When I was in high school, I boycotted daylight saving time one year. I kept my watch on standard time. I recognized that everybody else, from my teachers to my parents to public schedules were cowed by the government to shift their times one hour. You can probably tell I wasn’t much into obedience almost forty years ago.
I am looking forward to the extra hour of sleep tonight. Or more likely, the extra hour of morning sunlight I will enjoy as I wake at the same relative time. Then I will take my time getting ready for church.
The red countries above have never used DST. The orange countries used to observe it. Blues still do.
My dad was a watchmaker. He would warn us not to fall back, but to spring forward eleven hours if we were setting a mechanical clock. Y’all probably have digital now, so no worries.
3 November 2012 at 11:01 pm
I was in El Salvador in May to July 1987 when the President Duarte government tried daylight savings time. When asked what time it was the response was another question, “Duarte’s time or the people’s time.”
Daylight savings time was not tried again in El Salvador as far as I know.
The “revolt” against daylight savings time in El Salvador had a political underpinning. Duarte headed the murderous government (supported by the US) and many of the people (“el pueblo”) supported the FMLN guerrillas.
This is not to say that all of the opponents of DST were guerrilla supporters, but my guess is that all guerrilla supporters opposed DST.
As an aside, in the end, with the 1992 ceasefire, neither the guerrillas nor the government “won” – though the government had to give in and make serious changes.