Honolulu Lite
Watching the pictures coming out of Afghanistan reminded me that while there is only one planet earth, people live in separate worlds. Forget TheBus, let’s ride
on TheRoofWhen I was young and naive, I thought you could only divide up the world into two categories, places that use iron rebar in building construction and places that don't.
It was always surprising to find out in these days of high technology there are still countries in the world that do not use rebar. The invention of rebar was one of the great unheralded breakthroughs of the modern age. Many lives have been saved by rebar. Yet, there are still countries that don't use it. You usually find out about these countries after an earthquake, when CNN shows video of all the buildings crumbled down. The destruction is horrible. Then you think, hey, they should have used rebar.
But I've decided the best way to judge the cultural progress of a country is not by the rebar method, but by how people ride public buses.
For instance, you never see television pictures of a bus in Afghanistan that doesn't have about 50 people sitting on the roof. Countries where people ride the roofs of buses are countries in crisis. When people are willing to risk their lives riding on the roof of a bus, it means their immediate safety is not a high priority. Getting from Point A to Point B is.
Once a country is over an immediate crisis, riding on the roofs of buses is curtailed. The country then enters the next phase of development: People ride only on the inside of buses, but they are allowed to bring live poultry. A country where people ride in buses with a cage of live chickens in their laps is more advanced than a country where people cling to the outside of vehicles.
The next phase is to ban all livestock and surfboards on public buses, which is where Hawaii is.
The final phase of cultural development is making everyone on a bus wear a seat belt. Hawaii's not there yet. We are still in that "thrill seeker" mode, where if a bus careened off the road, passengers would be tossed around like a popcorn in box of Cracker Jacks.
A more advanced civilization will look back at our allowing bus passengers to ride without seat belts the same way we look at countries that allow passengers to ride on the roof.
There's something sort of cool, though, about a place that lets you ride on the roof of buses. First, and most obviously, it's a country without a lot of lawyers. People there are living life as it comes, unconcerned by prospects of the occasional subdural hematoma or broken limb. They are an intensely goal-oriented people. ("I need to get the hell out of Dodge. That large vehicle is leaving. I will ride on that vehicle, even if I have to cling to the front grill. Pass me my chicken.")
While you might not consider people in such a country as advanced as we are, you have to admire their spunk.
Alo-Ha! Friday compiles odd bits of news from Hawaii
and the world to get your weekend off to an entertaining start.
Charles Memminger also writes Honolulu Lite Mondays,
Wednesdays and Sundays. Send ideas to him at the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210,
Honolulu 96813, phone 235-6490 or e-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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https://archives.starbulletin.com/lite