Honestly, who thought this was a good idea anyway? Hmmm, how about in the winter, since the days are shorter anyway, we make it so that it gets dark even earlier than it would normally? Sounds like a plan to me! The sun going down at 4:30 really makes my day. Yeah yeah, so the sun rises earlier. Sweet! Since no one is voluntarily up at those hours anyway, why do we do this? And for someone who works 9-to-5, the only exposure to the sunlight they can possibly recieve is a few hours as they drive to work in the morning. No wonder we have such a thing as seasonal affective disorder. How is it possible for the serotonin-imbalanced among us to keep on even keel when we never see the sunshine?

This practice is not only completely illogical, but it really messes with people. "Don't forget to set your clocks for daylight savings!" " Wait a minute, do we go forward or backward?" " Duh, it's spring forward, fall back." "You mean I have to get up an hour earlier?!?"

Thank God I'm a raver so it never really messes with my sleep schedule. The problems that it causes me are, "Hey, does Sandra Collins come on at 3:00 old time or new time?"

But I digress. Write your congressman.

Actually, most farmers oppose the idea of daylight saving time. The main adversary of DST in the US is the Farm Bureau. Why is this? Well, because farmers have to get up when the sun rises, regardless of what their clock says. Thus it's a major inconvenience for them to have to change their schedule so that they can do business with the rest of the world, which is observing daylight saving time.

Daylight saving time began in the US during World War I as a way to save fuel by reducing the need for artificial light. Daylight saving time was not observed nationally again until World War II.

The Uniform Time Act of 1966 provides the basic modern framework of switching between daylight saving time and standard time, although many changes have been made over the years. In 1973, the US observed daylight saving time all year long due to some tinkering by Congress. The current system (beginning DST at 2AM on the first Sunday in April and ending it at 2AM on the last Sunday in October) was not standardized until as late as 1986.

Interestingly, when the year-round daylight saving time was tried in 1973, one of the reasons it was repealed was an increased number of school bus accidents in the morning. Even more interesting is a study in Canada from 1991 to 1992 which found that there was an eight percent jump in traffic accidents on the Monday after clocks are moved ahead. This jump was attributed to the lost hour of sleep. Earlier research had shown that even an hour's change can disrupt sleep patterns and persist for up to five days after each time shift. This confirmed it.

There are convincing arguments both for and against daylight saving time. I say, screw it. Let's all switch over to a 28 hour day.

The drive-in movie theater industry, or what shreds of it remain, would most certainly agree.

In the heyday of drive-in movies (the 1950s and 1960s), a large percentage of business came from families. Baby-boomers today will reminisce about the times they spent with their parents and siblings packed into the old stationwagon watching a film, having pulled the low-quality speaker into the car and having prepared popcorn and snickerdoodles for munching.

In the old days, when it got dark around seven or eight o'clock during the summer, this was a common occurrence. Daylight Savings Time, however, dictates that our clocks "spring" forward in April, delaying darkness until closer to nine. Parents became less willing to treat their kids to such late features. The drive-in theaters had to quickly shift to a dependence on teenagers and adults without children.

With the passage of the Uniform Time Act in 1966, ninety percent of drive-in movie theaters in America closed, due to lowered revenues from a loss of family business. Those who continue to visit the drive-in (and who are lucky enough to still have one available) can see the effects of Daylight Savings Time in the high ticket prices and lack of family-appropriate features.

And so the drive-in lobbyists would agree, Daylight Savings Time should be ended.

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