I know the readers have been clamoring for the policy of UPLC on fluorescent lighting.
Most of you are aware fluorescent lights require mercury to ionize the gas in the bulb or tube to produce light. The mercury is great until it gets out of the bulb and onto your floor. Then it can vaporize and enter your lungs and blood stream and make its way to your brain where it will turn your 100 watt bulb into a 60 watt bulb. The biochemistry and the neurochemistry are way to complex for a publicly read treatise, but believe me, I have it on good authority, mercury in the brain is bad.
Billy Chaterleaux, had a promising career as a line worker at Proctor and Gamble in Jackson. He made pringles and had to make sure the potato slurry was the correct consistency as it was poured into those molds. He had worked without err for over 13 years when tragedy struck. He was in the den watching Bill O'Reily on Fox News when his wife, Millicent, came into the room brandishing a curly fluorescent light, where she removed the old fashion incandescent bulb and screwed the new light into the lamp on the table beside Billy's chair.
Things went well except Billy had to buy 2.25 powered reading glasses since the softer fluorescent light made reading harder for him than the old fashion 75 watt bulb. Then the mercury hit the floor when Billy accidentally toppled the lamp when he struck at a common house fly who was busy practicing touch and go landings on his gloriously bald head. Billy was not sure why the fly was so keen on his noggin, but he pondered if the better view up there might have something to do with it.1
Anyway, when the bulb broke it sent over 1,000 micrograms of elemental mercury into the living space. The fly wisely exited the room immediately and made its way to the litter box where it made a flawless six point landing on a fresh pile. The limited view, though not nearly as breathtaking as the lookout afforded by old Billy's head, was more than compensated by the cuisine and the aromatics the fly encountered in his new local. Jackpot!
Flies are queer little creatures.
Billy picked up the broken glass and got the vacuum out and vacuumed up the mercury dust, but in doing so, he contaminated the entire house. Millicent called the EPA and they came in and closed the house off. Billy and Millicent moved in with her parents while the EPA determines if the house will have to be demolished and placed in baggies and shipped off to Nevada where the spent nuclear fuel rods are stored, or if just tearing out the carpeting,the walls and replacing the insulation, the sheet rock, and flooring will be good enough to reduce the mercury contamination in the home to 0.00000376 nanograms, the maximum allowed in occupied homes. Understand now that an average can of Starkist tuna has 0.00000384 nanograms of mercury.
Billy asked Ned Bunsenburner, the West Tennessee EPA representative, how a can of Tuna could have fully 0.00000008 nanograms more than his home and be safe? To which Ned replied,
"Safe, hell the tuna in that can is dead and it comes under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration and they have totally different standards than the EPA. We here at the EPA feel they are too lax in their allowances. But we can't allow you back into your home until our quality standards are met. We are just looking out for your health. If you and Mrs Chaterleaux become retarded because of the mercury you would be a great burden on the tax payers and potentially add to the deficit. Good God man, did you ever consider what it could do to the debt ceiling?"
Billy understood about the deficit as well as the debt ceiling.
Three months after the Chaterleaux home was gutted they are still living with Millecent's mother. The EPA has long since retreated back to its offices in Memphis. Billy got kicked in the head by one of his mother-in-laws alpacas. When he came out of his coma he was worse off than if the mercury had had its way with his brain. He is still on at Proctor and Gamble but in a less demanding capacity which is more consistent with his "new skills level" as his physical and medical rehab worker puts it.
Six months have passed since the lamp crashed to the floor, the Chaterleauxs are not back in their home. They are expecting a final ruling from the EPA anytime now, but the decision has been kicked up to a higher level at the regional offices in St. Louis, Mo.
They tried to sue the company that makes the bulbs, but congress granted them immunity. Now I hear the Chaterleaux's are driving to Washington DC with 2 dozen fluorescent bulbs in the car. She plans to protest by throwing all the bulbs from the gallery at congress while it is in session. Should work better than a filibuster.
After a toxic clean up break in the House, perhaps congress will repeal the law against the incandescent bulb and outlaw the toxic ones. Naw, that would be too much to hope for.
There are fools and there are damn fools. We the people are the fools and congress is filled with damn fools.
Godspeed, Lady Chaterleaux!
Jack Maybolt, President Urban Poverty Law Center
"Heat a gold coin to 2000 degrees and you still have gold. Heat a hundred dollar bill to 2000 degrees and all you have left is carbon. There is no paper money in hell." Mother Maybolt 1923-2008
1. Mark Twain from his autobiography, days in Florence.
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