Pangea is real. Maybe Charlton Heston and Ted Haggard rode dinosaurs with Mel Gibson to get to Thunderdome before the Ice Age. Why not? I’ll believe when I see it. Play the tape back… Somebody get Homeland Security on the phone.

Once, destruction was confined to countless microcosms packed together in a motherland of innocent bliss. A tight cycle of regeneration hummed along. Birth and death happened. But, just like Babel and Eden, greed prevailed. So, here we are one frosty 3am wake-up call away from annihilation.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no Luddite. I enjoy electricity and running water. But nights like these I get to wondering… What if those gnomes at the center of the Earth had just kept on hibernating? What if David the Gnome pedaled backwards? Could Pangea save us? Can I get a reset?

Think about the West — home of the pioneer spirit in its better days and destructor the next. A real He-Man in sensitive tights on steroids with a God complex. Think of the East — wickedly anti-human by some standards yet utterly peaceful on a personal level.

Al Gore told me that his Internet — a vast collection of pvc pipes — could flatten out this mess. We’d shorten these communication gaps. No more playing telephone, I believe he said. Ah, but he grew a beard and the rest is history.

If this crazy jigsaw never went AWOL, could this yin-yang world have kept it together? Moreover, can we overcome our historical, superstitious differences and recognize the vast commonality between us?

As always, time will tell. Or not.