DST

Our Senators rarely agree but for whatever reason they concurred that year round Daylight Savings Time would benefit America.  We changed our clocks last week.  My wrist alarm makes me literally though never figuratively woke at 6:30AM as it did before and I arise for my morning routine.  That includes retrieving the newspaper from the end of the driveway, done in darkness this week, in early daylight last week but still darkness in January.  I would take out recycling to the bin on the way to get the  newspaper but this week I cannot tell which bin has the green top until a little later in the morning.  Mere annoyances for me with involuntary clock urgencies pretty much masked by retirement.  If I were a kid, though, January DST would have the usual school starting time in the dark.  Nurses and surgeons expect that.  In fact, keeping patients groggy by waking them overnight to take vital signs that aren't worth waking and lab draws that might be has ingrained itself into health care.  Farming and Shabbos go by lunar and solar cycles.  School times, commerce, and to our detriment perhaps sleep schedules are often more clock than nature dependent.

Inter-time zone travel has gotten common enough in America that we change our clocks a lot with little detriment.  However, we do it individually rather than all together as we do for public clock changes.  As alluring as it might be to have time after work to play tennis or maybe enhance commerce by spending money, this may not be what evolutionary biology set as optimal.  And it's not nice to fool Mother Nature.