Niki Kelly has an article on the upcoming change to Daylight Saving Time on April 2. Bar owners will lose an hour of business. Microsoft’s Outlook has some problems in addition to the normal, and all Hoosier business systems will have to be reset. I’m still a little puzzled as to why it was supposedly such a big deal for foreign companies to adjust their systems to Indiana time that DST was essential for jobs, but it is trivial — barely worth discussing, really — for Hoosiers to adjust their systems to Eastern Daylight Time.
Gov. Daniels has been making fun of the counties struggling with the mess he made, comparing Martin and Pulaski counties to “Emiliy Litella” — the Gilda Radner character famous for misunderstanding situations, then saying “never mind.” Bill Blomquist, a political science professor from IUPUI believes the issue will affect few House races.
“Perhaps I am Pollyannaish, … but I honestly think once people have that additional hour in the evening for a summer they’re going to like it and then they are going to turn their clocks back right before Election Day and they are going to say, ‘That wasn’t such a big deal,’ †he said.
We’ll see. What we do know is that it was a big enough deal when Indiana dabbled with DST in the past to get Hoosiers to opt out. Maybe enough has changed in the ensuing decades to make Hoosiers complacent about the change. Anectdotally, I’ve spoken with people for whom time change is utterly foreign. It will be interesting to see how they react to the Governor and his supporters arbitrarily changing a system that worked well enough for the last 30 years.
Yes, and the bar owners will get an extra hour of sales this fall when we change back. Indiana’s blue laws affect the incomes of tavernkeepers much more than DST, so let’s just let THAT red herring go.
I appreciate the extensive coverage you’ve given to this issue, especially the explanations of why some Hoosiers are so vehemently opposed.
For those of us Hoosiers who are in the “oh for goodness sake let’s just do it” category, let me please share this explanation: Indiana’s long failure to rejoin DST has been symbolic to many of us of a failure to recognize that the world has changed and that we can no longer be disconnected from everyone else. Why not have our own currency for heaven’s sake? The fact is that the world is interconnected and that our failure to interconnect by being on the same time standard as nearly everyone else is both a practical and a symbolic impediment to our moving forward.
Thanks. I feel better already. And next week, when it starts to stay light later in the evening, I’ll feel better still. Plus I will soon no longer have to explain to people who DON’T live in Indiana (yes, there are a few of them) what time it is here.
A good Christmas gift to give each other in
Indiana would be a wall satellite self-setting clock.It also keeps perfect time otherwise.
Theyre available everywhere now. If you set it for automatic DST, on the appointed Sunday it will triple time itself forward an hour,and to set itself back it will triple time itself forward 11 hours,which takes a couple hours but the dog really enjoyed it and I did, too.
I just realized one more thing that DST is going to mess me up on. I recently got a job that is only minutes from my house (compared to a hour-long commute I had for 5 years). In April I planned to start riding my bike to work a few days a week. It would just be getting bright enough to do that around April, I thought…
Then I rememembered that next week, the week I planned on starting, I loose that hour of morning light and set the clock back to March 1st. Sure, I can get a light, but I’m new at this and wanted to make sure I don’t get killed on the way to work.
So, being overweight already, DST is now helping maintain my obesity. I know Indiana isn’t doing too well in that area already, I wonder if anyone had thought of that?
For those that say “Well, I see others riding in the dark, you could do it if you wanted to!”, please re-read the last paragraph. If I’m out of shape already, do you think I’m well motivated in that area? :-)
I guess the good news is that when I put my girls to bed around 8:30 in the summer, I’ll have another whole hour of sunlight to ride in!
It is a myth that in our “interconnected world” “nearly everyone else” is on one time standard. DST is almost unknown in countries in the tropical latitudes. Japan and South Africa (in fact most countries on Earth) do not use it. Those areas in the southern hemisphere that do use it have roughly the opposite schedule as to those in the northern hemisphere. The areas of North America that observe DST (effective 2007) will both go on DST and off DST on different dates than does Europe (in NA the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday in November versus the last the Sunday of March to the last Sunday in October, ask airlines what a hash that makes of schedules). DST isn’t the solution, it is self inflicted Jet Lag.
“wall satellite self-setting clock”
I already have 3 now! Actually, they get a radio signal from NIST in Boulder, CO. Because it is radio, sunlight and other interferance can mess them up. They normally sync at around 1:00am to avoid this. If you get one and it doesn’t seem to want to sync, make sure that it is facing either east or west, so that the antenna can “see” Colorado easier.
