It's 5:30 AM. I'm up for the day. It's pitch black outside.
Most days, I'm set to walk at 5:45 or so (exercise is best done in the morning, and before eating) but it's still pitch black outside. Not very pleasant for a walk; you can't see anything, including the ankle-twisting potholes in the street.
But it's Tuesday. Tuesdays, I usually combine a shorter walk with a bit of weight training, which begins at a leisurely 7:00 AM. It's time to go but it's still dark outside, with the sky showing just a hint of gray so I can start to make out the shapes of trees. Dark at 7:00 AM? It should never be dark at 7:00 AM. It's unnatural.
Working folks are up getting set to go to work, using electric lights, but they'll need light in the house when they get home at 6:00 too, so nothing is being saved in power consumption.
Kids are walking to their school bus stops at this hour, along dark streets, few of which have sidewalks.
In a few days, those kids (if they're not hit by a school bus) will be out trick-or-treating between 5:30-6:30, but it will be just dusk for many of them, too light for a good scary Halloween experience.
Also in a few days, the country will switch back to "standard" time. Saturday evening, everyone in the country will waste time (ranging from 10 minutes to 30, depending) resetting clocks, timers, thermostats and such to the new time And Sunday morning, a higher than average number of people will have heart attacks and die that morning. .
All of this is due to daylight saving time, particularly to the ridiculous and unnecessary extension of it into November.
Up in Massachusetts, or maybe just a few miles away from my house, on Capitol Hill, Congressman Ed Markey, a diehard fan of daylight time, may be stirring in bed (we're told he gets up "early" - around 7:00 !) and thinks that's early enough for the sun to rise. In his line of "work" he can get to his office at 9:00, or 10:00 or not at all. Sweet! Right now, though, a few minutes past 7:00, he may see the sun coming over the horizon, but it will still be too dark in his house to read, so he'll have to turn on the light if he wants to review the report he commissioned a few years ago from the Department of Energy, which strove mightily though unsuccessfully to prove that daylight saving time provides energy savings.
On November 6, I would happily vote for whichever candidate will promise to put and end to DST. Barack, Mitt -- please get back to me on this!
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