Honolulu Lite
NOW THAT the public school teachers are officially unstruck, all the poor students will have to do even more work than usual to catch up for their unsolicited holiday. But before you feel too sorry for the kids, remember the words of writer Susan Ohanian: "A teacher's day is one-half bureaucracy, one-half crisis, one-half monotony and one-eightieth epiphany. Never mind the math." ALO-HA FRIDAY
Strike the pickets,
time to hit booksLet's go now to the odd news of the world, the first item of which has a local connection.
Fly the deadly skies
HOUSTON (Reuters) >> A Canadian family has complained to Continental Airlines that they were forced to sit next to a critically ill passenger who frothed at the mouth and died. The airline says it was performing a humanitarian mission.Donna Beaulieu and her family were preparing for a flight from Majuro to Honolulu when they watched in horror as a dying man was wheeled onto the plane and seated next to them. He was unconscious and hooked up to IVs and oxygen.
During the flight, he stopped breathing several times but was roused by flight attendants until he finally expired.
If you thought that family had it bad, this woman really had something to get off her chest.
A case of breast appeal
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) >> A California appeals court has upheld a jury's decision to give a woman $1.08 million because a doctor surgically enlarged her breasts without her permission.The jury found that Dr. William Shaw committed battery when he enlarged Sandra Perry's breasts during surgery just intended to remove saggy excess skin. He enlarged her breasts from size 34B to 40DD.
Perry says she will not have the operation reversed because she no longer trusts doctors. (Yeah, right.)
Weird Web site of the week: Faithful reader and web surfer Gary comes through again with a great weird web site. It's called "Guess the Dictator and/or Television Sit-Com Character." You pretend to be a dictator or sit-com star and by answering a number of yes or no questions, the computer amazingly guesses who you are pretending to be. It's pretty eerie. It figured out I was Manuel Noriega in about 10 questions. Log on at http://www.smalltime.com/dictator.html.
What famous dead entertainer who also made several movies in the islands said, "Poi is the only thing I don't like about Hawaii?" To learn that and other questionable trivia about Hollywood's love affair with Hawaii, read "Honolulu Lite" in this Sunday's edition of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
Happy Alo-Ha! Friday!
Alo-Ha! Friday compiles odd bits of news from Hawaii
and the world to get your weekend off to an entertaining start.
Charles Memminger also writes Honolulu Lite Mondays,
Wednesdays and Sundays. Send ideas to him at the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210,
Honolulu 96813, phone 235-6490 or e-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
The Honolulu Lite online archive is at:
https://archives.starbulletin.com/lite