Mood Lighting: The High Point of the Night

KAFFEE: Corporal, would you turn to the page in this book that says where the enlisted men's mess hall is?

HOWARD: Lt. Kaffee, that's not in the book, sir.

KAFFEE: I don't understand, how did you know where the enlisted men's mess hall was if it's not in this book?

HOWARD: I guess I just followed the crowd at chow time, sir.

- - from Aaron Sorkin's screenplay, A Few Good Men

There was one moment at tonight's meeting when I just busted out with a spontaneous guffaw that I could not stifle. I wanted to write about it separately for the sake of emphasis.

A Richland-West End Neighborhood representative was encouraging Council Members to listen to their own constituents in neighborhoods answer the question of whether more signs should go up on their arterial streets. He asserted that the LED bill is misguided because it is going a direction opposite from that of many communities now. Even fast food restaurants in some communities have been compelled to do away with lit signage and put up decorative stone signs.

But what burst the bonds restraining my laugh was his comment that people are going to find McDonald's when they want it whether it has a stone or an LED sign. It occurred to me that the pro-LED side seems to insinuate that people are dolts who need to have events lit up and streaming across their rods and cones in order for messages to register. People don't need LED signs to attend something of benefit to them; and so, churches in neighborhoods don't require them either.