Some places that don't observe daylight saving: Arizona Hawaii Puerto Rico Saskatchewan Iceland Central America China Japan India Jordan* most of Africa Phrenopolis *Jordan's clocks ARE set an hour ahead from where they used to be, but they stay that way all year.

Fascinating Fact: In Great Britain, during World War II, they set the clocks ahead TWO hours for "Double Summer Time." (After all, two is certainly twice as good as one. Which suggests the possibility of simply setting the clocks ahead 24 hours and calling it a day....)

Link: Here's a site with some amusing anecdotes about DST.

Link: Here's an amusing comic about DST.

C.U.S.T.A.R.D.

Citizens Using Standard Time
And Real Daylight

A Few Words About Daylight Saving Time

Which is all well and good, mind you. I'm glad that people want to get up earlier, get a jump on the day, enjoy the summer sun, and so on. I give my blessing to all those so inclined to go ahead and get up as early as they like. What I resent is when anyone tries to force me to join in the revels by legislating the change of MY clock. Keep your hands off my clock! I have enough trouble getting up in the morning as it is.

Frankly, I think if Daylight Saving Time were talked about in terms of what it actually accomplishes - "Hey, let's all get up an hour earlier every day all summer long!" - it would have a lot less popular support than it currently does.

Also, let's consider the purpose of clocks for a moment. Clocks are a tool we use so that we can coordinate our activities with those of other people. That's all they're good for. And they're only useful if they agree with each other. Every time we change the numbers, we confuse things and compromise the clocks' ability to help us.

I wouldn't mind so much if we just changed the clocks ONCE and then left them alone for good. Sure, we'd be out of step with other places, but at least we'd be PREDICTABLY out of step. It's the fact that we keep switching the clocks back and forth, moving in and out of sync with places that don't change the clocks and people who have forgotten to change the clocks, that causes trouble. Twice a year there's a period of several days where some clocks are changed and some aren't and people get mixed up and miss appointments. My great aunt missed her sister's funeral because it was right after the clocks changed. No, really. I was there.

Daylight Saving Time is deceitful, disruptive, and silly. It's a mass delusion, a demonstration of our unfortunate predilection for following rules and abstract concepts blindly while ignoring the evidence of our senses and the dictates of our bodies. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it started as a performance art piece intended to test the willingness of the public to accept the absurd.

It's time for this foolishness to stop. I'm resisting. So should you.

Things You Can Do

Demonstrate. Show up an hour late for work the first day after Daylight Saving begins. Claim you forgot.

Politicize. Write your congressional representative. Do it twice a year, when the clocks change. The first few people will be considered cranks and will probably wind up on a list somewhere, but once the politicians get enough letters they'll realize it's a movement.

Emphasize. Raise consciousness in your day-to-day interactions with people. When anyone wants to know the time, be sure to ask if they're still using Daylight Saving. Say it with the same tone you'd use if you were asking whether they still use buggy whips or 8-track tapes.

Ritualize. Destroy a clock at two a.m. on the day DST begins. Probably the clock should be one of your own.

Fraternize. Send a note to custard@phrenopolis.com and ask to be on the CUSTARD mailing list. Not that anything actually gets sent out on the mailing list, but it's comforting to know that others are out there, isn't it? Some day we can organize events and stuff like that.

Evangelize. Get a "Hands Off My Clock" bumper sticker. Or make a more directed statement about the absurdity of DST by hanging up an Augmentation Chronometer, preferably at work.
*The exhorbitant profits from these items go towards the support of this website and my stately pleasure yacht, assuming I ever acquire a stately pleasure yacht that is.

Colorize. Just switch to International Color Time and call it a day.

Fascinating Fact: It's officially called "Daylight Saving Time" --not SavingS.

Phone Meetings There is no particular agreement over when DST should start and end, so different places do it at different times, and they change the schedules from year to year. The two hemispheres do it in opposite seasons. It's pretty much impossible to keep up, and it makes it difficult to arrange a phone meeting with someone elsewhere on the planet using ordinary clocks. You might try something like this World Clock Meeting Planner, or, for a more elegant solution, switch to International Color Time.