Tangle - Daylight saving.

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

The great debate! Make sure you weigh in, in our poll below.The Sunshine Protection act. Yesterday, the U.S. Senate passed legislation that would make daylight saving time (the current time we're in) permanent beginning in 2023, ending the twice-annual changing of clocks to promote "brighter afternoons and more economic activity," as Reuters put it. The legislation still needs to pass in the House, and then get Biden's signature to become law, but its odds are looking better than ever.Tell us your thoughts on daylight savings hereYou can read today's podcast here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about daylight saving time. I'm going to try really hard not to say daylight savings time, which is apparently incorrect, which I learned while doing this story. This is, you know, not our typical story, but kind of a big deal, it turns out. We're going to talk about why and what's going on in just a minute. Before we do,

though, I want to jump into a quick update from the story that we covered on the pod yesterday. So yesterday, I wrote about the return of earmarks, aka pork, in Congress. I generally took a pretty positive outlook on them, but I'd like to make it a little more positive now. One of the things I was critical about was that there wasn't enough transparency in who requested what to go into the omnibus spending bill, something that was promised by Democrats. This was repeated in several articles that we cited in the newsletter and the podcast, and even in a pretty positive piece on earmarks returning to the omnibus bill,

The Washington Post did a whole section on transparency, but pointed to things like social media videos from members of Congress. Well, it turns out there was a lot more transparency than anybody was really saying, and certainly more than I said. The House Appropriations Committee and the House Senate Appropriations Committee put together exactly what I said I was looking for in yesterday's newsletter and pod, two entire web pages describing who got what earmarked. I was easily able to find a letter from my representative on what she requested for my district here in Brooklyn. I know this because a reader who works in appropriations in Congress sent me a rightfully frustrated email about the work that went into creating these pages only to watch everyone seemingly miss them. I've published the email in full. There's a link to it

in today's newsletter. I certainly would have loved to know rather than doing what I did, which was sift through hundreds of pages of a bill and dozens of local stories while asking my newest intern to spend a whole morning finding examples of the earmarks. So given that I was generally pro earmarks yesterday, this doesn't really change my take, but I was pretty shocked to see that the very thing I was asking for was actually out there and existed and somehow I missed it. So I wanted to make sure I kind of corrected the record on that. And thank you to the reader who's asked to remain anonymous, who reached out and submitted those materials. It was super helpful and I very much appreciate it. All right, so first up, we'll start with some quick hits for the day. Number one, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed Congress this morning invoking

Pearl Harbor and pleading with President Biden to institute a no-fly zone and be the leader of the world. Meanwhile, negotiators say peace talks between Russia and Ukraine are becoming more realistic. Number two, the Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates today for the first time since 2018. Number three, military prosecutors are negotiating a plea bargain with the men accused of orchestrating the September 11th attacks. The deal would allow the defendants to admit guilt but forego a death sentence. Number four, China extended its COVID-19 lockdown to a province that encompasses 24 million residents as a variant of COVID-19 continues to spread. Number five, Sarah Bloom Raskin withdrew her nomination to be the Fed's top banking regulator

after Senator Joe Manchin, the Democrat from West Virginia, signaled he would vote against her. All right, that is it for the quick hits, which brings us to today's topic, daylight saving. Yesterday, the United States Senate passed legislation that would make daylight saving time, the current time we're in, permanent beginning in 2023, ending the twice annual changing of clocks to promote brighter afternoons and more economic activity, as Reuters put it. The legislation still needs to pass the House and then get President Biden's signature to become law, but its odds are looking better than ever.

The bill is dubbed the Sunshine Protection Act. The White House has not indicated whether Biden will sign it. Right now, the bill has bipartisan backing from Democrats and Republicans in the Senate. You'll see it's an eclectic collection of members of the United States Senate in favor of what we've just done here in the Senate, and that's to pass a bill making daylight saving time permanent, Senator Marco Rubio, the Republican from Florida, said on the Senate floor. Just this past weekend, we all went through that biannual ritual of changing the clock back and forth and the disruption that comes with it. And one has to ask themselves after a while, why do we keep doing it? The use of daylight saving has been in place in most of

the US since the 1960s, though it was first tried in 1918. It's actually a myth that daylight saving time was used to extend time for farmers. It was mostly about conserving electricity. Year-round daylight saving was adopted in 1973 because of an oil embargo as an attempt to use less energy, but then repealed a year later. The experiment continued into 1974, but as the winter wore on and the mornings remained darker for longer, support for the change dwindled. Today, Arizona and Hawaii remain in standard time year round, and dozens of states have adopted bills to move to daylight saving time year round as well, but they can't do it without congressional

