Does anyone really know what time it is?

I’m hoping when our Legislature meets this year that lawmakers will get rid of this twice-yearly changing of the clocks. My preference would be to keep the same time as Arizona, which stays on Mountain Standard Time year-round. Or we might choose to stay with California on Pacific time, permanently choosing either daylight or standard time. Either way, it would be better than what we have now.

Daylight-saving time was created during World War I to decrease energy use. But it’s debatable as to whether it actually does this. However, the negative consequences are clear. Anytime sleep is shortened or disrupted — by springing forward or falling back — it can cause decreases in performance, concentration and memory as well as fatigue and daytime sleepiness.

Researchers have theorized that keeping the same time year-round could decrease deaths from traffic accidents — saving up to 366 lives, according to a 2004 study in the journal Accident Analysis &Prevention. Chmura Economics &Analytics calculates the yearly cost of this disrupted sleep at $434 million in the United States.

It’s time to stop this insane practice.

Janice Herr

Las Vegas

California screamin’

So letter writer Bill Clements thinks California has one of the biggest economies in the world (Jan. 1, “California bashing”). What does that mean exactly?

I lived in California for more than 30 years and this is what I think of that state: The only good thing is the weather. Other than that:

1. Traffic is a nightmare. Always count an hour extra to go anywhere.

2. The cost of a home is nuts. Why would you pay more than $500,000 for a fixer upper?

3. Taxes are over the top. Paychecks are cut in half because of it.

4. The most smoggy place on Earth.

5. More fire hazards than any place in the country because they think they know better than nature. They stopped control burning and look at how many houses they have lost because of it.

6. They killed the small farmers with the nonsense that some fish had to be saved. So they stopped supplying water to the farmers near and including Bakersfield.

These are just some of the reasons that I left California. I do miss the weather, but not the corruption. And why does Mr. Clements live in Las Vegas and not California? Could it be some of the above?

Mary Aquino

Las Vegas

Cuban tyrant

On page 1A of Sunday’s Review-Journal, the newspaper featured many events and deaths of well known people. One man in particular, Fidel Castro, was pictured, with the caption claiming he was a “world leader.”

This is a misnomer.

Castro was not a world leader. He was a communist dictator who was responsible for morphing a once idyllic-vacation-island-nation — 90 miles from our shores — into a haven for terror. He worked hand-in-hand with Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev to threaten the United States creating the Cuban missile crisis. He also was responsible for the ensuing theft of millions of dollars of American money and property, and the purging and/or execution of thousands of its citizens.

I hope this dictator’s passing will usher in a new era for Cuba. But before we sing “Kumbaya” and send American tax dollars to buoy the nation’s economy, I think we should wait and see what the dictator’s brother has in mind.

Ron Moers

Henderson