Daylight Spending

I don’t know about you, but I’ve already spent my extra daylight savings.

Tuesday was a bit gloomy, at least around here – and I wanted to go to the Cape to take some pictures: so I spent the whole wad that afternoon.
Easy come, easy go!
Spending that daylight, I was reminded of the big tax breaks we’ve all been receiving over the last four or five years.
It’s nice to get the check - $400 I think it was, last time: but if you blow a tire, or crack a filling, it goes pretty quick.
And you pay a pretty big price – all told, for your little check.
That is, to give back that extra $400 to everybody, the government has to make some serious cuts in their budget.
You get your filling replaced, but a school in Arkansas goes without a new roof, and a road in Maine is left unpaved, and an AIDS Clinic shuts down in Tucson.
Are the two – federal taxes and daylight savings, related?
Consider the source.
I tend to look at all of these governmental ‘gifts’, with a bit more than a dose of skepticism.
At best, I think, the government is guilty of a lack of imagination.
At worse, well, I’ll leave that to you.
Now my idea of daylight savings goes a bit further than the tinkering we are recovering from this week.
This is the computer age: everything –from battleships to stuffed animals, uses computer chips today.
With all that digital technology it seems both possible, and preferable, for time to be measured in relation to the actual amount of sunlight available to – not rationed out in bits and pieces.
First of all, and to avoid confusion, my idea is to have two different kinds of time (at least at first): Schedule Time, and Experiential Time.
Schedule Time would be the same, everywhere, for everyone – though allowing of course, for differences based on time zones: so planes could schedule their trips, and buses could be there to meet them, and people could make reservations at restaurants and then break them.
That’s Schedule Time.
But then there’d be Experiential Time – which would be based on the way that we experience time.
In Experiential Time (ET) high noon would always be in the exact middle of the ‘day’ – when the sun is directly overhead, and the number of minutes of so-called daylight before and after noon would be based on the number of minutes of daylight actually available to you at that longitude, at that time of year.
In the winter the days would actually be shorter.
In the summer the days would actually be longer.
An hour of day in the summer might be 65 minutes long.
An hour of day in the winter might be 55 minutes long.
Experiential time would not be measured at night – that is, after the sun sets and before the sun rises. The overall length of night would be all that matters – and that would change, depending on the usual factors.
My sense is that once adopted – in no time at all, experiential time would be the only time.
And from there we could move on, to better uses of the time available to us.
We could, for example, have an official ratings potential for days, based on the expected weather, the amount of sunlight, and other seasonal and/or cultural details.
If the forecast called for a highly rated day, with perfect temperatures, low pollen counts, a sky with only the occasional wandering cloud - and this happened to be the time of year that wild strawberries were ripening in the fields – both work and school would be cancelled.
If the forecast called for a reasonably good day – by most measurements, and this was the anniversary of the day you got your first tattoo – take the day off!
Instead of notices of cancellations scrolling by at the bottom of your television, there would simply be a short note: take tomorrow off, and enjoy!
If, on the other hand, a day was expected to be particularly bleak - regardless of what day of the week or time of year, or even if it was your 50th anniversary, school would be in session, and everyone would have to go to work.
Of course there would always be the possibility of the odd, unexpectedly good day – which we would miss out on, but that would be unavoidable.
This wouldn’t simply change sleeping habits, it would change lives.
There would be no summer vacation because people would be enjoying themselves throughout the year.
Of course there would be those who try and take advantage of the situation – working on days that everyone has off. But there would be ways of dealing with these anti-social types.
Pay rates – for example, would be pro-rated based on the quality of the day.
Those working on good days would receive far less than those working on gloomy days.
It’s just common sense – and it would be infectious.
Instead of giving people meaningless tax breaks, maybe we’d give them the things they need to enjoy life, and go from there.
Health Care would be free.
Gasoline would be free.
Education would be free.
Electricity would be free.
The things we need simply to survive – the government would provide: isn’t that the way it is supposed to be?
In turn we would work hard – on those less than perfect days, and with no worries, we’d probably be more creative, more productive and - as a nation, a lot easier to get along with.
Have you noticed? Lately we’ve been pretty cranky – nationally speaking.
I don’t think that – as a nation, we’re getting enough sleep.
I don’t think that, nationally speaking again, we have enough time off.
Sorry Ben, Daylight Savings Time – no matter how much you tinker with it, doesn’t really do much of anything for anybody.
If we’re going to save daylight – or cut taxes, let’s make it worthwhile.
Not just a few minutes, here or there.
Not just a few dollars – tossed at us from Air Force One.
Otherwise, what’s the point?