Ugh, dear reader.  The world is too much with me, as Uncle Bill used to say.  Far too much time spent on the road lately.  Very uninspiring.  That and I’ve got The Angst, big time.  Angst with a side of fantods.  And it sucks.

In addition to that, there’s this: you know how I don’t really get involved in politics at all?  Maybe you don’t.  The transient politics of humans hold little interest to me (so you can imagine how unceasingly bored I’ve been with pretty much everything for the last two years).  But I suddenly started hearing about a proposition allegedly on the mid-term ballot that would repeal Daylight Savings Time.  The significance of this may require a bit of additional explanation.  It is difficult for me to find words that truly express the utter contempt I have for Daylight Saving Time.  It is a bit of an embarrassment to me to be part of a society that engages in such a silly and pointless practice.  Try keeping a straight face while attempting to explain it to someone from another country.  I don’t think it can be done.  And if you do manage to pull it off, I can guarantee that the person you’re telling will be at least smirking unkindly.  Hell, our own Native Americans have described Daylight Saving Time as being “like cutting a foot off the bottom of a blanket, then sewing it back on to the top of the same blanket, and then claiming that you have a longer blanket.  Which sums it up pretty damn accurately, I think.  I have long said that after The Revolution, once I assume power, the first order of business will be not just to repeal but to in fact ban Daylight Saving Time forever as one of the few truly foolish and stupid ideas to ever come out of this country.  Fuck Daylight Saving Time.
So I’m hearing all this stuff about Proposition 7 , and I’ve been responding with caution: if this thing actually repeals DST, then vote for it as many times as you can.
Dear Reader, that is not what California’s Proposition 7 does at all.  It actually does the exact opposite: basically, it gives the legislature the power to enact PERMANENT DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME.  This would be a nightmare.
I doubt you remember 1974, when Nixon declared emergency year-round DST for 16 months in response to the rather dire energy crisis we were having.  It lasted 10 months, and then the riots began.  People went nuts.  They started lighting each other on fire in broad daylight, and eating the neighborhood children.  It was a terrifying time, and I was lucky to make it out alive myself, and I’m not no hurry to return to those dark days.
Jesus, speaking of darkness, let me quickly put to rest any flat-earthers who also think that DST is a good or even necessary idea: it isn’t.  The notion that farmers, ranchers, or any other agrarian sort needs DST to function is absurd.  They get up whenever the hell they need to get up, which is usually about 2 hours before the sun comes up, regardless of what time you want to call it.
The notion that non-agrarian folks need DST for any reason whatsoever is ludicrous: electric light has been standard in American homes and businesses for about 70 years now, and the energy-efficient and mega-effective bulbs readily available to all consumers and businesses, the amount of sunlight in our sky has no real effect on what we are able to do or how we conduct ourselves.  Rather than cause societal trauma twice a year, with an exponential increase in heart attacks and hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity, I offer this simple and perfectly reasonable solution: if the gets dark outside but you are not quite ready to go to bed, turn on the lights.  If the sun is not yet up when you get to work in the morning, turn on the lights.  If you need more daylight in your day, wake up earlier.  But don’t throw the rest of us into temporal turmoil twice a year because turning on the lights or setting an alarm clock are just too much for you to handle.
The two idiots behind this turd of a proposition are Kansen Chu and Lorera Gonzalez.  I feel a strongly worded letter coming on.

Damn, that reminds me…I already have a strongly-worded letter I need to write to Mr. P.F. Chang regarding the sudden absence of tempura green beans from the menus of their Bay Area locations (I haven’t checked the rest of the country yet, but I’m almost afraid to).

Also, the second thing I’m going to do when I assume power after The Revolution is to void all Oregon state issued driver’s licenses and ban Oregonians from all public roads.  Look…we given it a fair chance, but those people are just not meant to drive.

N.P.: “Tainted Love” – Marilyn Manson