Daylight

The start of daylight saving time started today. After two decades, the date was moved from the first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in March. Many expected a "mini-Y2K' since many automated systems were still on the old start and stop dates.

The computer I'm using now, running a well-patched version of Windows 2000, was not aware of the change. I'll have to remember to fix it again, as it will presumably make the change when due in April.

A friend remarked that daylight saving time is exceptionally unobserved in Indiana. Actually, I think that's mostly in northwest Indiana, owing to the large number of people there who commute every day into Chicago. And in the south, bordering Louisville, Kentucky, for a similar reason. But there may be other pockets, seeing as daylight saving time is un-Biblical. Which logic seems to rule the rest of that most southern of northern Midwestern states.

Daylight saving time is a nuisance of changing clocks and smoke alarm batteries.

But the deeper message is easily unobserved in our modern world: The daylight-days get longer and shorter, the moon (see the sidebar) waxes and wanes. We are awash in a natural world but expend so much effort trying to deny it, and mitigate or remedy it's effects.

Like the equinoxes, it makes me think of the tilt of the earth, the celestial dance, and all that.

By the way, it's daylight saving time, not daylight savings time - it's not an S&L, folks.

Seasons at Wikipedia.
Daylength at Wikipedia.