Lock the Clock

Once again, Congress considers abolishing the semiannual clock change between Standard and Daylight Saving Time. A Senate bill to make DST permanent is on the table, although many people advocate getting rid of it altogether instead.

Sunshine Protection Act

The history of the time change:

Daylight Saving Time

I would rejoice to have Daylight Saving Time all year around. Does anybody really WANT darkness to fall at 5 p.m. in the winter? And that's here in Maryland; think how much earlier the light vanishes in more northerly states. Opponents of permanent DST derisively dismiss the proposal as catering to after-work golfers. Rather, a later sunset in December and January offers a more significant benefit. Homebound drivers and students leaving after-school activities would enjoy the safety of daylight for an hour longer.

In my opinion, the allegedly scary prospect of kids waiting for morning school buses "in the dark" is much exaggerated. Isn't road traffic heavier in the late afternoon than in the early morning? In general, far more people are inconvenienced -- and endangered -- by dusk darkness than by dawn dimness. Also, isn't it less dangerous to move from dark into light (later sunrise) than from light through twilight into darkness (too-early sunset)?

If the semiannual "spring forward, fall back" custom is really so hazardous to health in general and sleep-deprived drivers in particular as some research claims, requiring that we "lock the clock" for the public good, it should be locked in the direction of longer daylight at the end of the day, when more people are active. At the very least, think of the benefit to people burdened with Seasonal Affective Disorder. I'd be tempted to crawl into a cave and hibernate if I had to face the middle of March (after enduring late-afternoon gloom since early November) with no immediate prospect of brighter evenings.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Groundhog Day

February 2 is almost upon us -- Groundhog Day, aka Imbolc (Celtic) or Candlemas (Christian). Here's a brief overview of its history:

Imbolc

This date constitutes one of the major seasonal milestones of the pagan year, halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Originally the festival of the goddess Brigid, it morphed into the feast day of St. Brigid in the Christian era. According to the website above, Imbolc marked the beginning of spring. Maybe in the British Isles, but definitely not around here!

Since the official first day of spring falls approximately six weeks after February 2, it's logical for the emergence of groundhogs (in North America) from their burrows -- woodchucks or badgers in Europe -- to signal six more weeks of winter. If you assume that's what the animal's shadow portends, your guess has a high chance of being correct. I wondered for years why seeing his shadow would forecast a longer winter. Wouldn't bright sun lead us to expect an early spring? Eventually I realized clear weather in winter is likely to be colder, while warmer air holds more moisture and thus might produce a cloudy day. So the association of sighting a shadow with the prospect of continued freezing temperatures makes a certain amount of sense.

Oddly, the alleged predictions of the famous groundhog of Punxsutawney, PA, have consistently more often than not been less accurate than chance. Nowadays, why don't the handlers "translating" for him consult a long-term weather forecast before making their pronouncements?

The movie GROUNDHOG DAY presents an initially funny but gradually darkening exploration of "What if you could live your life over?" The hero of the film, of course, just lives one day over -- and over and over. The compulsion to keep repeating that day until he gets it right leads to a downward spiral of nihilistic despair rather than optimism about getting a fresh start, until he changes his attitude and sincerely tries to do better. In the midst of its humor, the movie raises the grim prospect that getting a do-over in life might not turn out so great as we'd hope. What if every attempt to fix some mistake in the past created a fresh disaster? Luckily for the protagonist's future and the viewer's satisfaction, he does eventually get it right. In that respect GROUNDHOG DAY resembles A CHRISTMAS CAROL. In an interesting coincidence, the same actor, Bill Murray, stars in both GROUNDHOG DAY and SCROOGED as the selfish cynic needing reformation.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.