From The Chief Editor's Desk...

I am NOT a fan of Daylight Savings Time, just in case that wasn’t apparent. You cannot make a longer day by chopping an hour off of the beginning of the day, and tacking it on at the end. When it’s all said and done, a day is a day is a day. 24 hours. Period. That’s it. So stop messing with the freakin’ clocks!

If you want more hours of sunlight, get yo’ assets out of bed earlier … like when the sun comes up. If you sleep in, the wasted hours of daylight are solely on YOU. You snooze, you lose! It’s really that simple.

Oh, over the years, they’ve touted the “benefits” of DST. It was made a “permanent” albatross here in the U.S. during the oil crisis in the late 70s and early 80s. We were told that it would lessen energy usage, except, there really was no discernable difference in energy usage when they went back and looked at the numbers.

We were told that farmers would have more hours of daylight to work in their fields, as if they don’t already work hard and long enough. Except, farmers (especially dairy farmers, who deal with dairy cattle, which have NO idea about a clock or our manipulations of that said clock) already maximize their available work hours by … wait for it … getting up when the sun comes up. As for those cattle, they expect to be milked every morning and every evening, without any regard towards the positioning of the hands on a human-devised clockface. The time is the same to those cattle, whether those hands on that human-devised clock read 0400 or 0500 or 0600. The circadian rhythms of the cows are regulated by … again, wait for it … when the sun comes up and when the sun goes down. That makes the cows seem a LOT more intelligent than their human “overlords.”

At least with the end of DST, there are a LOT less physical ailments related to the time manipulation than there is when we lose an hour of sleep in the spring. Getting that extra hour of sleep in the fall when we turn the clocks back to “regular” time is welcomed by most people.

However, in the spring, when we typically switch to DST, there are increases in heart attacks, strokes, depression and anxiety, and sleep disorders, along with a 6% increase in fatal automobile crashes (most likely related to the lost hour of sleep). Lots of people suffer cognitive impairment, most likely associated with the shortened amount of sleep. They have also found that DST can cause metabolic disturbances, due to the change in sleep patterns, which can lead to weight gain and other metabolic disorders.

I can tell you, as a retired healthcare professional, that there are negative physical manifestations of messing with the time. Every spring, we would actually see all sorts of physical problems for the first couple of weeks after the time change. Without a doubt, we usually saw an increase in heart attacks coming through the Emergency Room doors.

There are some lawmakers who want to make DST permanent, all year long. While it would end the biannual “dance” we make with the clock hands (and thus, relieve the physical stresses associated with the twice-a-year time change), it still “embraces” the debunked idea that the time change helps lessen energy usage, along with every other touted “benefit” of DST.

I’m actually more in favor of staying on “regular” time all year long. Making a large number of people alter their routines and sleep patterns in the name of some “benefits” that have never been proven to exist is just asinine.

This month's cover image is by Pixabay artist Gerd Altmann. His image of clocks in the style of Salvador Dalí exemplifies the biannual time dance we perform with our clocks.

Until next month, I bid you peace, happiness, serenity, prosperity, and continued good health!