THINKING INSIDE THE ENVELOPMENT

THINKING INSIDE THE ENVELOPMENT: Leave it to a joke-of-a-legislator like Jimmy Tokioka to introduce a joke-of-a-bill to take care of a no-joke problem.

The matter of guide books that list places from which we routinely have to drag dead tourists isn’t new. It’s been the subject of many more than a handful of county council discussions over the past decade or so with emergency room Dr. Monty Downs leading the way in pushing the Kaua`i Visitors’ Bureau (KVB) to get off their duffs and put pressure on the authors to de-list the most demonstrably dangerous locations after his umpteenth time of having to go out and “inform” an Ultimate Guide Book-clutching family that their loved one(s) didn’t make it.

Admittedly the way to go about fixing it isn’t passing a law to allow lawsuits against writers if they irrelevantly include instructions that urge trespassing in some kind of absurd end run around the actual problem.

But nonetheless it’s a subject which predictably brought out the usual gang of sociopaths, blaming the victims and assuring us that they would never be so stupid- while giving evidence to the contrary with every post.

We invite them- and the two “newspaper” editors who predictably screamed about first amendment rights- to call Dr. Downs. We’re sure he’d be happy to invite them over to the hospital next time the ambulance is on the way so they can watch him pull the sheet over a bloated corpse that was a vibrant individual an hour before. Perhaps he’ll let them inform the family.

Of course we wouldn’t think of criticizing something without offering a solution.

We’ve been hypercritical of the obscene amount of money that the county council throws at KVB without any accountability just so they can be seen as providing money to the tourist trade- the old gush and flush.

So, our solution? Two words: bubble wrap.

That’s right, bubble wrap. We simply get the airlines to greet every arriving passenger and swathe them in bubble wrap.

And it need not be that cumbersome a process like piecing sections together with duct tape or something. With county funds the KVB could simply offer a contract for zip-up, reusable, bubble wrap suits, prefabricated and read to wear... off the rack so to speak.

We’ll still need legislation to force them to wear them at all times but at least that kind of law would address the issue head on. Of course we’ll have to exempt those with a local driver’s license since we never do stupid things.

Or maybe KVB could publish a warning list of dangerous specific references in specific guidebooks and distribute them to deplaning visitors. Afterall, the answer to free speech is more free speech.

Nah, that would be too easy. Besides they’re too busy finding ways to waste the money to keep a list like that. And it might pop the real bubble- the obligatory promotional impression given by the tourism industry that you can leave your caution at home because nothing bad could possibly happen in “paradise.”

Bubble-wrapping is the kind of creative thinking Kaua`i needs. We’re frankly surprised it hasn’t been proposed already at the anonymous dimwit roundtable, which is already in regress.