Doug, your work on this blog makes clear that you are highly intelligent. Accordingly, I will presume that you are being willfully obtuse when you ask: “why it was supposedly such a big deal for foreign companies to adjust their systems to Indiana time that DST was essential for jobs, but it is trivial — barely worth discussing, really — for Hoosiers to adjust their systems to Eastern Daylight Time.” The difference is that our upcoming transition will be a one-time occurrence. Once we are on DST, things will run smoothly indefinitely, although there may be some bugs. On the other hand, out-of-state companies who do business in Indiana and Indiana companies who do business out of state previously had to make such adjustments twice a year, every year.
That’s a good point, John M.
However, those companies still have to make that adjustment twice a year, every year for all the countries in the tropics and the overall majority of other countires.
I feel the point should never have been what makes it easier for outside companies, but what makes it easier for Indiana companies. THAT is what can actually help bring jobs here (or stop being a barrier to it). Indiana has had to make those adjustments twice a year, every year to do business with (almost) every other state in the USA.
With all due respect to Karen, for those of us who lived most of our lives not resetting our mantel and body clocks twice a year it is a rude shock to the system to have to do it for the first dozen or so times (although I am particularly annoyed as we are on Central time and I grew up on default Eastern and I absolutely loathe seeing it get full dark at 4 p.m. in the summer). That being said, I think the reasons Hoosiers will have long memories is not because oh they’ll get used to DST, it’s because the Governor they elected as “just one of us Hoosiers” called them stupid for not wanting to change, lied, and manipulated them. Hoosiers are stubborn to the point of muleheadedness but they are not stupid, and they have long memories.
bah. 4 p.m. in the winter. And I think I had a spelling error in there. I hate Monday mornings.
Regarding Jason’s comment on bicycling. At the Allen County Commissioners’ TZ Hearing last summer I brought up the joys of early morning biking on the County bike paths. Traffic is (was) light and it is the coolest part of the day. Now, there will be little light for this, as traffic will be building much of the year at or before dawn. Going out at “9:00 p.m.”, with the day’s heat still lingering, has little appeal to me.
BTW, someone must have commented that the term “p.m.” or “post meridiem” is a little at odds with our new time regime. Afterall, geography doesn’t matter.
I’m not sure how this computes. I understand the presumption that we’ll set up our systems to automatically account for the change each year and we won’t have to mess with it. I’m not sure why foreign companies are not presumed to be equally astute so as to set up their systems to automatically account for the non-change indefinitely.
In any event, my point wasn’t so much that these problems are in any way insurmountable. My point was the inconsistency — the problems associated with *not* changing our clocks, ever, were so significant that it was of the utmost importance to Indiana’s economy that we change. But the difficulties to Indiana’s businesses barely merit a shrug of the shoulders.
————-
On the subject of daylight preferences, I’m definitely going to miss the hour of daylight in the morning. I get up at about 5:15 to go to the gym and have rather enjoyed the sun coming up as I head home at around 6:30. Now I’ll have to wait another month for that luxury. And the sun will never be up when I get up. Under the old system, I’d be enjoying about 4 months of having the sun be up for me.
But, I suppose that’s just personal preferences — a lot of people don’t really buy into that early to bed, early to rise, healthy, wealthy, and wise schtick.
Forgive the willful obtuseness, but if the dictates of interstate, let alone international business demand an accommodation to DST, don’t they equally demand a single time zone “identity” for all of Indiana? You know, the “tough, unpopular decision” our tough, unpopular governor refused to make?
And supposing an Indiana business depends on such commerce, aren’t they already adjusting to it with, I dunno, email? Web commerce? Voice mail, adjusted staffing, outsourcing? If the bulk of your business was with California, or Japan, before DST it still is after, and the only thing that’s changed is the watch settings of your telemarketers.
Y’know, I’m 52 years old, and in eighteen months of the Daniels administration I’ve now been spoken to as if I were a child more frequently than when I was a child.
I thought DST was about forcing everyone to go along with being “early to bed and early to rise”. Of course getting up early doesn’t mean the “crack of dawn” in Indiana. Like you Doug, for me it means being up at least 30 minutes, and up to 2 hours 30 minutes, before dawn every morning of the year.
Living in Perry County, I’ll miss having an extra hour to drive west to Evansville to shop, and lose an hour heading to Louisville to shop.
I also don’t have much use for it getting dark at 4:30 in the winter.
“BTW, someone must have commented that the term “p.m.†or “post meridiem†is a little at odds with our new time regime. Afterall, geography doesn’t matter.”
GREAT POINT PAUL!
Let’s not confuse the way that Daniels pushed through DST with the benefit of DST itself. Two different animals.
It always seemed backward to me. I’d like more light in the WINTERTIME when we are lacking light, not in the SUMMERTIME when we have more. Whatever time zone you are in, there are still only 24 hours in a day.
