Forget the rest of the post, I just think it's cool that you went to see the Asylum Street Spankers. Fun band. An old friend from Texas got me into them a few years ago.

Does anyone know what the advantage would be in switching back to regular time in the winter? In the winter, the sun may not rise before people wake up, but I think it would be better for it to be light when people have come home from work or school than in the early morning. I do not think offices, schools, and factories usually turn off their lights even when the sun is up, anyway, but people might actually do this at home. Also, there would be no need to change the time twice a year.

It would still be light after 10 PM for part of the summer, but it is the changing of the clocks that bothers me.

Ed, yes, they were awesome.

Karl, the disadvantages of winter DST are increased morning traffic accidents due to lower light levels and groggier drivers. (Also, little kids congregate by the side of the road in the dark during winter.) Pedestrian accidents are also causes for concern.

I think we should just switch to Greenwich Mean Time. I mean then we'd *really* be in synch. (No excuses for missing your favorite shortwave broadcast then.) And think of all the daylight! If we got to work at 08:00 GMT and got off work at 17:00 GMT, then we'd be home just as the sun was directly overhead (noon to us benighted Hoosiers). Jeeze, we'd *save* like 5 to 9 hours of daylight *every* day, year round. Our economy would really boom then. ('Cuz it's all about the economy, I've been told).

Incidentally, the 3 Republicans who flip-flopped on the issue all represented parts of White County, my home county. Representatives Gutwein, McClain, and Lehe could find themselves facing a little electoral heat over the issue here in rural, western Indiana where Eastern Daylight Time isn't necessarily popular.

Having grown up in Indiana and having now lived in Pennsylvania for almost 6 years, I like DST. I don't have to crawl out of bed in complete darkness in the winter, nor does the sun start to shine into my bedroom at 5 AM in the summer.

Perhaps Indiana should join the central time zone at the same time they implement DST...although being the easternmost state in the central time zone might cause similar annoyances to being the westernmost state in the eastern time zone.

Alas, I missed the Spankers to give a tour of IU to a friend of the family who is both a 20th Century Scholar and in the top 3% of her class.

I hope the show was good Zach, I'll have to catch them with my girlfriend the next time they play Radio Radio.

Comments on DST? Ha, with my significant other the topic is worse than the dreaded "Does this make me look fat" question. Zach if things dont work out, I should introduce you to her.

A change to the central time zone would require approval from the U.S. Dept. of Transportation. But, you've got it right that Indiana's geographic position is the reason this debate is so divisive. We're a little too far west for Eastern Daylight Time to be a very good idea and a little too far east for Central Standard Time to be a good idea. So, in my humble opinion, Eastern Standard Time fits us pretty well year 'round.

Zach,

You must not have ever lived outside of Indiana (or Arizona) because if you had, you would realize what a blessing DST is. The day after the time change a few weeks ago, a Monday, I went home with the sun shining at 7 p.m. The previous Friday, at 7 p.m., the sun had long set. Depressing.

DST saves energy, cuts down on crime and improves moral of citizens. It's very important that Indiana get DST (I am a former resident that misses his home state).

You state that Indiana's legislature should expend more of their "political capital" on things like new construction, but you should realize that things like new construction don't need political capital. Everyone likes new construction (as long as taxes don't have to be raised). It's controversial ideas like DST that have to be debated.

I grew up in Richmond, IN but went to college in Oxford, Ohio -- just across the border. I was always in a foul mood in April when I had 8 a.m. classes. Once Eastern Daylight Time kicked in, all I could think of when I trudged to class on a cold morning was how I could be sleeping for another hour if I were in Indiana, 15 miles to the west. So, I disagree with your assertion that morale improves.

Many Hoosiers (including my whole lunchroom - so there's some anecdotal proof for you debaters) don't seem to care about daylight savings, but are fired up over which time zone we will align with. My understanding is that because the current bill does not address time zone directly, the status quo of Eastern will remain, but we will follow Ohio into Daylight instead of staying on Standard all year. Therein lies the problem for a lot of us. Growing up near Evansville, I got to see Letterman, the 4th quarter of Monday Night Football, and I experienced many other advantages of having prime time TV start an hour earlier.

The couch potato in me is much more interested in switching to Central time than going to daylight savings, and I think I speak for most of this nation's premier couch potato state when I demand the switch to Central Time.

I wish Petronius's lunch room had gone to the House hearings to testify! Definitely second the couch potato perspective. Growing up in Richmond, I loved summer because the Ohio stations would broadcast prime time an hour earlier. Currently, I get some Indy stations and some northern Indiana affiliates. The Northern Indiana stations are in synch with Chicago and, oddly, broadcast an hour earlier than the Indy stations.

I've never really understood why the Indy stations tape delay all their stuff. The Illinois stations seem to just broadcast their network feeds at the same time it's going out over the EDT stations. So, a program played at 8:00 p.m. (EDT) in Ohio will get played at 7:00 p.m. (CDT) in Chicago and will get delayed an hour and played at 8:00 p.m. (EST) in Indianapolis. Consequently, Indianapolis programs are playing an hour later than they show in Ohio and in Illinois.

The previous Friday, at 7 p.m., the sun had long set. Depressing.

I finally see what this is really all about -- this is just a contest between people who wake up early and those other people who wake up late. Personally, I get more out of seeing the sun before 7 AM than seeing it at 7 PM, and this summer, I am going to enjoy seeing it at 5 AM more than I would have enjoyed it at 10 PM. (And I am certainly glad that, at least this year, the part of the year during which the sun shines directly into my eyes while I am driving downtown will occur only once in the spring and once in the fall, instead of twice.)

The only logical way to solve Indiana's time problem is to ask the major breweries what they want.

I was talking with an old Hoosier yesterday and he said that in the old days the struggle between DST believers and DST haters was often between the golf courses and the drive-in movie theaters. I guess the golf courses are a stronger lobby these days.

The pressure for the change mostly came from large corporations who are involved in interstate trucking / shipping, etc, for whom Indiana being an outlier meant Indiana = pain in the ass. Mostly.