Hurley for President

For those of you living in a vacuum (or who say, "I only watch PBS" - ahem), Hurley is the overweight, lottery-winning young man who's the heart and soul of the ABC phenom "Lost".

Now, I'm a Lost fan - not to the point of trying to figure out ALL the plot points, twists and turns - but to the point of recognizing great writing, plot, and characters.

And my favorite character (even more than . . .yes, I'll say it . . .even more than Sawyer) is Hurley.

I "heart" Hurley because he makes the very best choices that are based on what is best for all of the castaways.

Last night Hurley decided not to blow up a found cache of food - real food, candy bars and potato chips real. But he also did not want to be the "keeper of the food." (What a great character arc - giving the obese Hurley control of the food - good job, writers!). He had first hand knowledge of what it would like to have control over a lot of what other people want (Hurley's backstory is as a lottery-winner - a big lottery). So Hurley, in the Hurley-wisdom we Lostnicks have come to love, decides to give all the food out to all the survivors at once - a grand feast - a celebration of each other's perseverance. A celebration of life on their little planet-island.

So - what is the lesson in this? (Note to self: There's a book in all this - The Wisdom of Hurley)
In abundance, it is better to share it with all, than to parcel it out bit by slow bit.

Jimmy Carter (Remember him? The most intelligent President until a Rhodes scholar named Bill) had a similar idea. Use our national wealth to give every poor family $10K a year (a large figure in the 1970s) to use as they needed. Of course it was never made a law - we Americans must pull ourselves up by our bootstraps - even if we have no bootstraps.

Jimmy and Hurley.
Good men with good ideas. Too bad our planet-island is not ready for them.