Our home probably has fifty bulbs of various kinds. Some are in single-bulb and others multi-bulb fixtures that provide either task, zone, or background lighting. Most homes do. Several years ago, before I replaced all of our incandescent bulbs with low-power, warm, LED bulbs, changing a light bulb was a weekly affair. It wasn’t a big chore, but it was annoying because of having to stand on a ladder, disassemble fixtures, and replacing everything after changing a bulb.
With the LED bulbs, I change a bulb no more than once every month or two. And most of those changed bulbs are the small but mighty kitchen undercounter xenon bulbs rather than the LEDs. In the long run, the LED bulbs not only consume less power, thus lowering our electric bill, but they also last longer.
And this brings me to His Most Unclean Orange Vulgarian and his MAGAts. These dim bulbs wanted legislation to protect the manufacture and sale of low efficiency, incandescent bulbs after the Biden Dept of Energy passed a rule requiring that any lightbulb had to produce 45 lumens of light for every watt of energy consumed. The same cadre of anti-science morons, led by their Fluffy (okay, fat-assed) Orange lord, clamored for low-efficiency shower heads and toilets.
And this brings me to my personal definition of wealth. I recall explaining to an inquisitive four-year old, some 30 years ago, that poor families often could not afford everything that they needed whereas rich families could always afford everything that they needed and even some of the things that they didn’t need but only wanted. He asked for an example, and our family cat provided one – we loved our cat despite the fact that she was expensive – requiring cat food, litter, and veterinary visits and medicines. Many people couldn’t afford a cat, and they were just fine without one. He seemed to get the difference between want and need if not also between rich and poor.
To people like Trump, it seems to me, wealth has an entirely different meaning. It means being able to waste without regard to how that waste affects others. It means being able to squander the resources of nature, the society, and the planet because one can afford ostentatious displays of wealth that serve one’s ego but little else.
“To hell with people who can’t afford basic utilities because those of us who can afford to waste them have made those necessities scarcer than they should be.” They seem to say.
I wish a plague of burnt-out lightbulbs on such spendthrift misanthropes.