Time to play Which State is the Most Retrograde.
Admittedly, there are a lot of contenders, depending upon your criteria. Education? You can go by drop-out rate, test scores, graduation, college attendance or teacher quality. Crime? Is it murder, property crime, drugs, violence or white-color criminals that bother you most? Health care? Civil rights? Spending per capita? Business climate? Progressive politics? Pick your category and states rank differently. Some states always seem to drift toward the bottom on social, civil rights, and human rights issues, though.
Tonight’s topic is Daylight Savings Time. As it does in many other categories, one states leads the nation in retrograde status.
You guessed it: Arizona. According to National Geographic, of all of the continental United States only one, Arizona, does not currently observe Daylight Savings Time.
That was not always the case. Since its inception in 1918, Daylight Savings Time has never been mandated – it is a wholly voluntary activity. Now it is usually decided on a state-by-state basis, but when I was growing up in the 1970s, individual counties decided on the observance. At that time I lived in St. Louis, which observed DST. St. Louis County, which surrounds the city on three sides, did not observe DST. That presented a problem for the bulk of county residents because they worked in St. Louis (city) but their children went to school in St. Louis County.
Crossing the Mississippi produced the opposite problem. While the state of Illinois and Madison County observed DST, the city of East St. Louis did not. So on a 50-mile trip west from Madison County, IL to St. Charles, MO, you would be in DST, CST, DST, CST, and finally DST.
National Geographic has an extensive report on the various arguments propounded for using or not using DST. There has also been a surprising amount of research on the efficacy of DST.
With verdicts on the benefits, or costs, of daylight savings so split, it may be no surprise that the yearly time changes inspire polarized reactions.
In the U.K., for instance, the Lighter Later movement—part of 10:10, a group advocating cutting carbon emissions—argues for a sort of extreme daylight savings. First, they say, move standard time forward an hour, then keep observing daylight saving time as usual—adding two hours of evening daylight to what we currently consider standard time.
The folks behind Standardtime.com, on the other hand, want to abolish daylight saving time altogether. Calling energy-efficiency claims "unproven," they write: "If we are saving energy let's go year round with Daylight Saving Time. If we are not saving energy let's drop Daylight Saving Time!"
So tonight we Spring Forward. Don’t forget to set your alarm for 2:00 am, then get up and set your clocks forward one hour. Of course, you could just set them ahead when you go to bed, but yhou risk confusion if you wake up in the middle of the night.
We have so many insightful and powerful diaries written here at Daily Kos. Our diaries inform, inflame, impassion, and even entertain. We Kossacks have strong voices and an even stronger will to be the change we wish to see in this country.
One of the richest, and perhaps most under-appreciated, areas of thought come in the form of comments attached to these diaries.
Here at Top Comments we strive to recognize and promote the talent of this community by highlighting outstanding comments found throughout the day by the diarist, and through nominations by other Kossacks. So when you find a comment that enlightens, entertains, or encourages, send it to:
topcomments at gmail dot com.
Comments should get to the inbox by 9:30 EST to be included that day (but we will carry over later ones). Don’t forget to include your Dkos screename, a link to the nominee, and a brief comment about why you think it is a Top Comment.
Tonight’s Top Comments. . . .
From radical simplicity:
With tongue planted firmly in cheek, kenlac starts a beautiful exchange in cskendrick's diary about Fukushima.
From
Samer:
Here is a righteous rant from 3goldens in RodgzK's diary Thank you Scott Walker, you may have saved the American Dream.
From
me:
DrTerwilliker explains the thinking process of the typical American voter in frighteningly accurate detail in Wendys Wink's thought-provoking diary Maybe A License is Appropriate.
sherlyle speculates on the reason they call themselves Tea Party in Kodiak54's outstanding photo diary Wisconsin - Can we throw a party or what!