approval. Supporters of the measure point to studies that have shown car crashes, heart attacks, and strokes increase after the time changes. Some also argue that the change would cause less seasonal depression and help businesses like golf courses, which could operate longer with more hours of daylight. Others say making standard time permanent would be a healthier option because it exposes people to more light in the morning and less in the evening, which cuts back on sleep deprivation. Most polls show that about 65 to 71 percent of Americans support making one time permanent, though they are split on which one. In 2019 and 2021, the Associated Press' Newark Center for Public Affairs research found that about 40% of Americans

want year-round standard time, while about a third want daylight saving time. In a moment, you're going to hear some arguments for and against this change, and then my take. All right, first up, we're going to start with the people who are arguing that we should make the change to permanent daylight-saving time. Those supporting the change point to everything from the disruption of switching our clocks to concerns about people's sleep and health. Others say the economic benefits would be numerous. Many argue that switching our clocks to concerns about people's sleep and health. Others say the economic benefits would be numerous. Many argue that switching our clocks back and forth is a dated practice. Senators Edward Markey, the Democrat from Massachusetts, and Marco Rubio, the Republican from Florida, who sponsored the bill together, wrote about why they're pushing it in CNN.

Stolen evening sunlight can also negatively impact mental health, they wrote. The effects of darker afternoons on our mental health and physical health can be serious. The biannual tradition of spring forward and fall back disrupts circadian sleeping patterns, causing confusion, sleep disturbances, and even an elevated risk to heart health. A Danish study found hospitals see an 11% uptick in patients with symptoms of depression immediately following the switch from sunnier daylight saving time to the darker standard time in the fall. By making our days brighter year-round, we can also permanently speed up the clock on seasonal depression triggered by the dark days of winter. Furthermore, extra sunshine in the evenings can give our economy a boost, with consumer spending up 3.5% when we have more daylight in the evenings according to

the same study in Denmark. And beyond this statistic, there's the simple truth that we all like more sunshine. Evening daylight hours mean more of the day to enjoy after work and allows our kids more time to play after school. It's really straightforward. Cutting back on the sun during the fall and winter is a drain on the American people and does little to nothing to help them. It's time we retire this tired tradition. In the Washington Post, Helene Olin said,

To an extent, we might thank COVID-19 for helping to clarify preferences for late afternoon sunshine, Olin said. When the pandemic lockdowns reset schedules far and wide, a clear favorite emerged. During homebound periods in 2020, when the boundaries between work days and weekends blurred, students and workers alike slept later in the morning and stayed up longer at night, a schedule that resembles the later day start of daylight saving time. One study, commissioned by mattress manufacturer Lisa Sleep, found that almost half of remote workers didn't get out of bed till 10 minutes before they needed to report to their at-home workstation, Olin said. Meanwhile, electricity use noticeably fell between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m., leaving experts to theorize that people headed outdoors to bask in the daylight. Data points not only suggest why so many workers aren't interested in resuming their daily commute,

but also help explain why political momentum is with the group that wants to spring forward this March and not fall back months later. In town hall, Jeff Kruer said the time for switching our clocks is long gone. Fortunately, there is finally some hope there will actually be action by Congress, Kruer said. A bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators have introduced the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021. This legislation will end the twice-yearly clock-changing practices and make daylight saving time permanent. One of the sponsors of the legislation, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, complained that I prefer daylight savings over standard, but in the end what I really want is to end this stupid twice-a-year time shift. Senator Rubio is right. The time shift is stupid, and it needs to end, he added. To promote his legislation, Senator Rubio's office

issued a press release highlighting some of the reasons why our country should make daylight saving time permanent. The potential positive effects include reducing childhood obesity, benefiting the agriculture economy, and reducing energy usage. With bipartisan support, the legislation can pass pass and we can end the madness. All right, so that is it for the people who are supporting this change, and these are the people who are against the change. Those against the change say we've tried this before and people hated it. They note that it would make mornings much, much darker, and some argue that switching to permanent standard time

is a better option than permanent daylight saving time. Last year, Josh Barrow wrote that we already tried permanent daylight saving time and people hated it. I don't just mean that having an extra hour of sunlight in the evening will be great. The sun will set Manhattan at 7.02 p.m. on Sunday late enough to enjoy a COVID safe outdoor dinner in the twilight. But the practice of changing our clocks back and forth each year is itself great. As I wrote three years ago, our current time policy is great, notwithstanding the whining we see annually on Twitter and even more from some lawmakers,

because it helps us coordinate society so more people are able to wake up shortly after sunrise for more of the year. This leaves daylight hours available after school and work to the extent that it is possible at a time of year based on the Earth's axial tilt. And it's great because all the other options are worse. Under the Sunshine Protection Proposal, the sun would rise on December 21st at 8.17 a.m. in Manhattan. In Detroit, the sun would not rise until 8.58 a.m. In Grand Rapids, 9.11 a.m. I understand that a lot of people start their days when it's dark out, but this policy would force many, many more people to do so for weeks or even months of the year,

depending on what they do and where they are located. Less than nine months after the U.S. adopted year-round daylight saving in 1974, the House voted 383 to 16 to repeal it. 383 to 16. Of course, nobody really thinks that changing the clocks ruins their lives. It's a minor inconvenience, but people love to complain. It's fun. Daylight Saving Time provides a nice, low-stakes opportunity to complain, and people love that. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond

Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. In Slate, Jim Newell suggested scratching the surface a bit more. The thing about moving to daylight saving time permanently, however, is that it does not actually create more sunlight, Newell said. It will get dark an hour later in winter, sure, but it would also be very dark when people are waking up and going to work and school.

