Alo-Ha! Friday Charles Memminger

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Better to swallow
the punishment, not drugs

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The world was remarkably free of weird news this week. The only local weirdness I could find was a police blotter item about a 23-year-old man who died after being arrested in Kailua for theft.

After stealing some CDs from a music store, the man was pulled over by cops. He didn't look well.

He had a rapid pulse and "poor skin tone." The cops took him to the hospital where he died.

Turned out stealing wasn't his problem, drugs were. Doctors found several empty Baggies in his stomach which had contained crystal meth. He apparently swallowed the bags of ice to avoid a drug arrest. Weird move, dude.

With no AP weird news this week, here's what the BBC had to offer:

Fishy goings on at school

NORWICH, U.K. (BBC) >> A school headmaster "completely lost it" and shoved the head of a dead fish down an 11-year-old boy's throat after the boy refused to put the fish head in the rubbish bin as instructed.

The boy had brought the fish head to school and was chasing girls around with it when the headmaster intervened.

"He got me in a tight headlock. He got the fish and was putting it in my mouth," the boy testified at the man's assault trial.

"It was not very nice. It was not very nice at all."

(Hey kid, live by the fish head, die by the fish head.)

Dingoes began as pets

NEW SOUTH WALES (BBC) >> Scientists believe all Australian dingoes are descended from a single domestic dog brought to the country from Indonesia 5,000 years ago.

The "mother of all dingoes" probably was a pregnant domesticated dog brought by migrants for hunting animals or to be eaten.

(Thus the saying, "That baby ate my dingo!")

Two wives too many

KILGORIS, Kenya (BBC) >> Village demonstrators want police to arrest two wives who cut off their shared husband's penis. The incident happened after the wives discovered the man with his girlfriend over the weekend.

(Two wives AND a girlfriend? The guy was asking for it.)

Honolulu Lite on Sunday:

Everyone knows marriage is a roll of the dice. Now one entrepreneur thinks rolling the dice can make divorce a profitable enterprise.

Quote me on this (Writers Division):

"Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals." -- John Steinbeck

"The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one, or both. Usually both." -- Susan Sontag

"Those big-shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar." -- Mickey Spillane

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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