Ukraine is in flames, our democracy is under constant attack by its own citizens, gas prices continue to soar (even as oil has declined by over 30 percent in the last couple days), and the pandemic looks to be readying another variant that will arrive from Asia and Europe quite soon.
So what did the U.S. Senate do yesterday? Why, of course, it passed a bill moving the entire country to permanent daylight savings time by unanimous consent. There was no debate.
A problem we have as a nation is our eagerness to forget history. We can barely remember last week, but it's too bad few remember 1974, when then-President Nixon enacted a temporary policy that mandated universal daylight savings time and that landed with a thud. It didn't help that the practice went into effect in January, during the shortest daylight exposure possible. But at least the move was supposed to save energy.
It did not.
The experiment ended within a couple months when so many Americans realized their children were standing in total darkness awaiting school buses in frigid temperatures.
This time around, the choice was to simplify life for Americans. That darn changing of the clocks twice per year was simply too much for people. As Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley said, "All I know is, constantly, every year, my wife wants it to be permanent.”
Far be it for me to criticize that ancient mariner, but relying on your partner's griping about the issue doesn't seem worthy of even the most addled legislator.
Of course, the new plan would NOT make the sudden change in January, but rather in November of 2023 theoretically giving people time to adjust. This being the United States, I am skeptical that most citizens will make devote mental capacity to think much about it. We will simply blame the government each time some inconvenience arises.
Gas prices are like that, with polls showing that a huge percentage of Americans blame Biden for the swift rise per gallon. They don't want to get into how capitalism works and that oil companies, along with the global energy market, want to maximize profits. They are on THEIR OWN side, first and always. Heck, the Koch brothers, reportedly, have not divested their investments in Russia at this point and plan to continue their arrangements with a nation that is murdering innocents.
Screw the zeitgeist and "thoughts and prayers" for Ukrainians. But what did we really expect?
Now the permanent daylight savings bill goes to the House, and there is time to have SOME sort of discussion about the need for and the execution of the change.
In Colorado, we have a bill in committee mandating Standard time be made permanent. There are some solid arguments in favor of THAT approach, which should not surprise anyone.
Some of our challenge lies in our desire to control nature. How can we get water to places that are arid? How can we reduce annual flooding? How can we overcome various diseases and infestations so that our human needs are met?
Time is a human concept, but that doesn't mean it is unimportant or irrelevant. There really are only so many minutes of sunlight each day, though the number of minutes constantly changes. We can't control that.
I will be fine no matter the final decision about how we manipulate time. And, yes, we probably SHOULD choose one strategy for time and stick with it.
I would just like our leaders to engage in a robust debate, and here is one that would be nonpartisan.
It might become a habit.
No comments:
Post a Comment