Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

I was alarmed this afternoon as I read from the initial Associated Press report of the major earthquake today in Hawaii that there had been landslides, power failures, a highway blocked by debris, and a report from Governor Lingle that “boulders fell on highways, rock walls collapsed and television had been knocked off stands.”

I applaud Governor Lingle for being on the ball when it comes to the television set falling crisis. A lot of people might scoff, and say that a television set falling off its stand is not a problem on par with a landslide or a power outage, but clearly, these people don’t understand the vital role that television plays in our culture today.

Just think - what if an entire week went by without Hawaiians being able to watch their television sets? They would have no idea what happened on Battlestar Galactica, or Lost, or which models lost out in the latest round of Project Runway.

In short, American culture would begin to fall apart, a decay in Hawaii that would surely infect the rest of the nation, leading to spontaneous, unpredictable outbursts of local originality, and with them, a de-emphasis on federalism and a resurgence on states’ rights! The South would soon reinstitute slavery and lynchings, and no one could say for sure if Vermont would share its maple sugar fairly. Would America’s Dairyland announce reductions in production in order to send cheddar prices through the roof?

The latest news indicates that FEMA is sending a fleet of cargo freighters filled with flat screen plasma television sets to Hawaii. Let’s just hope that they arrive in time… before it’s a new Civil War begins!