Thanks Ben!

"Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." - Benjamin Franklin

I used to like Benjamin Franklin. In grade school, I wrote a paper about his discoveries and made a clay likeness of him, hand extended to hold onto a kite with a key at the end of the string. (He and Einstein were my childhood heroes. That probably explains a lot to friends who sometimes wonder about me.) Today, I'm not so happy with Ben. You see, it was Ben who first suggested we adjust our days with the seasons. Ben thought it would be wise to save money on candles and make the best use of the daylight. To be fair, he had nothing to do with Daylight Savings Time (DST) as it exists today. DST was first proposed by New Zealander George Vernon Hudson, and later by William Willett in London.

According to Wikepedia (I'm too tired to verify that their sources are correct. Blame DST or one of the guys above), "Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours,^[3] but causes problems for farming, evening entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun....DST clock shifts....can complicate timekeeping, and can disrupt meetings, travel, billing, recordkeeping, medical devices, heavy equipment,^[8] and sleep patterns.^[9] " Sleep patterns, yes. Yawn.

I just don't get it. The original purpose of DST was to reduce the costs of supplying power to lighting our homes at night. Today, people use electricity in a multitude of ways and work a variety of shifts across all hours of the day and night. Does DST make sense anymore? Well, not to me anyway. I had the hardest time rolling out of bed this morning. Taking an hour away from an already sleep-deprived parent is some kind of abuse, I think. It's almost worth moving to Saskatchewan just to avoid DST altogether. Or, better yet, Arizona. Ah... Arizona this time of year would be grand. Yes, there are some places that don't observe DST. They get it!

Ben, I'm sorry for being so upset with you this morning. I know you meant well, and I still heart you, as the kids say (or at least that's what they said last week). But, if I have any way of affecting things, I plan to stop this madness! Who's with me? Ya, I know. You're all just struggling to get enough coffee into you to make it through the day. Alright, fair enough. For now, we'll take a cue from Scarlet O'Hara and think about that tomorrow. Good day everyo...zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Edited to change the word effecting to the word affecting. You see what a lack of sleep does to me?