Am I becoming a conspiracy theorist? Perhaps that question speaks for itself...
Anyway, it's about daylight savings time. Its origins are a bit murky and seem almost casual. As I age unclear reasons for government mandated events stir me into feeling like the powers that be are messing with our equilibrium once again to keep us from paying attention to their foolishness and thievery.
A bit of history. Though Benjamin Franklin noted that hitting the hay early and hopping out of it early was the ticket to a healthy and prosperous life, his times were not big on schedules. Not like the big-business-money-corporations of the 19th century such as trains, along with British bureaucracy and the industrial revolution (which one day just might appear on grammar school time lines as the biggest blackest mark of human kind ever) spread black coal dust around the world and laid to waste bucolic lassitude with serious requirements for schedules!
Oddly though, the actual inventor who proposed DST was a shift working New Zealander amateur entomologist who wanted more time to collect bugs after work. About that same time a powerful builder in England tired of his golf game being interrupted by dusk and his fellow Londoner's wasting beautiful summer days by lying in started to lobby parliament. Though that builder didn't see DST adapted within his lifetime by 1916 it was becoming a reality in Europe. The first true adapters were Germany as they waged war and needed to save on coal consumption. Many neutral countries in Europe followed suit, with Russia doing so a year later. By 1918 the US had adapted DST seeking also to conserve on coal usage. Similar to today's roiling momentum of the "Snuggie" phenomenon, one thing led to another.
My entire life I blamed the farmers thinking DST was to help out crop production but as it turns out it's harmful to that and it was actually a lovely little bug collector from down under whose idea was adapted by European super powers to facilitate world domination.
Apparently today in our ever so modern times there are less traffic fatalities during DST but probably most importantly retail sales and sporting events benefit hugely from the lengthened after work hours of day light.
So there you have, our circadian rhythms are disrupted twice a year for the sake of shopping. Maybe those kids on "The Hills" do understand life way better then me.
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