Half-baked opinion

Dear Editor,

Your recent editorial on ending daylight saving time was somewhat less than persuasive. You wrote that because "not everyone is happy" the system should therefore be scrapped entirely.

You included "the airline industry" and "old codgers" among those who you said objected to the "abrupt change" while failing to explain why the rest of us should happily march in sync with those groups.

You further admitted that you "don't have any proof" for your suspicions about how much productivity is gained or lost.

And you bemoaned the poor school children who "may be returning home in the dark," yet a complete abolition of daylight savings time would seem to worsen their lot rather than improve it.

I commend you on your pioneering, our-way-or-the-highway spirit when you rally your community to join with such heavyweights as American Samoa and Hawaii in jettisoning daylight saving time. But if you're not going to follow the herd it would at least be heartening to see that!

You had given some thought to your argument, and this editorial offers no proof that you have done so. I'm including my e-mail address because I stand by my comments.

This editorial read more like a "letter to the editor" and if that's what it was then it would not be worthy of comment because uninformed readers write countless of these half-baked position papers every day. Journalists and editors, however, are commonly believed to know better.

Paul Cerra,

via e-mail