Hey Kids, What Time Is It?

“…asks Buffalo Bob, turning over in his grave (if you know who that is, you know how much time has passed!). Not nearly as simple a question as it sounds.

We have just gone through the semi-annual ritual of adjusting our clocks between Standard Time and Daylight Savings, with the usual casualties today. Church congregations were likely smaller, as at least some of the faithful weren’t so, in failing to set clocks ahead for DST, thereby missing the service, or at least the sermon. Darn.

The fist fights over the time changes are usually more intense in the spring, since being early (the consequences of failing to “fall back”) are usually less severe than being late, from failing to Spring Forward. Today, the newspaper in the city where I once worked apparently posted the wrong clock graphic and had to issue a correction, sheepishly admitting that it should have asked readers if they had remembered to push their clocks forward, presumably instead of the other way. Whoops.

Even the mnemonic devices are suspect, since Congress fussed with the start and finish of Daylight Saving, and now we actually Spring Forward before spring itself has sprung. Many of my electronic devices had time change codes built in before the extensions were approved by our esteemed representatives. And then there are Arizona and Hawaii, that don’t recognize DST. Sounds like a hot mess to me.

Trusting legislatures with standard-setting is a dicey proposition anyway. There is, of course, the famous story of how the Indiana legislature almost established the value of “pi” as 3.2, rather than the 3.1417… we all grew up with. A few irate math professors were able to talk them out of it at the last minute back in 1897. So what else is new? You would think most human female functions are relatively standard, but a surprising number of male legislators haven’t read the manual.

Look, I love DST, since as a child I was able to go outside and play for a couple of hours after dinner, then see the fireflies arrive before I went to bed.

But enough sentimental nonsense, right? There are many things in life that shouldn’t be standardized, but there are many things that should. Like time, which happens to all of us. If the legislatures want something to do, how about requiring us to use a 24-hour clock and Greenwich Mean Time for official purposes. Of course, if you were calling someone in a distant place, you’d have to know what time of day sun-wise it was so as not to wake them up (but don’t we sort of have to do that anyway?).

OK, well that’s my opinion, and I’m stickin’ to it. And my opinions, as my dear readers in this space know, are worth their weight in bitcoin.