Still Life with Robin: Spring Ahead....For the Last Time?

by Peggy Robin

Spring Ahead? Could this be for the last time?

What a joy that would be! The twice yearly resetting of clocks saves NO energy (almost certainly wastes it), plays havoc with the nap schedules of small children, walk schedules of pets, and has always been a misery for anyone dealing with farm animals. Let’s not even get into all the inevitable missed appointments and screwed-up travel plans. Let’s talk money instead. The estimated cost to the economy is $434 million a year.

I’ve campaigned before in this space to abolish the time-switches (here’s my March 8, 2014 argument on the subject: http://alllifeislocal.blogspot.com/2014/03/still-life-with-robin-down-with-dst.html -- but in all honesty, I never really thought the campaign would go anywhere. But now it appears there’s a bill in Congress that has a real shot of passage. There’s bipartisan support (it’s been proposed by Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ed Markey (D-MA) along with a fast-growing list of senators and representatives, so it’s not so much a long shot! The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang has a fair report on it here: http://wapo.st/3bJ4O9b 

The bill is called the Sunshine Protection Act, and if you would like to register your opinion, pro or con, you can find out how to do so on the Gov Track website: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr69 – click on the tab marked “Call or write Congress” or you can go directly to this webpage: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr69/comment 

….And that brings me to another one of my other perennial causes: DC Statehood. Sure, we can write to Eleanor Holmes Norton about this, but fat lot of good that will do us, if she can’t vote on the bill! And we don’t have any senators to speak for us on this or any other measure that affects our lives in such a fundamental way. (But I’ll quit riding that hobby horse  for now, and take it up again some other day!)

For now my battle cry is “Spring Ahead! ….And stay there!”

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Still Life with Robin is published on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays.