MY FALLBACK POSITION

Standard Time is an ancient and ill-conceived ritual that was inflicted on this country in 1917 while we were busy fighting the Nazis. It automatically and arbitrarily legislated that we turn our clocks back one hour every fall whether we wanted to or not.

This tyrannical practice might not have been such an ordeal in the early 1900s when alarm clocks and pocket watches were all you had to worry about.

But today we've got to change our wrist watches, phones, answering machines, coffee machines, clock radios, oven timers, microwaves, VCRs, car clocks, and a bunch of other electronic devices that serve as reminders of all the time we're wasting changing clocks.

More and more countries around the world are now on Daylight Saving Time, and it's about time we were one of them. This year DST officially starts on Sunday, March 8th at 2 AM and stays with us until November 1st. While it's comforting to have an extra hour of light for 8 months, it would be even better to have it year round.

Ben Franklin first suggested the idea of Daylight Saving to the citizens of Paris back in the 1700s. He thought he could cut back on the use of candles by giving the people an extra hour of sunlight. And frankly, I think Ben was on to something.

Not only does Daylight Saving Time give us more sun and by extension Vitamin D, it reduces the load on electricity and cuts down on oil costs, possibly even our use of candles.

It's bad enough we have 8 time-zone changes in this country. We don't need the further complication of Eastern Time and Daylight Saving. So let's just dump FALL BACK and stick with SPRING AHEAD.

Instead of obsessing about the knots in your stomach over Madoff, Wall Street, bailouts, plummeting housing costs, and the crisis of confidence regarding your future … write a cheery letter to your congressman instead.

Tell him you just want an extra hour of sun all 12 months and that you're tired of changing timing devices twice a year for reasons that make no damn sense.

@#$%*@