If you're tired at work these afternoons, you can blame our return to standard time.

No matter what anybody says, switching the clocks even by only one hour throws some people out of whack timewise. For several days, they remain on the old schedule, which means they are tired and ready to leave the job an hour before they should.

Why do we still switch back and forth between daylight and standard time? In an economy that runs on motor fuel and on devices using electricity regardless of the time of day, this makes no sense.

Our energy consumption is the same after the time switch as before. It might even be more afterward because we become less efficient, at least for a while.

Congress seems to be so busy adding to our national health-care costs that it can't think of anything else. But if it could, doing away with the twice-yearly time shifts would be a project worth its while.

Oregon Congressmen Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader have shown no signs of taking up the time-switch issue. But they should. (hh)