I wouldn’t be so distress by the whole situation, had the majority of hoosiers wanted Eastern daylight time, but that is not the case. The Indiana Broadcasting Association and the Indiana Golf Association orchestrated this whole situation with alot of money to put Dictator Daniels in place along with a Republican House. So with the Daylight Savings time issue and the Toll Road Deal, Indiana is currently under the occupation of Hitler and his Gestapo Republican party that votes the way Daniels wants, and not the way the legislator’ constituents wants them to. Even Representative Espich (R-Uniondale) was qouted on WNDU-TV as saying concerning the Toll Road issue that “We know more about the issue then the general public, so we have to vote for them.” What ever happened to “Voted by the people,for the people.” And unless you were present at the time zone hearings last year like I was, then you have no basis for your opinion (especially those that say quite whining). Your government is being taken out of your hands, and unless you vote for change in November, its only going to get worse.
And as for those arguments that it is going to help our economy, because everyone is going to know what time were on: Point #1.Patricia Miller, the Indiana Secretary of Commerce was point blank asked last year at one of the time zone hearings if she could specifically attribute any loss of jobs to not observing Daylight savings time, and her response was “No, but.” So she had no leg to stand on. Point #2. Arizona doen’t observe daylight savings time, and is the corporate headquarters of American Express and Petsmart, and has 50,000 people moving to Arizona every year. Arizona doesn’t have a problem conducting business in the global or U.S. economy. It must be that the brain drain has already occurred in Indiana, and the corporate employees of Indiana are not smart enough to make a courtesy call ahead of time to confirm what time it is at their office and yours. I do it all the time, and haven’t missed an appointment yet.
Not only will bars be hurt by daylight savings time, but the sitdown restaurants as well. And if you miss that business in a resort town, you don’t make it up in the fall.
School children waiting for the bus in the morning dark practically the whole school year, so you can have that extra hour of light (till 10:00 PM) in the summer is pretty self-centered. And in the winter on Central time, it doesn’t get dark until 4:50 PM (i.e. dusk) verified by U.S. Naval observatory data. And the argument about that light in the evening makes me feel better, 15 years of research by Dr. Avery from the University of Washington would tell you that the predetermining factor in Seasonal Affective Disorder is the lack of morning (not evening) sunlight. So if people were depressed before, its only going to get worse.
I suggest all those Eastern daylight people not to get to comfortable, because like in 1969 & 1970, it didn’t last very long. Indiana lies geographical within the central time zone, and thats where it should belong. People in St. Joseph and Marshall Counties knew this, and asked the DOT for the change. But Governor Daniels ran interference, and broke the law, and didn’t abide by the wished of the county executives. Like the corruption trail of former Gvernor Ryan in Illinois, I see the same fate for Governor Daniels in the near future. From IPALCO, to Daylight Savings time, the Toll Road Lease, and his responsibility in the breaching of the leevees in New Orleans, Governor Daniels judgement day will come.
David, perhaps I’ve been living too long in northern Indiana, but I’ve never observed the “resort business” being up and running in early April….at least, not that wouldn’t be the same or better in the Fall. Good grief, if it hits 50 we’re happy! The only people who are vacationing at this point are folks going on spring break, and one might make the argument that giving them an extra hour to drink before hitting the road for Florida……
Now that we’ve hit Godwin’s Law I think there can be nothing good come out of this thread.
Oh, BTW Dave, we’re not a Democracy, we’re a Democratic Republic. That’s why they can vote for what they think is best, not what the mob wants. Not saying it is right or wrong, but that is the way our government has been setup. There are other countries more democratic than we.
Dang it, I need preview if I’m going to try to link text! :)
What good news that it gets dark at 4:50! Praise Jesus. So when I leave work I will be heartened to know the sun went down ten minutes ago, not thirty! And I presume that time you quoted is for a cloudless day, of which we have about five each winter down here. It is just goddamn stupid to have it be NIGHT before 5 p.m.!
Well then you should blame Jesus. He’s the one who made it dark 5 hours after noon. He works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.
What can I add to all of the comments on this thread? Maybe a little “told ya so” about morning sunlight mattering. :)
Everyone is missing the point. Indiana was confusing to business for two reasons before. DST and the fact that we were in two time zones. Yes I realize that other states are split between time zones BUT none of those states are as narrow east/west as Indiana happens to be. So now a business contacting another business in Indiana for the first time must check which time zone the Indiana location lies within. Plus we Hoosiers that live on a time zone boundary have to explain the difference to people from within our state. I really get tired of this, espeacially to people from Elkhart County, remember the gang of three there (Rodino,Stiver,and Yoder) caused all of this in the area. I doubt whether this away soon. I also remember the last time this was tried, did not work!!!