Daylight savings time has again graced us with its presence, giving us a reason to grumble about losing an hour of sleep at 2 a.m. (unlike me, who’s still awake staring at my computer screen, wondering what I’m going to write for The Voice this week) and being thrown off our regular schedules. I saw a news report from a medical expert who wasn’t Dr. Oz stating the discomposure we feel for a couple of days is an actual medical condition, with the number of strokes and heart attacks rising significantly after the time change. I wonder: If we didn’t have any clocks around us to show us the time, would we still be having strokes and heart attacks? I still could, running into my back yard to check my sundial, but I’d probably just trip and fall and injure and inherently useful part of my body.
Here’s apolitical practice that has nothing to do with daylight savings time but seems to be applicable at any time. I’d like to say it began during the presidency of Fat Head 45, but he just seized on it, perfected it, promoted it, and unfortunately made it standard operating procedure for a group of GOP members in Congress, a group that has tossed out ethics and morals. Generally, it goes something like this:
Take any approved bill or new law passed during your predecessor’s administration (in the opposite party, of course) for the good of the American people (safety laws, bank regulations, higher taxes for millionaires, clean air and water bills, national doughnut day, etc.), void it and convince the public that it was a waste of money for taxpayers (actually only for corporate America and the rich). Then when a catastrophe occurs (large chemical spills, polluted water in homes, raining tiny frogs, etc.) because of the safeguards no longer in effect, blame it on the current administration. When people living in underserved communities (rural, minority, druid, etc.) who are the usual victims, begin to complain loudly, accuse them of being “woke” or proponents of critical race theory (CRT). The big lies will stir up the uninformed or misinformed bigots of your own party and hopefully get them to slap down these supposedly woke people. Convince the majority of your party members they’re actually the victims being discriminated against and they’re losing out because the wokes, poor, and other minorities are unfairly getting all the breaks. I’d like to say it’s endemic in both parties, but it appears some in the GOP are using it to their advantage and a large number of Americans are buying into it.
In Florida we’ve got DeSantis deciding what will be taught in schools. And that includes a full day in the fall of each year to study the evils of communism. Good, Ron. What could be more advantageous to a kid in school today than dredging up something that was put to rest in the 1950s? Joe McCarthy, where are you when Ron needs you? Forget about this CRT stuff and the evils of slavery because learning about that would make our Caucasian children feel bad about themselves. Ronny boy is sure that the slaves weren’t all miserable working in the fields sixteen hours a day, getting whipped and beaten. Just look at Uncle Remus. Most of them were happy to have housing and food provided for them without any need to read and write or attend school. The ideal life. Governor Ron won’t let CRT pollute young minds. Ignore past history if you don’t like it and it will go away. Help it along by keeping it out of books in schools, then take it a step further to say it never really happened. This process resulted in a big literary hit for George Orwell in 1984, his novel of the future.
If any of what I’ve written upsets you, wait a few years and it will go away as if it never happened. Actually, wait a few days it will end up in the bottom of your bird’s cage.