5/15/2023 update: Not much has changed, save for several more states legislatively getting ready for year-round DST. Here's one of several Web pages:
> https://www.sleepfoundation.org/circadian-rhythm/daylight-saving-time
--that are closely following DST developments.
* There's a problem ahead. Our many "atomic" clocks have but two options: "DST on" and "DST off". There is no "DST Year-round" option. By going to year-round DST at the state level --and by selecting "DST off", we'd get year-round standard time. By selecting "on", we'd keep getting corrections to those "spring forward, fall back" changes --like most everyone else across the nation.
* Solution #1: Select the next time zone east and turn DST "off". That might be hard to get across to some folks, and with some clocks that only option USA time zones, we'd just have to let east coast dwellers fend for themselves. (I know nothing about the time/navigation display integration of dashboard clocks in modern cars.)
* Solution #2: Oregon could simply adopt year-round Pacific Standard Time --and do it tomorrow --no Congressional approval is needed. Any business, school district, institution, whatever that wants more morning or late afternoon daylight can simply change and/or shorten its posted hours. DST was never needed in the first place.
* "Solution" #3: "Politics
is the art of the possible, the attainable --the art of the next best."
--Otto von Bismarck. In that (shriveled) spirit, and since "year-round
DST" is not only underway in our 3 west coast states, but is a politically
popular idea, Brad Friedman has persuaded
me to simply go with the flow on this one. (Time to invest in a corporation
that will be making replacement "atomic" clocks?)
* Oregon's Senate bill #320 (for year-round DST) did
pass --but: Oregonians are STILL having to change our clocks twice a year
--! The end of Pacific Standard Time, in favor of permanent Daylight
Saving Time, has been contingent on the states of Washington and California
being ready to do the same, but the bill to do so got stalled in the California
legislature. After that hurdle, we'd all be waiting on an OK from the U.S.
Congress --which shouldn't take more than 10 to 20 years.
* Oregon Senate bill #320 was sponsored by Representative
Bill Post, Representative John Lively, and Senator Kim Thatcher (who can
be reached via:
Senator Kim Thatcher
900 Court Street NE - S-307
Salem, OR 97301
Now I ask you: in the days immediately following the
twice annual DST clock shifts, and given the often mysterious steps one
must take to change a dash clock's time, how many traffic deaths do you
suppose are caused by trying to comply with "Spring forward-Fall backward"
--whilst underway, and maybe already an hour late? (Not that those driving
or riding in the culpable vehicle are likely to admit it.)
Earlier writ:
* Sheila Danzig has been doing a great job of nailing this issue for many years, plus there's a boat load of DST laments across the Internet --such as:
> http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/news/a53809/daylight-saving-sucks/
Although long despairing of our ever getting off the DST/standard time yo-yo, it has never-the-less behooved me to bear witness --to the gratuitous imposition, of being made to change our myriad clocks twice a year. The political inertness of our society in putting up with it for decades is astounding! (For 100 years, counting from DST's first being foisted upon us during World War One.)
If we can't even get rid of a simple, burdensome, non-sensical practice like biannual DST changes, then what chance does our ship-of-state have of steering a straight course through more complex and emotionally loaded issues? This raises serious issues about democracy.
* I DO BELIEVE that campaigns for high office could
garner a deciding percentage of votes on the DST issue alone.
* Ending DST has been on the ballot,
in the state houses, or on candidate platforms in Washington, Montana,
Kansas, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Oregon (YAY!). There've been citations
of studies showing increased incidents of heart attack (a whopping 5% among
working age people), workplace injuries, car wrecks --+8% (while trying
to change that inscrutable dash clock?), and economic losses from the time
demands of updating all the clocks in our lives. In 2015, Washington State
Rep Elizabeth Scott told of an apple farmer constituent who must spend
half a day (twice a year) changing the clocks in/on all his equipment.
After standing on a wobbly plastic chair to re-hang
a clock during our last DST switch, I wondered how many old people fall
and break bones whilst tending to our DST chores. (I was unable to Google
anything up on that.)
For 20+ years this page has mostly been a bit of sympathy
and hand-holding --for others who feel the same way.
** Time: "Time"
is a strange and arbitrary concept. Here's a brief history of time and
our struggles with it --from "Answers With Joe" (Scott):
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUIYI34CdkE