Alo-Ha! Friday Charles Memminger

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No good deed goes
unpummeled in Hawaii

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The saddest story in the paper recently was the tale of man who went to the aid of a guy being beaten up in Mililani.

Our hero jumped into the fray, taking on the two men attacking the poor victim. At that point the attackers turned on our hero, beating the tar out of him while the victim fled, stealing our hero's car in the process. (Get me Steven Bochco.)

Reminds me of another sad story I covered as a police reporter many years past:

A homeless man moves into a large Goodwill box at Christmas time. It's comfy, warm and he gets first crack at cool stuff put in the slot. A bad guy breaks into the box, beats up our hero and steals his watch. Happy Damn Holidays.

Now the news:

Nerd chip off old block

HOLLAND, Mich. (AP) >> Forget tacking Jr. or II onto a boy's name. A self-described engineering geek took a software approach to naming his newborn son, christening him Blake Cusak 2.0. Blake Cusak 1.0 said it took months for him convince his wife to go along with the name.

(Especially after his "foolproof" method of birth control -- Control, Alt-Del -- failed.)

New title is a cut below

ATHENS, Greece (AP) >> The remake of the 1974 cult horror movie "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" opened in Greece with an introduction demanded by psychiatrists: "Schizophrenics aren't always violent."

Psychiatrists claimed that the film, distributed in Greece under the title "The Schizophrenic Murderer with the Chainsaw," insulted schizophrenics.

(Not to mention insulting completely mentally healthy murderers with chain saws.)

Primary school is hell

PITTSBURGH (AP) >> A second-grader was suspended for a day for telling a classmate he would go to hell for saying "I swear to God."

Brandy McKenith, 7, was suspended for saying "hell" in accordance to the schools anti-profanity policy, but her family says she was referring to the biblical location of fire and brimstone.

(What ever happened to just giving wedgies?)

'Honolulu Lite' on Sunday:

Having had to endure the beaming smiles and rampant giddiness of roofers and fence builders visiting Memminger Hale to provide cost estimates on storm damage repair, it is clear that the best way to get Hawaii's economy moving and put people back to work is for the islands to have even more horrible weather. Talk about a "windfall."

Quote me on this:

"Listen, three eyes, don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you for free with my breakfast cereal." -- Zaphod Beeblebrox

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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