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Alo-Ha! Friday Charles Memminger |
Rough-water swim
finally lives up to nameWE were always suspicious of the yearly Waikiki Rough Water Swim. If nearly 1,000 people can swim it, how rough can it be?
This week's swim finally lived up to its name. It was so rough that 350 swimmers -- about a third of the field -- had to be rescued because of strong currents.
"Rescue" isn't really the word to describe what happened. Headlines screaming "Hundreds rescued!" induced images of the Titanic going down with helpless people flailing around in the water. In truth, the rough-water swimmers are in excellent shape and were in no real danger. They just realized they couldn't beat the current and enjoyed a nice a helicopter ride to the beach.
Now the news:
Cops sniff out nose caper
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) >> About 2,000 baboon noses were found in an abandoned suitcase at Amsterdam airport after they started to stink, officials said.The noses were en route from Lagos to the United States, apparently intended for the immigrant market. Baboon noses are used in traditional medicine in Asia and Africa.
"We assume these animals were killed, and we have to prevent something like this happening again," a Dutch police spokesman said.
(If they weren't killed, there are 2,000 awfully agitated baboons hanging out in Lagos.)
This festival is the pits
BATTLE MOUNTAIN, Nev. (AP) >> Residents celebrated the annual "Festival of the Pit" by raising their armpits with pride in a tribute to their town and armpits everywhere.The celebration began after a snotty Washington Post article referred to the town as "The Armpit of America" in 2001.
Festival events included an Old Spice deodorant toss and armpit beauty contest.
(The young woman crowned Miss Armpit said she looks forward to representing her town in national armpit competition.)
This suit was too spicy
CADDO VALLEY, Ark. (AP) >> A man's skimpy swimsuit was too much -- or too little -- for Taco Bell workers.Taco Bell employees had the man arrested after he entered wearing a skimpy Speedo swimsuit that revealed too much.
(They didn't like the way he said "El Grande Burrito" either.)
'Honolulu Lite' on Sunday:
The Association of Former High School Students Who Had to Cut out of School to Go Surfing goes on the record as being steadfastly against a proposal to make surfing a school team sport. And jealousy has nothing to do with it. Well, hardly anything to do with it.
Quote me on this:
"Celebrity! All it means is that you can cash a small check in a small town." -- Truman Capote
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society
of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears
Tuesdays, Thursdays , Fridays and Sundays.
E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com
