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tinkering with clocks
I understand the motivation to re-align the window of daylight to fit one's preferences, but that's doomed because we don't all have the same preferences (so the strongest lobby wins) and it's not as if clock-tinkering can actually extend the amount of light in the day. It might be wiser to just admit that noon comes at noon and sometimes that means dark mornings or dark evenings, and suck it up. Do we really need sunsets at close to 10PM in June? Does that get you anything that you can't get enough of with a 9PM sunset? And what's the harm of a 5:30 sunset in late October instead of a 6:30 one? If you work normal hours that extra hour of light probably doesn't let you do anything enjoyable (you're on your way home or eating dinner, most likely), and kids have been out of school for a couple hours by then so they've had plenty of running-around-outside time.
On Thursday I drove to morning services in pitch dark, and I had to consciously dawdle in leading the service so that the sun would rise before the first prayer that must be said in "the morning" hit. I don't know what this group will do next year, when DST continues through November. The minyan is when it is so people can get to work on time.
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As for "morning" is that defined as "after dawn" for the purposes of the service? If so, I can see that would be a problem.
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I also wonder how much of the savings in lighting is eaten by increased use of air-conditioning (because it's hotter later in the day).
As for "morning" is that defined as "after dawn" for the purposes of the service?
Certain parts have to be done after sunrise, yes. There are some preliminary prayers where that doesn't matter, so you can start before sunrise so long as you don't get to those parts too quickly. With current scheduling there's only about one week where that's an issue in this congregation; next year it'll be an issue for about a month, getting worse each week by several minutes. I'll be curious to learn what they'll do about it.
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As for sunrise and the service, there are complicated gradations for what can be said when, and there are leniencies that are used in the orthodox world routinely. People have to do what they can do.
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As for sunrise and the service, there are complicated gradations for what can be said when
After establishing that no one present knew exactly what the rules were (I'm surprised by that), I opted for "get to Sh'ma at sunrise". I don't know if that was right, but it seems reasonable. The talmud, in the discussion of when to say the Sh'ma, even praises someone (I forget who) for timing his t'filah to do exactly that every day. Of course, the t'filah then might not have been what we do now, exactly.
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The 2 groups who I remember being on the news saying that extending DST was a bad idea were firefighters and advocates for children's safety, the first because they had built a public awareness campaign around the (roughly) 6-months-apart changes between standard and DST as when to check/change fire alarm batteries, and the second because they were worried about kids in rural areas being vulnerable standing around in the dark in the morning waiting for their school buses.
Btw, do you know if anything has been done about the fact that all the automatic time-changers in software will have to be adjusted? And (as far as I've heard) the fact that Canada isn't going along with this?
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I hadn't heard that the firefighters objected, but I'm aware of the campaign so it makes sense that they would. I do wonder, however, if smoke-alarm batteries aren't good for a year anyway; if they are then this will have to shift to picking one of the dates (I'd say fall) and ignoring the other. But that's harder than "change the clocks, change the batteries", because people have to remember which one.
Children: this didn't seem to be that big a deal to me when Nixon reverted to DST one year in January, but I do remember parents screaming about it. March won't be nearly as bad as January was, at least. (The difference is (checks) about 50 minutes at that time of year.)
Software: not a clue, and I've wondered about it too. Operating systems will be patched, I presume, but we're probably out of luck for the VCRs.
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Arizona tried to institute the plan shortly after my sister moved to the state. During the summer, the newspapers were filled with letters of people complaining about daylight savings and how it upset their schedules and summer rituals. One older woman wrote into the paper to complain that "all that extra daylight was killing her roses."
No, really.
Due to popular revolt, Arizona decided to stick to standard time.
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No time changes at all, whether we settled on all-standard or all-DST, would be better than switching, I think. Schools, employers, etc might be more motivated to make changes to accommodate the seasons, which is a better solution than imposing a change on everyone regardless of what it messes up. (I find the medication issue in hospitals (raised by
Some interesting tidbits about clock change here