[NYTr] NY Times Obsessed wth the Clocks of Venezuela

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[This is the second item in three days on a Venezuelan proposal to
change their clocks. That and the $800K suitcase caper seem to be the
Times' major subjects of interest recently in Venezuela -- the RCTV
flap having gone nowhere when the Venezuelan Supreme Court ruled for
the station and against Chavez.]


VIO Venezuela Daily News Roundup - Aug 21, 23, 2007.

[President Chavez announced a half-hour change to Venezuela's time zone
last Sunday, a move which the New York Times explores today in an op-ed
column.  The change, it is found, would return the country to the
system it used before 1965, and is linked to a plan to shorten the work
day from eight hours to six hours in 2008.  Moving the clocks ahead by
half an hour may seem arbitrary, but perhaps no more so than daylight
savings in the U.S.  The Times also finds comfort in a comment by one
expert that announcements made by Chavez do not always come to fruition
in a formal sense (e.g. by being signed into law), by wittily adding
that "If only we had a similar system in the United States, imagine all
the things we might have avoided over the last six years."  The time
zone change is separate from a package of constitutional reform
proposals passed in a preliminary vote by the National Assembly on
Wednesday. -VIO]


New York Times - August 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/world/americas/21briefs-clocks.html

Venezuela: A Decree for the Clocks

By Simon Romero

Moved by claims that it will help the metabolism and productivity of
his fellow citizens, President Hugo Chávez said clocks would be moved
forward by half an hour at the start of 2008. He announced the change
on his Sunday television program, accompanied by his highest-ranking
science adviser, Héctor Navarro, the minister of science and
technology. ?This is about the metabolic effect, where the human brain
is conditioned by sunlight,? Mr. Navarro said in comments reported by
Venezuela?s official news agency. Mr. Chávez said he was ?certain? that
the time change, which would be accompanied by a move to a six-hour
workday, would be accepted.

                                ***

The New York Times - Aug 23, 2007
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/opinion/23collins.html

Op-Ed:

The Great Clock Plot

By Gail Collins

This week, The Times reported that President Hugo Chávez is planning to
move Venezuela?s clocks ahead by half an hour. The story created one of
those wonderful moments of newspaper community, as readers around the
nation suddenly shared an identical thought:

Say what?

Chávez unveiled his plans on his regular Sunday television show, in
what several other news reports referred to as a ?rambling? address.
Reaction was swift, with many people recalling the scene in Woody
Allen?s ?Bananas? when a revolutionary hero becomes president of a
Latin American country and announces that from now on, ?underwear will
be worn on the outside.?

The other popular comment was that Americans are in no position to make
fun of countries whose leaders make incoherent speeches.

Chávez has always been strong on the grand leftist gesture. (Remember
the day that he called George W. Bush ?the devil? at the United
Nations?) But it?s hard to quite grasp the populist appeal of having to
use a calculator to figure out when the next plane arrives from Bogotá.

In his speech, Chávez connected the time change to his plan to reduce
the Venezuelan work day in 2008. His administration believes that:

1) Cutting everyone?s work day to six hours will increase national
productivity; and 2) That if you change 7 a.m. to 6:30, it will create
a ?metabolic effect, where the human brain is conditioned by sunlight.?

Now I know all this sounds extremely silly, but in the name of
fairness, remember that:

1) You live in a country where the administration believes that cutting
taxes for the heirs to billion-dollar estates will lead to increased
prosperity for unemployed steel workers.

2) Every year, most Americans spring forward and fall back so that the
Sun God will send extra rays to we who honor him with the ceremony of
the changing of the clocks.

3) So far, Hugo Chávez hasn?t invaded anybody.

Inquiring minds still want to know about that half-hour. The Venezuelan
science minister says the government wants to return the country to the
system it used before 1965.

When it was changed. For convenience.

Perhaps President Chávez just isn?t a clock-watching kind of guy. His
weekly TV program is six hours of him talking, which is an extremely
long time to ramble on unless you?re Fidel Castro or an American sports
commentator.

But what if there?s a trend under way here? The list of countries who
use the half-hour system does not inspire much confidence. There?s
Burma. And Afghanistan. And then there?s Nepal. When the countries
around it are at 3 p.m., Nepal believes it to be 3:45. This may have
something to do with the altitude.

Newfoundland is on the half-hour system, defying the rest of Canada to
do anything about it. The reason, as Premier Danny Williams once
explained, is that Newfoundlanders ?like to be different.? Their
country is mainly about cod ? very important, historically speaking,
but not frequently in the headlines these days.

So people there like a little attention. They like having a
Newfoundland Time Zone. They like the fact that the national
broadcasters always have to say: ?Stay tuned for the news on the hour.
On the half-hour in Newfoundland.?

We may be on to something here. How many countries do you think would
feel better about the world if they just got mentioned once in a while?
Probably won?t work for Afghanistan at this point, but we could try
getting the networks to say things like: ?News is up next, and let?s
hope it?s a nice day in Surinam.?

Sooner or later, somebody in the White House will notice that the one
other country whose clocks are running to the tune of a different
drummer is Iran. Chávez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are
extremely cozy, always pinning medals on one another and sending
anti-Bush jokes back and forth. At this very minute, Vice President
Dick Cheney is somewhere in his basement, working up a new theory about
the Evil Axis of Half Hours.

Let?s just not go there. Riordan Roett, the director of the Western
Hemisphere studies program at Johns Hopkins University, says that the
fact that the president of Venezuela announces something does not
necessarily mean it?s a done deal. ?See if Chávez repeats it,? he
advised. ?If it?s just a one-time thing, the rational people who are
still in the government will just ignore it.?

If only we had a similar system in the United States, imagine all the
things we might have avoided over the last six years.