Paul Harvey in his “Rest of the Story” radio series did an expose on how some members of Congress waged a bet that they could dupe the people into believing they needed to change their calculation of what time it was by making a law about Daylight “SAVINGS” Time. It began as :a ruse/ a practical joke/a power play.
Correct me if I am wrong: From my observation, physics of the relationship of the earth’s rotation and angle to the sun is based on PHYSICAL laws and (heaven of heavens!)not affected by CongressMEN’s laws. We neither save nor loose daylight as a result of Daylight Savings Time. The amount of daylight remains unaffected regardless of the adjustment we make to our clocks and is not determined by changing the time label we use to identify it. I personally feel a bit insulted when commentators inform the public that we are gaining or loosing an hour. In actuality we have that hour by grace and we do not gain or lose anything, other than our control of rational and objective thinking to govern our affairs. The truth is we have been coerced into using and labelling it differently and abiding by a falsehood.

Thanks for the interesting show.

would somebody explain the logic of this asymmetry to me? my guess is that dst ends so close to the winter solstice due to issues of weather and agriculture. however, i can make an argument as to why it should begin earlier than the 2cnd sunday in march and that is because, with more daylight in the evening in our increasingly urban society, people will be out and about and consuming and spending money.

When the US originally adopted time zones, what was the reaction of the people affected by the changes?

Thank you.

We observe daylight saving time, which makes it more ridiculous, as natural changes in the amount of daylight quickly outstrip the hour “lost” or “gained.” Our legislature has produced several bills trying to do away with daylight saving time in the state, but so far, no luck.

My family lives in a semi-remote location, over a mile from the nearest road. Our main time concerns revolve around the amount of daylight we will experience on any given day, and the tides, as we must cross a tidal basin to get to and from town. I used to pursue a career that demanded to-the-second time management, so this is a huge change for me. It has also taught us to appreciate “local noon” and other more natural ways of perceiving time. This has made me even less tolerant of the foolishness of daylight saving. Time is arbitrary, but that doesn’t mean we have to remind ourselves of the fact twice a year!

One other time concern for us: tuning in to our local station to catch your great show.

I rant about the whole mess here in my blog: http://akzeigers.com/blog/?p=387 [I understand you may edit this portion out before posting in your comments section.]

Just a suggestion on how you might want to contextualise this episode…

Often the “history of time” is taken to mean exclusively Western-European time and its manifestations (eg. the narrative that spans from monastic clocks and sundials to mechanical clocks, time-zones, GMT, UTC, etc), without reference to the many other cultures of time that both predated and coexisted (and sometimes continue to exist) alongside Western-European time. (‘Clocks don’t tell *the* time; they tell *a* time’). In order for the clock and the time-zone system to gain recognition as a the dominant definition of time across the USA , and then the world, alternative concepts and cultures of time had to be displaced and disempowered.

Western narratives tend to almost always omit this chapter in the “history of time”. But knowing you guys, I would hope that you don’t miss the backstory to this BackStory

May I recommend the introduction in this recent text on this subject: “The Colonisation of time”, Manchester University Press (2012) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0719082714/

re time, here in the north, i find daylight savings time (which is now about 2/3 of the year) to be a problem. i am a natural early riser in a winter-dark latitude, and getting up in the dark is harder than having a dark suppertime: i don’t mind coming in when winter dark comes and starting supper cooking as much as i mind waking up when it’s still going to be dark for hours. and i do like the highest mid day sun to be around 12:00 noon, with sunset and sunrise symmetrical around it: it’s how i orient myself in time. my internal clock doesn’t ‘re-set’ as easily as my digital devices and analog clocks.

i will look forward to hearing this episode, thanks!

kj