THEIR MASTER’S VOICE

THEIR MASTER’S VOICE: When the hand-held cell phone ban was passed a couple of weeks back a few members of the council- most notably Chair Kaipo Asing as well as Dickie Chang and Darryl Kaneshiro- expressed some reservations with their “aye” votes when a national study was revealed a few days before passage, questioning whether there were really any less deaths due to accidents involving people who were talking and/or texting while driving.

But Wednesday, when the bill was “reconsidered” for a minor “tweak” as the local newspaper called it, it seems a much more reliable and authoritative voice convinced the three that the study was in error.

Chang told the council that his doubts had been assuaged after hearing from none other that Oprah who has apparently entered the fray and declared cell phones to be deadly weapons.

Reassuring everyone he wasn’t a regular viewer or anything, by telling the assembled that he came across the vital information “while flipping channels” Chang said that if Oprah herself supports a cell phone bans, well that was good enough for him to now wholeheartedly support interdiction.

But, well, that’s Dickie- we would expect no less reverence for the infallibility of TV show hosts from him. As a matter of fact we pretty sure it was the basis of his campaign for office.

Less expected was that Dickie’s off-the-cuff recitation of Oprah’s spiel was followed by Kaipo who. saying Dickie had “taken the air out of his balloon”, read from an apparent print out of Oprah’s anecdotal admonitions against the evils of driving while yakking or texting, replete with descriptions of exploding train and bus wrecks.

Not to be outdone, Kaneshiro decried his original reservations saying basically that if that’s what Oprah thinks it was enough to remove his hesitations and reservations and that he was now in full support of the prohibition.

Then it was 4 p.m. and they all took an hour long recess to do their daily due diligence.

Well, alright maybe not but it sure goes a long way toward explaining how the council can so often be so misinformed. But it also explains why they are reelected over and over.

But it could be worse – they could be watching and citing Fox News.