Daylight Savings Time is kicking my...

Today is our usual CC Hamden day when the kids and I are supposed to be out the door by 7:30a. I was in complete slumber until 6:45 when I quickly showered, ate, packed lunches, gathered teaching supplies. The kids had to be woken at 7:15 and we made it out the door 15 minutes late but arrived nearly on time at CC. The traffic was lighter than usual - I guess everyone else was DST challenged, too.

Do we really need to be adjusting our clocks nowadays? Might we take this moment to research the origins of DST and question its effectiveness?

Regarding DST as a benefit to farmers... "The chickens do not adapt to the changed clock until several weeks have gone by, so the first week of April and the last week of October are very frustrating for us.", Canadian poultry producer Marty Notenbomer.

Regarding DST encroaching on our individual liberties: "I don't really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves." (Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, 1947, XIX, Sunday.)

There are non-participants to DST in the U.S.: "Hawaii and most of Arizona do not follow daylight-savings time. The Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona DOES observe daylight saving time; the rest of Arizona does not. And the territories of Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa do not observe DST. The Eastern Time Zone section of Indiana also does not observe DST."

For me, this tradition seems unnatural and inconvenient. I'd rather do away with it for the sake of simplicity.