Alo-Ha! Friday
Some on Friendly Isle
pull in the welcome matResidents of the Friendly Isle protesting planned cruise ship visits to Molokai may have a point.
If a cruise ship suddenly heaved into view in Kaneohe Bay and started dumping tourists in buses for a trip to my house, I might be a little miffed. That is, unless they bought my 6,000 leftover pogs, all of my wife's costume jewelry and paid to pose for photos with my dog Boomer.
Just because Hawaii's economy is based on tourism, does that mean certain parts of the islands can't be "Tourist-free Zones"? Why can't the cruise ships stop at Kahoolawe? If no man is an island, how do you explain Marlon Brando? My brain hurts.
Now the news:
A new exorcism racquet
TOKYO (Reuters) >> Japanese hucksters dressed in tennis garb to help them look "credible" were arrested for promising to exorcise evil spirits for a price from women they stopped on the street."They fooled women by telling them that there was a spirit clinging to them and took money for getting rid of it," police said. The exorcisms took place in hotel rooms and netted the gang $42,000 in four months.
(The tennis-playing exorcists might have pulled off the scam had not one victim noticed the can of pea soup.)
From assets to ashes ...
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Reuters) >> A Swedish man desolate after his wife filed for divorce converted the family's stocks and mutual funds to cash and then burned the money -- $81,300."Bitterness is not uncommon in divorces," police said, "but it is almost unique that a spouse puts fire to all their wealth."
("Almost unique" will be the wife's reaction when she receives 50 percent of the ashes.)
Hippos hog drug estate
PUERTO TRIUNFO, Colombia (Reuters) >> Give me a home, where the hippos roam, after a drug dealer was gunned down one day.That's the situation at the lush estate of slain drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. Ten hippopotamuses that were part of Escobar's private zoo now roam the land scaring the local cows, police say.
(The cows wouldn't mind if the hippos weren't so darn "friendly.")
'Honolulu Lite' on Sunday:
Gov. Linda Lingle tests the water on the student drug-testing issue and surprises Democrats who expected her to tax the poor, take candy from babies and push old people down stairs in their wheelchairs. Is she going to be any fun at all?
Quote me on this:
"A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance and to turn around three times before lying down." -- Robert Benchley
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com