Recently I briefly posted a link on my Facebook page to an older entry here, the one about why I hate the changeover to Daylight Saving Time so much. (More on that shortly.) I took the link down after an acquaintance told me to "get a grip." She scolded me that there are so many more important things that negatively impact "her life, her family, her country." Honestly, my first reaction was pretty extreme, in that I wanted to slap her across her face. Hard.
Hey, if you don't like what someone puts up on the Internet, just move on. There's no need to scold, or to start flame wars, or to troll someone. If you can't say something nice, keep quiet. Or was Mommy too busy doing something else to teach you that basic lesson? Just vote with your feet, walk away, and keep your opinion to yourself. Don't scold me like you're my mom. I'm 63. My mom died, 35 years ago from ovarian cancer at the age of 48. How's that for a negative impact on a life?
Or this: it happens that one of the people dearest to me in the world now walks (if one can call it that) on one leg because she lost the other one in a car accident. She had the accident when a distracted driver slammed into her on the Monday following the time change. One of the 17% more accidents we have on average because of DST. I mention this only to illustrate the point that if one doesn't know the entire story, maybe find out before climbing up on that high horse and telling someone to "get a grip."
In any event, I took the link down, but not because someone went all bitchy on me. I took it down because in a very real sense, I had already said everything I could say on the subject. And I didn't do it nearly as well, or as amusingly as John Oliver did in his HBO show, Last Week Tonight:
Hey, if you don't like what someone puts up on the Internet, just move on. There's no need to scold, or to start flame wars, or to troll someone. If you can't say something nice, keep quiet. Or was Mommy too busy doing something else to teach you that basic lesson? Just vote with your feet, walk away, and keep your opinion to yourself. Don't scold me like you're my mom. I'm 63. My mom died, 35 years ago from ovarian cancer at the age of 48. How's that for a negative impact on a life?
Or this: it happens that one of the people dearest to me in the world now walks (if one can call it that) on one leg because she lost the other one in a car accident. She had the accident when a distracted driver slammed into her on the Monday following the time change. One of the 17% more accidents we have on average because of DST. I mention this only to illustrate the point that if one doesn't know the entire story, maybe find out before climbing up on that high horse and telling someone to "get a grip."
In any event, I took the link down, but not because someone went all bitchy on me. I took it down because in a very real sense, I had already said everything I could say on the subject. And I didn't do it nearly as well, or as amusingly as John Oliver did in his HBO show, Last Week Tonight:
Yes, there are many awful things plaguing our society and our individual lives. There are unspeakable tragedies, from infant deaths to suicide. There is the irreparable damage done to our environment by fracking and by greed. There is the travesty of a viable presidential candidacy by one Donald J. Trump.
None of which I can fix. None of which I can do one goddamned thing about.
Switching back and forth to and from Daylight Saving Time is STUPID. We do it blindly because everybody else does, and because we human primates are a bunch of greedy, stupid chimps who like to follow blindly along. (See reference to Donald J. Trump, above.) No, I can't fix Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. All the picketing and protesting is not going to change corporate greed and get the oil companies to stop fracking. I can't fix greed, and I sure as hell can't fix ovarian cancer.
But I can urge people to try to stop doing one stupid thing. That's all. Just one stupid thing. This stupid thing does not save energy. It has nothing to do with helping farmers. What it does do, it increases the risk of heart attack by 25%, increases time lost at work, and increases traffic accidents dramatically, all because it's UNNECESSARY, SELF -IMPOSED JET LAG.
When you see somebody doing something that is not only stupid but harmful, you say something. That's what Mommy taught me.
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