QotD: Compact Fluorescent Bulbs

Rep. Michele Bachmann has proposed a bill that would repeal the ban on normal light bulbs. They're scheduled to be phased out by 2012 AD, replaced by compact fluorescent bulbs, which are either Godless Death Coils or Sensible Joy Spirals, depending on your opinion. Those of us who prefer incandescently salute the attempt. Oh, I wish I liked fluorescents — they bring your electricity bill down to $1.95 per year, you get to shake a fist at OPEC, and those curly pig-tail tubes look cool. But I detest the light.

I put a few in closets and as I turn on the switch, the clothes burst into tears and confess.

It's an aesthetic preference, and so there isn't a correct position. It's OK to prefer incandescent. It's OK to prefer CFLs. But some curious form of moral authority has been applied to CFLs, and when I'm at Target stocking up on Reveals I get the sense I might as well be wearing fur, pushing a cart full of veal and foie gras — and that makes the issue rather contentious.

Then there's the mercury issue. Supposedly each bulb contains actual Alien blood that eats through the floor if you break the bulb, but that doesn't worry me. Heck, we played with mercury when I was a kid. We gargled mercury. We'd rub it in our pants so we could go down the slide twice as fast. Mom made us mercury omelettes, in fact. Dad used to sit down at night with his pipe and smoke up some mercury.

Never did no one no harm, except for all the hair falling out and the fact that I still pass silver kidney stones 'round about noon on a daily basis. Yes, I've warm memories of the stuff; we called it Slippery Fun Putty, or would have, if our jaws hadn't gone numb after playing with it.

James Lileks, "To revel in the glow of choice is to court glare of the eco-correct", Star Tribune, 2008-03-28