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Alo-Ha! Friday Charles Memminger |
Mines shouldn’t
become monkey businessTwo major news stories will have a direct impact on Hawaii:
>> West Hollywood, Calif., has banned the declawing of cats.
>> Morocco has offered 2,000 monkeys to the United States to use for detonating mines in Iraq.
OK. Maybe they won't have a big impact on Hawaii, but they should get us thinking about how we treat animals. For instance, it is wrong, not to mention messy, to teach monkeys to detonate mines. But would it be wrong to teach the monkeys to declaw cats? While you consider that deep question, let's go to the news:
A better mouse clap next
SYDNEY (Reuters) >> Australia, regularly hit by the worst mouse plagues in the world, is claiming an international first with a genetically modified herpes virus to knock out population explosions of the small rodent. In laboratory tests, the herpes virus makes sexually prolific female mice infertile.(You have to wonder what the West Hollywood City Council would think about using human sexually transmitted diseases to kill mice. And if herpes works well, just think how well other STDs will control mice.)
Flick '2 jackboots up'
SEOUL (Reuters) >> President Kim Jong Il took a break from North Korea's nuclear showdown with the United States to enjoy a light military comedy.The movie was "spiced with scenes making one laugh and bringing tears to one's eyes," the official news agency said.
Kim pronounced the rib-tickling production "another excellent work great in cognitional and educational significance."
(Kim loved the scene where Sgt. Shultz caught Col. Hogan and Col. Klink singing "She'll Be Comin' Round the Rheinland" in the hot tub together.)
The ducks stop here
PARIS (Reuters) >> Select guests gathered at a top Paris restaurant to sample the millionth duck to be snatched from grassy marshland, carefully strangled and ritually cooked in its own blood.Over the years, the ducks have been eaten by such people as Teddy Roosevelt, Charlie Chaplin, Elton John and Nicole Kidman.
"One million ducks. It's marvelous, really moving," said one aficionado.
("Sucks," said a duck.)
'Honolulu Lite' on Sunday:
H.L. Mencken said beware of "uplifters," those paragons of virtue whose lives are so perfect that they can tell the rest of us how to live. Highly paid moralist William Bennett bet that no one would discover his secret gambling addiction and lost. Highly paid Kamehameha Schools CEO Hamilton McCubbin, one of those virtuous beings brought in to save Bishop Estate, bet no one would find out about his alleged sexual escapades. To the glee of their enemies, both uplifters have fallen.
Quote me on this:
"Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke." -- Will Rogers
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com