Last One Out, Turn Off the Lights

Hawaii seems on a roll -- but all downhill:

First they taunt the Notre Dame football team before a national audience about how they are not a worthy opponent (having only as many wins as losses, to their winning record of one more win than losses) and then get stomped by a prowess the Fighting Irish haven’t displayed in the last 40 years.

Days later, the electricity goes out all over Oahu during a thunderstorm -- as if the Islanders weren’t feeling powerless and inept enough. That ought to do wonders for the self-esteem of all the domestic abusers the judges are forgiving in the spirit of the season to be with “family.” Why do these judges think child and wife beating is nothing more than a time-honored Hawaiian tradition that needs cultural understanding to appreciate and preserve, is beyond forgivable.

A few people continue to say, “If you don’t like paying 4-5 times what everybody anywhere else is paying for the same thing, maybe you should leave “Paradise” -should be an increasingly compelling consideration -- unless one relishes their “victimhood” as the ace up their sleeve to a better tomorrow.

At some point, it all begins to make no sense -- and one has to leave and find out what else the world has to offer.

In many parts of the United States (and the world), when the electricity goes out for a few hours, they may also have to deal with real survival issues -- like the freezing cold or sweltering heat, that requires one to maintain a level of preparation and readiness for the unexpected, and even the disastrous -- beyond merely going into denial about those things, until we arrive now at the point in time, in which the entirety of the culture and society, is ONLY about the denial of reality.

Then one has to wonder what culture and society really mean and what value it has -- if it does not prepare one for any other eventuality but the continuance of life as it always has been before and the revival of memories -- as though that were enough to justify itself.

As one reads the news from and of Hawaii lately, one senses this lack of meaning and purpose, that even led the mayor of the Island to miss the grievous replacement of the word “purchase” when he meant “purpose,” and no editor caught that error -- in his published Christmas proclamation and greeting to everyone.

When the last thinking person leaves the Island, will anyone notice?