Casual
BARNES, FRED
Casual LIGHT BRIGADE No doubt many readers of The Right Man, David Frum's engrossing new account of his year as a White House speechwriter, are relieved to learn that George W. Bush is much...
...I'll bet no one at the White House, even Karl Rove or Condoleezza Rice, would say that to the president...
...Maybe they've got a point...
...That's not all...
...Around my house, there are people who think such behavior is weird and very obsessive...
...My only complaint is that it shouldn't have taken an insider book by an ex-speechwriter to make this happen...
...But I have an explanation...
...The principle— waste is costly and perhaps even sin-ful—is the same regarding lights in your home or in a government office...
...This is a man after my own heart...
...Day after day, he reminded my sister and me to turn lights off when we left a room or our home...
...There are billions of people in the world who leave lights on...
...By putting food out sparingly, he made sure they didn't lose their habit of self-reliance...
...Does a newspaper keep the presses running once the day's paper has been printed...
...They now have a big-time ally...
...Besides, it cost money...
...Then we become counters, as in, "Son, you left six lights on when you went to the basketball game...
...But I digress...
...The important thing about turning out lights is it makes economic sense and represents good stewardship of resources...
...Anyway, Frum's disclosure about Bush and lights is extremely good news...
...It's a lonely crusade...
...Getting folks to observe this principle, however, is a chore...
...My father also felt a duty to make sure his children's genes for clicking lights off did not remain dormant...
...A light switch that turns four ceiling lights on and off—I count that as one light...
...He was glad to feed them—up to a point...
...That would needlessly drive up the cost of publishing...
...If that won't work, nothing will...
...In my case and I assume in Bush's, it's a life's work...
...And he wants you to turn the lights off when you're not around...
...Another of his lessons was about feeding birds...
...For instance, someone at the Executive Office of the President is sure to get the assignment of turning out the lights in the EOB...
...I'm a proud member of that group...
...He thought this was a good life lesson, and he was right...
...Perhaps it won't work, but I'm going to try the tack of informing those who leave lights on at my house—that's everyone but me—that President Bush is on my side...
...In stage three, we become crusaders...
...Of course not...
...People tend to get hostile when they're reminded to turn out the lights...
...Meanwhile, at houses everywhere, the lights-off people will be less lonely than before...
...That would be wasteful...
...Bush once pointed to a table lamp left on after a meeting and asked, "Do you think it's going to occur to anybody to turn that lamp off when we leave the room...
...Think about it...
...FRED BARNES...
...Those of us who are light-turn-ers-off pass through three stages...
...First we're merely aggravated when confronting a light shining for no purpose...
...I'm there and I suspect Bush is too...
...But if the birds swarmed back the moment a fresh supply of birdseed was put in the feeder, my father figured \ they were becoming welfare dependents...
...Casual LIGHT BRIGADE No doubt many readers of The Right Man, David Frum's engrossing new account of his year as a White House speechwriter, are relieved to learn that George W. Bush is much smarter than they'd been told and that political adviser Karl Rove has the brainpower and curiosity of a true intellectual...
...It's not learned behavior...
...Answering his own question, Bush turned the light off himself, Frum says...
...They say angry things like, "Turn them off yourself...
...He's concerned about a single light left burning in an empty room...
...I'm a counter, but not a rigid one...
...Does a lumberyard leave the power saw on when the business is closed for the day...
...The president, Frum writes, becomes irritated when he wakes up before sunrise, gazes out at the Executive Office Building next to the White House, and finds it "bright with lights that had been carelessly left on...
...This is not helpful and it's quite disrespectful...
...It's bound to have a positive effect not only in Washington but across the nation...
...Making sure lights are turned out is genetic...
...Worse, they don't take the hint and click lights off...
...He thought a light left on was a terrible waste of electricity...
...I don't know where Bush got the lights-off gene, but I inherited it from my father...
...I on the other hand was delighted to discover that Bush is obsessed with turning out lights...
...But there's only a small band of hardy, sensible, frugal folks who take it upon themselves to turn lights out and urge others to do the same...
Vol. 8 • January 2003 • No. 18
