triviageek

Repost:
I actually heard of this news with some regret. LEAVE INDIANA TIME ALONE!!! Argh.

I lived in Indiana and one of the favorite things that I remember about that state is that Indiana (as a whole) did NOT go on Daylight Savings Time each Spring and then fall back to Standard Time in the Autumn. It didn't need to because -- Indiana was ALREADY on Daylight Savings Time year round as, in my opinion, all the other states should be also.

It took a college Astronomy 101 class to explain it all to me, but esentially a long time ago, Indiana got itself put into the wrong time zone for it's location. And doing that had the effect of putting Indiana on Daylight Savings Time year round without needing to go thru the twice annual shift that other states go thru.

By it's location, Indiana should have been in the Central Time Zone, which is centered about St. Louis. Instead it got itself added to the Eastern Time zone which is centered more along NYC.

Now it should be obvious, if you've looked at a map recently, that Indiana is a lot closer to St. Louis than NYC. But by adding itself to the EST zone that is in effect, the same as putting oneself on DST for anyone who should be in the Central Time Zone.

And making Indiana go on EDT in the Summer, will make Indiana roughly 2 hours away from it's natural "Solar Time". IE. Noon in solar time is when the Sun lines up on those North/South Meridian Streets -- which is how the pioneers measured noon before the advent of radio, TV, or even the railroads who are the ones that lobbied for established Time Zones in the first place -- right after the Civil War.

Once, years ago when I still lived there, the federal government ordered Indiana to follow the Universal Time Act -- a federal law which regulates when and which states go on which DST in which time Zone. And I remember the then govenor of Indiana announcing on TV that he would find some exemption for Indiana from the federal law (which was in fact later changed for Indiana), or that if need be, he would hang a clock on the statehouse walls and label it "OFFICIAL TIME"; set it to what the federal law mandated; and then the rest of the state would ignore it.

Now with this recent bit of legislation, I think the current politicians are going to have to go thru the process of relearning the reasons why that long ago govenor had made such a pronouncement. --- When the sun is just setting at 11 pm. in the summer time, a number of the citizens find it more than odd; parents can't coax their small kids into bed, etc.

There's an old saying to the effect that those that don't study history are condemned to repeat it.