Welcome to May, the single finest month of the year.From now on it's shorts and T-shirts, flowers, birds, warmth without mosquitoes, the bustling boatyards, and, oh yes, "Lights Out Day."

Since I haven't written about "Lights Out Day" for a while, and efforts to have it declared a national holiday have not borne fruit, I should refresh the reader's memories on what it's all about.

"Lights Out Day" is May 12, just 11 days off. On that day we hope every able-bodied person who pays an electric bill in Connecticut will turn off — or not turn on — as many of their electrical appliances they can (yes, that includes the TV and the toaster) within the bounds of safety (you are excused, for example, if you are on a respirator).

The intent of "Lights Out Day" is to send a clear message to our electric generating companies, electricity delivery companies, the state Department of Public Utility Control, the state Legislature, Congress and the president of these United States that although there may not be much we can do about it, we want to show how angry we are about the way you people screwed up.

Yes, we know how all of you did your level best to prevent this from happening and to find the cheapest source of wholesale electricity you possibly could in the cutthroat world of the deregulated energy market. That helps about as much as knowing the Bushies did their level best to find WMDs in Iraq.

So how did the power companies get so powerful and power users so

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powerless?

Well, first there was that effusiveness a few years back in state political circles about how great deregulation would be. Wow. It would allow the power companies to sell their power plants and then go out on the free market (you know, as in free market economy) to buy the cheapest power they could find. With the electricity generating companies competing for the electricity deliverer's dollar, prices would tumble. Oh yeah, they told us, electric deregulation is going to be the greatest thing since frozen TV dinners.

The ever-gullible state Legislature passed the deregulation bill. There were a couple of naysayers, but for the most part it was, with apologies to George Tenet, a slam- dunk. The only thing is it was the ratepayers who got slammed and dunked.

To be fair, price competition has helped one group save money. Big business. With the resources to go out and find their own cheaper energy sources, the corporations fared nicely. Meanwhile residential customers and small businesses continue to get stuffed through the hoop.

Embarrassed lawmakers in the current Legislature continue to rattle their rubber swords about an electric rate freeze or re-regulation.

Ideas like that are often referred to as pipe dreams. UI and CL&P have already signed contracts with suppliers; a rollback in prices would cause chaos in the industry.

It was apparent, or should have been apparent long before UI and CL&P announced just how whopping the increases would be, that deregulation was a bust. But did subsequent state legislatures or our beloved governor, M. Jodi Rell, so much as raise an eyebrow to do something about it? One word: no.

Of course, Connecticut is far from alone in singing the deregulation blues. Not a single state of the 16 that have passed deregulation laws since the late 1990s say it has been a success, reports the Associated Press. As might be suspected, the states that stuck with regulation fared somewhat better.

Two weeks ago CL&P applied to the state DPUC for a rate decrease beginning in July that will save its residential customers $7.50 a month in the second half of 2007. A week later UI responded with its own rate reduction plan that will save its residential customers (are you sitting down?) about $1 a month. Whoopee.

As a realist, it is hard to hold out much hope that "Lights Out Day" will cause even an imperceptible drop in UI's or CL&P's power-usage graph. As a society we have become far too dependent on the conveniences that are powered by electricity.

Yes, people are outraged by the huge rate hike, but not so outraged as to do without TV for even one night.

Like the man said: The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

You can reach Charles Walsh by email at cwalsh@ctpost.com or by

mail at the Post, 410 State St., Bridgeport, CT 06604.