Don’t know if this story will turn out to be a tempest in a teapot or kick like typhoon in a tender spot, but the implications if the latter are profound.

 

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For you youngsters, Jack Benny’s stage persona was as a miser; he used to do a bit where he would get held up and the robber would say, “Your money or your life!” Then there’d be this pause. “Well?!”

And Jack would reply “I’m thinking …”

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If America was held up tomorrow and told, “Your cell phones or your crops,” I expect quite a few people wouldn’t make the right decision without prodding.

(h/t: truffula)