polar icecaps continued to melt, huge sums of tax money disappeared into the Middle East faster than American citizens disappeared into Gitmo, the rich got richer--the poor even poorer, and more Americans than ever found themselves with no way to pay for health care. It seems criminal that the 109th wasn't making better use of its time.

That Americans simply complied then and now without question only underscores the Lemming-like capacity Americans have for questioning nothing. Content to stumble over their own befuddled bio-rhythms for four additional weeks, no one ever bothered to ask, How does one go about saving daylight?

Is there a First National Bank of Daylight of which we are unaware where one can make deposits of unused daylight for later withdrawal? Say, when Aunts Mary and Martha for once aren't fighting like cats at the family reunion and, amazingly, no one's in a hurry to flee the scene?

Is it possible to turn back the clock on the sun? Logic would dictate that dependent upon the season it is and where one lives in North America, there is a finite amount of daylight in any 24-hour period. Humans can manipulate clocks until the cows come home, yet there is still only so much light to be had. Even the cows know that.

Is energy really saved by DST? With or without it, lights will be on in homes and public buildings morning and night. Period. Americans love their electricity. In the summer, isn't one spending more on air-conditioning on the hottest part of the day, which now has been artificially shifted to last seemingly forever?

Highlighting the ridiculousness of this time-manipulation endeavor is the fact that not everyone in America even observes this useless ritual. It is not observed in Hawaii, Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, or by most of Arizona, with the exception of the Navajo Indian Reservation. Indiana, which used to be split over the practice, has now climbed wholeheartedly onto the DST bandwagon. Lemmings.

But, even if daylight could be saved in a box and the amount of savings quantifiably provable, what are we saving it for? The better to see one's diminishing standard of living?

If America is going to play with time like children dilly in a sandbox, then let's move the clocks back to 1973 and do something about our dependence on foreign oil. Let's forsee the fiasco that is Bush II and prevent this presidency from happening in the first place. Or, let's move the clocks ahead to 2008 right now so that the fiasco that is Bush II is finally and mercifully over.

If Americans wish to experience a traditional American future, perhaps it's time to stop behaving like Lemmings and start demanding that America's representatives quit burning the daylight they tell us to save by enacting silly laws that thumb a collective nose at nature.

A better use of dark and light is to start expecting Congress to make some intelligent decisions that work within the framework of nature for the betterment of the whole.

Twice a year manipulating clock hands gives Americans something to talk about and something to do. However, artificially playing with time is a simplistic and ineffectual substitute for truly using it to engage in real American progress.