Trump’s daylight saving time vow is a vote-getter
Dear Otus,
Did I hear it correctly during Wednesday’s Republican debate? Did Donald Trump actually say that when he’s elected president, the second thing he’ll do after he builds the Mexican wall is get rid of daylight saving time? Can he do that?
Say what you will about the man, but if he can pull that off, he’s got my vote.
And who the heck was that kid dressed up like Trump? — Verne Troyer,
Rogers Dear Verne,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and to agree with you that daylight saving time is an abomination and a stench in the nostrils of God.
I defy any DST proponent to find chapter and verse where it says:
“And on the eighth day God decided he shalt tweaketh that which he created the first day.
“God said, ‘Let there be daylight saving time,’ and there was daylight saving time.
“God saw that the daylight saving time was good, and he separated the daylight saving time from the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and from the darkness.
“God called the daylight saving time ‘day,’ and the darkness he called ‘night.’ And, lo, there was an extra hour of daylight between the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November. And there was evening, and there was morning — the eighth day.”
If you ask me, this whole daylightsaving thing has gotten way out of hand. What started out as a joke and a misguided conservation measure has turned into a bacchanalian, Saturnalian orgy of disgusting excess when we “fall back.”
And that is what Trump was talking about at the Coors Events Center on Wednesday at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Or rather, that’s what his new “Mini-Me” was talking about.
Trump’s Mini-Me (14-year-old Philip DiStefano of Brooklyn, N.Y.) will evidently be accompanying the candidate on all his campaign stops from now on. Apparently his function is to first say outrageous things so that Trump can react with his characteristic zingers and quips.
Say what you want about Trump, but the cagey campaigner is nothing if not entertaining.
“I believe he is a handsome lad,” Trump said about DiStefano. “And he’ll get a better education in my shadow for the next year than he would at any common core, private or eStem school in the country.”
Yeah, say what you want about Trump. You can say he’s a bloviating blowhard, a bombastic bully, a narcissistic, self-aggrandizing, grandstanding, pompous, egotistical, misogynistic, sexist, racist clown.
You can excoriate him for his incendiary, asinine, from-the-hip comments such as these actual Trumpisms:
“I have a great relationship with the blacks.”
“The beauty of me is that I’m very rich.”
“Jeb Bush likes illegals because of his wife.”
“Show me someone without an ego, and I’ll show you a loser.”
“I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.”
“All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me — consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.”
“Sorry, losers and haters, but my IQ is one of the highest, and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.”
“Arianna Huffington is unattractive both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man. He made a good decision.”
Yes, you can cringe all you want, but he and his Mini-Me are right about daylight saving time. Forget immigrating Mexican rapists and whether John McCain is a war hero just because he got captured, promising to end DST may just usher the Donald into the White House.
What began as a tongue-in-cheek proposal by Benjamin Franklin in 1784 and was tried out in 1918, became the law of the land in 1967 with the Uniform Time Act. The current March to November incarnation was established in 2007 to allow trick-ortreating in the daylight.
My bet is that the measure is almost universally reviled, especially when the weather sirens go off at 2 a.m. Sunday to remind revelers to stop partying and set their clocks back one hour.
When you hear the siren go off, you may join in with your own car horn for no longer than 60 seconds. Then go back to bed.
Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that sunset on Sunday will suddenly plunge us into Stygian darkness at the brutally early hour of 5:15 p.m. Brace yourselves.
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