Charlottesville ~ March 1
Now that it's March, we say goodbye to Standard Time, after a mere 4 1/2 months (November, December, January, February -- and a fraction of March); and hello to 7 1/2 months of Daylight Savings Time (-- the remainder of March; then April, May, June, July, August, September, October).
That means barely 1/3 of the year on Standard; almost 2/3 of the year on Daylight. That means Daylight Time is really our Standard. So lets just stay on Daylight Time all the time, and rename it as Standard. Of course, a lot of citizens -- Donald Trump included -- can't even tell the difference. As The New York Times ponts out, Trump has stupidly called for the elimination of both Daylight Time and Standard Time:
"Trump has called for an end to the biannual time changes, posting on Truth Social in March 2019 that “Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is OK with me!” In December 2024, however, he called daylight saving time “inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation” and said the Republican Party would try to “eliminate” it."
~ from the article "Why Do We Change the Clocks, Anyway?"
Sunrise and sunset, even as they shift, are the only constants. There is no such thing as an "original" time zone, aside from what humans have imposed in their eternal quest for order out of chaos (to put it nicely) or their endless mania for control (to put it less nicely). Changing clocks, “controlling” time. Did you wake up an hour late and miss church this morning? Well, you can make up for it now by reading this excellent meditation on Daylight Time by Duo Dickinson:
"The need to control has meant everything is later today. Somehow light can be “saved” – like life, we say – when light is totally, completely beyond our understanding. As is life’s passing. But we do control the hours we try to put over light, and the scales that we define gravity with – without understanding. Measuring is not knowing, but in ignorance it is all we have. "And we judge based on our creation, not creation. With the dark authority of the idiot. "And today the world is pissed. Fog has rendered light to tone. Air has mass, as does time. "Because it suited some, everyone becomes late. The sun does not care, it’s there when it’s there – and today, is not."
~ from the essay "We Only Control The Hour"
It is indeed true that shifting the time in March is totally unnecessary. As we approach the Vernal Equinox, the sun is already giving us up to three additional minutes of light per day. Why must we hasten what is already occurring naturally, at its own pace? According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac:
"This gain will be minuscule at first, just a matter of seconds a day, but will steadily grow until daily daylight expands by 3 minutes per day in March. The exact amount of brightness gain depends on your location. . . . in most of the lower 48 states, the extra daily sunshine in March is closer to 20 minutes after each week, the most the majority of us ever experience, like a slowly opened gift package."
~ from the article How Much Daylight Do We Gain
After the Winter Solstice?
The Gradually Increasing Evening Light
Kansas City ~ February 21
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