In D.C., for example, sunrise under daylight saving time on December 21st would be 8.23 a.m. It would be worse the farther west one is in a time zone. In Cleveland, the sunrise would be at 8.50 a.m. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, 9.11 a.m. And there's good evidence to believe that people might not like a change to permanent DST once it's implemented. The United States did this exact thing and people hated it, Newell said. Shortly after it was implemented in 1974, people started going to work and school in the dark and polling support collapsed. It screwed up circadian rhythms. Everyone was losing it. It didn't help with energy costs either, so the experiment wasn't renewed. Have times changed?

Sure. Much fewer kids are walking to school now, so there's less immediate safety concern about sending them out into the dark streets in the morning. That, however, does not solve the problem of people being miserable and confused if they've been up for a dark streets in the morning. That, however, does not solve the problem of people being miserable and confused if they've been up for a couple hours in the dark. In the New York Times, Amelia Nirenberg explained the case for permanent standard time, not permanent daylight saving time. Several coalitions of scientists, including the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, on the other hand, argue that standard time, with its brighter mornings,

is more naturally aligned with the progression of the sun, and therefore with the body's natural clock, Nirenberg wrote. However, the studies in favor of this argument similarly do not prove cause and effect. Scientists say that a permanent switch to daylight saving time might throw people's circadian rhythms out of whack, leading to unintended health consequences. Bright mornings help people wake up and stay alert. Dark nights allow for the production of melatonin, the hormone that triggers sleep, she added. When it's too light at night, it can be hard to fall asleep. When it's too dark in the morning, it can be hard to wake up. Together, both circumstances could lead to sleep deprivation. One 2019 study, which looked at how

light affects people at opposite ends of a single time zone, found that an extra hour of natural light in the evening led to an average of 19 fewer minutes of sleep. Chronic sleep deprivation has been linked to a range of health conditions like obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. All right, so that is it for the for and against take, which brings us to my take. I can't tell if this is like one of the silliest debates ever taken up by Congress or low key, maybe one of the most important potential changes to daily life in America that Congress has ever explored. I'm not a sleep scientist, an energy economist, or a cardiologist, so I'm mostly blowing smoke on pretending to know what's what. But what I can do, like most Americans, is share my own direct experience as I have the benefits I get from good sleep.

And this bill is so well-timed, kudos to Rubio and Markey's smart politics, that it's top of mind for me on the tail of the change. This whole week, I've been a mess, seriously. My wife makes fun of me for having a milit tale of the change. This whole week, I've been a mess, seriously. My wife makes fun of me for having a militant bedtime routine. Before 10pm, I need to be in bed reading, which I do literally until I start to fall asleep. I do this so I can get up promptly at 6am every day to either hit the gym or jump into work and start writing the newsletter and doing the podcast. This week, though, I have been having trouble falling asleep, watching the clock pass 11 p.m., and even more trouble getting up. Today, I wasn't out of bed until after 7.30 a.m. I know we're only three days into the change, but there's no doubt it's disruptive, annoying, and makes me

feel awful. For someone who tries to tie their sleep schedule to things like daylight, the change makes me feel tired and agitated. So it was affirming to read all these experts talk about how later daylight disrupts sleep and darker mornings make it hard to get going. I felt that acutely these last few days. At the same time, though, leaving work at 6 or 6.30 and having another hour of sunlight has been a joy. Yesterday in New York, it was actually kind of warm when I walked home from the office. It's hard to put a price on that, and the result was that I actually dragged myself outside to sit on my front steps and watch the world go by for a

few minutes. Definitely a nice change. After reading all these arguments, though, I think I ultimately land in a place where what we have is both annoying and terrible, but also probably better than the alternatives. Josh Barrow's piece basically put me over the top. If we went permanent standard time, we'd be getting sunrise in Manhattan at 425 a.m. in June. If we go permanent daylight saving time, the sun wouldn't come up until after 8 a.m. in the winter. If we keep what we have, we avoid the worst of both worlds and deal with this miserable week once a year. Falling back obviously is a lot easier. Do I love it? No. Is the cynic in me shouting that Congress may finally agree on something and it's a change that actually isn't all that great? Yep. Am I curious to just try permanent daylight saving time for a year and see how it goes? Definitely. But my inclination

right now is that the system that we have is actually the best option, even if I'm writing this week from a foggy brain and tired eyes. Anyway, we're actually kind of curious what you think. So we put a poll in the episode description today and in the newsletter. If you click that poll, you can take it. It'll take like 15 seconds. Let us know how you feel. We're very curious. All right, that is it for the main story today. That brings us to your questions answered. Bill from Wayne, New Jersey, who I believe has written in a couple times now, asked, I just read that Chris Lick, the new head of CNN, would like to refocus CNN on hard news and move away from political talking points.

