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Alo-Ha! Friday Charles Memminger |
Reporters are too dumb
to get out of the rainThere are few dumber sights than a television news reporter standing in the wind and rain to report the approach of a hurricane or big storm.
Yet, as Hurricane Isabel plowed into the East Coast this week, there was Geraldo Rivera and reporters from every other network looking like a bunch of goofballs on the beach as rain pelted their faces and wind mussed their hair.
Look, you don't have to be out IN the storm to know that there IS a storm. I want to see a reporter report from a hotel room and say, "There's a bad storm out there. Killer waves, deadly winds and rain that can blind you. Only an idiot would be out there on purpose. That's why I'm in here. Back to you, Wolf."
Now the news:
Aussies down on fashion
WELLINGTON (AP) >> A New Zealand outdoor-clothing company had to change a brand name for the Australian market because men thought the name -- Fairydown -- too effeminate.Even though Sir Edmund Hillary wore Fairydown clothes when he conquered Everest in 1953, Australian men didn't like the name's less-than-macho connotations.
(The clothing line in Australia is now called "Gary Gayfeather's Faaaaabulous Fashions.)
Condoms in bad taste
WINNIPEG (CP) >> The Manitoba government changed its mind about bulk-ordering 40,000 fruit-flavored condoms for inmates in 10 prison facilities. The condoms are needed to prevent the spread of diseases behind bars, Justice Department officials said. But the public objected to ordering flavored condoms and such a large number of them.(Prisoners complained, "First they take our flavored condoms, next it will be our Fairydown blankies.")
Canada cannabis cruddy
OTTAWA (CP) >> Some of the first patients to smoke Health Canada's government-approved marijuana say it's disgusting and want their money back.Pot is supposed to combat nausea associated with cancer treatments and AIDS, but one man said the government weed made him throw up.
(It also looked suspiciously like broccoli and was hard to light.)
'Honolulu Lite' on Sunday:
Gov. Linda Lingle and Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona called some of the state's greatest minds together this week to get their thoughts on ice -- the drug, not the one used to make margaritas. Read "Honolulu Lite" on Sunday to discover the secret to stamping out this plague.
Quote me on this:
"The office of the president is such a bastardized thing, half royalty and half democracy, that nobody knows whether to genuflect or spit." -- Jimmy Breslin
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
