Clock change orgy of 1996-10-27

[Peter Hullah]

This isn't really the right forum for this but what the heck.

Chris Carrier wrote:
> 
> From:  Garrett Wollman > INTERNET:wollman at lcs.mit.edu had a:
> >Comment on the editorial comment: who cares when the sun rises?
> 
> Comment on the comment on the comment: Me, and anyone else who is sick and
> tired of getting up in the dark.  Generally more DST is favored when it's not
> being used; I remember polls in December 1973 in the US in which a 3:1
> majority was in favor of year-round DST.  Then on 1974-01-06 we actually did
> go on DST and the 3:1 majority in favor quickly became a 3:1 majority against.
> 
> [snip]
> 
> My own personal view is that I don't really care (most of the time) if sunset
> is 14:00 or 23:59, I just want it light when I have to get up to go to work!

Personally, I don't see why on earth it needs to be light when I go 
to work. I get up, spend my entire time in the house washing, eating 
etc. until I get into my car to go to work. (Actually, I now walk the 
dog for 10 minutes but that's irrelevant). When my son is older I shall 
take him to school. Once at work, I sit in an office. I don't care if 
the son doesn't rise before noon! (Any aspect of road safety - you're
tired in the morning so it's safer to drive if it's light - is offset
by driving home tired, in the dark, at the moment.)

On the other hand at night, in winter, when I get home it's dark. I
can't
rake up the leaves in the yard, I can't see to get logs for the fire,
I can't prune the bushes, fix the guttering or do any of the things I
now
have to cram into my weekend when the fact that the sun rose at 7am and
I wasted the first two hours of it getting my son up, fed and changed
pisses me of to the full (and that's if I got up early). Later on, my
son will walk home from school in the dark.

Similarly, I find it completely stupid that, in summer we get up at 6,7
or
8am when the sun rose at 4am, but we go to bed at 11:30pm, two hours
after 
sunset.

Isn't it about time the world came to realise that we don't live by the
sun anymore and that spreading our sunlight more-or-less evenly around
noon no longer has any sense? I reckon everyone should add two hours
to their current standard time and stick to it all year round.

In answer to those who say "Just get up and go to bed two hours earlier"
we all live in a community, and one family stepping out of line two
hours
is not on. What would your boss say if you started work at 5am and left
at 2pm? Could you with those afternoon meetings you have to attend?

-- 

Peter H.C. Hullah                    Technical Services
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