Given your mission, I was wondering how you would go about this if you were in his shoes. An assumption I'm making is that it would have to fit into the confines of maintaining their ratings given the nature of the medium. Yeah, I think it's going to be really tough, maybe impossible. CNN's business model now has fallen into the trap of partisan warfare, and as far as I can tell, it gets its best ratings when it's feeding its viewers what they now want, the anti-Trump content. I don't know how you get past that, and I'm not sure how CNN will even operate or what their editorial direction will look like once Trump fades from politics. That being said, I could certainly say what I'd do. I'd lean into international news. For all the legitimate criticisms of CNN, its coverage abroad has always been stellar, perhaps the best in the business.

From Anderson Cooper on the ground in the wake of a natural disaster to any number of the amazing war reporters and foreign correspondents, CNN has for a long time brought stories and images into American homes that you really can't find from other news organizations. The same can actually be said of Fox News, by the way, who tragically lost a veteran cameraman and a contracted Ukrainian reporter to gunshot wounds this week while they were reporting on the ground in a war zone. Basically, CNN's superpower is on the ground breaking news coverage around major events in

the U.S. and major foreign stories, so I'd make that the focus and get out of the Thunderdome punditry game. Would it work financially? I honestly don't know. But if he's sincere about abandoning what they do now, that strikes me as the best path forward. All right, that is it for our question and answer section, which brings us to the story that matters. So one of the big major issues heading into the 2022 midterms is violent crime. For months, Republicans have been hammering Democrats over the rise in homicides that has taken place under President Biden and in the wake of a wave of social justice and anti-police protests that took place in 2020. This rise in violent crime is happening both in Democratic and Republican-led cities.

But now the Democratic think tank, Third Way, is out with a new and very provocative counter-narrative. They're calling it the red state murder problem. Third Way notes that eight out of the top 10 murder rates per capita are in states that voted for Trump in 2020. In the 25 states that voted for Biden, the murder rate was 5.78 per 100,000 residents. In the 25 states that voted for Trump, it was 8.2 per 100,000 residents. In the 25 states that voted for Trump, it was 8.2 per 100,000 residents. This is one of our first previews of the Democratic counter-narrative on crime that might be coming as we head into 2022, a debate that could be a critical part of local and congressional races across the country. There's a link to the report in today's newsletter.

a link to the report in today's newsletter. All right, that brings us to our numbers section for the day. So we're going to jump in with some stuff about time. The time of sunrise in Washington, D.C. on September 15th right now is 548 a.m. The time of sunrise in Washington, D.C. on September 15th, if we switch to permanent daylight saving time, would be 648 a.m. The time of sunrise in Washington, D.C. on September 15th if we switch to permanent daylight saving time would be 6.48 a.m. The time of sunrise in Washington, D.C. on November 15th right now is usually about 6.51 a.m. The time of sunrise in Washington, D.C. on November 15th if we switch to permanent daylight saving time would be 7.51 a.m. would be 7.51 a.m. The rate at which heart attacks spike in the days following spring forward in March is 24%, according to a 2014 study from the University of Michigan. And finally, a separate number that I just thought was super interesting. The number of people who applied for small business licenses last year was 5.4 million, a 53% jump from 2019 pre-pandemic.

All right, last but not least, we have our have a nice day story. A Russian state television employee just risked her freedom to warn Russians about the war happening in Ukraine. On Monday, she ran out behind the anchorwoman during the evening news on Russia's state television channel One, holding up a sign warning viewers don't believe propaganda. Here they are lying to you, Russians against war. The woman was identified as a TV editor at the station. Her protest is likely to cost her her freedom.

Thousands of anti-war protesters have been put in prison in Russia, and the Russian general prosecutor's office is allegedly reporting the incident. Vice has the story, and there's a link to it in today's newsletter. All right, everybody, that is it for the podcast today. As always, you can go to the episode description to support our work, but today there's something very special. You can take that poll. So go click on the poll, take it, and then click on a link to donate or support our work or do whatever because you know we need the help thank you guys so much and uh we'll see you this time tomorrow peace our newsletter is written by isaac saul Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo.

The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. We'll see you next time. becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.