Go jump in a lake (and take a clock, too)

Prepare to reset your clocks.\nAt 2 a.m. Sunday, Indiana will conform with the majority of the country and begin observing daylight-saving time for the first time since 1970. All political arguments aside, let's get down to the heart of this concept from a cultural level.\nTwice a year, humans around the world wake up early to change their clocks. The rotation and position of the earth does not change at this time. The sun does not naturally rise or set any earlier or later. The weather does not change to correspond with this man-made ritual.\nIn his 1784 essay, "Turkey versus Eagle, McCauley is my Beagle," Benjamin Franklin suggested that shops open and close at different times to save money on lighting, supposedly as a joke, according to www.infoplease.com. In the early 20th century, it caught on in parts of Western Europe. DST was a rule during both World War I and World War II for economic reasons and during the energy crisis of the early 1970s. Since then, it has started in April and ended in October. But beginning next Spring, as a result of a law signed by the always energy-conscious George W. Bush in 2005, DST will exist for an extra month out of the year, from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November.\nSo, President Bush and Gov. Mitch Daniels, does this mean you acknowledge our energy crisis?\nAfter WWII, Japan participated in DST at the order of its U.S. occupiers but the Japanese farmers voted it down after a vigorous campaign in 1952.\nAccording to a report in The Herald-Times on Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Transportation has ordered the local government of Pulaski County in northern Indiana to abide by the Central Time Zone. Yet the citizens fiercely wish to remain in Eastern. The county is going so far as to change its operating hours so that its schedule is still in synch with its Eastern Zone neighbors. The change does not benefit it; it causes more confusion. \nSaving energy is a great thing. I turn off lights and carpool or walk whenever I can. Still, perhaps we should just change our time or business hours permanently, instead of springing forward and falling back every year, if that is our real concern.\nProponents of DST want to conform in business, match Chicago or New York and gain daylight in the evenings. I think those are irrelevant, though. People want DST because the majority has it and the majority wants to keep it because the majority has it. Sounds circular to me. I think the pull toward this tradition is cultural. We like traditions, regardless of their now meaningless origins. Tell us DST in Indiana will bring in money and we will follow, drooling as well.\nI must defer to an age-old cliché: Indiana, if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you, too? Apparently, the answer is yes. Beginning Sunday morning, we will all jump and join our friends in the lake.