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Alo-Ha! Friday Charles Memminger |
Cash family
won’t cash in for
Preparation HA reader complains that national news channels are so hard up for stories that they resort to nonsensical items like the recent "flare-up" between the makers of hemorrhoid cream Preparation H and the family of the late Johnny Cash.
Turns out that the Preparation H folks wanted to use Cash's song "Ring of Fire" in a commercial. Cash's children, who half-own the song, refused, saying it would demean a sensitive love ballad.
Being less sensitive and more mercenary, I have always said we should let the hemorrhoid cream company sponsor Hawaii public projects like the Preparation H-Power garbage-to-energy plant and the Preparation H-3 freeway. Think of how the state's deficit would shrink, so to speak.
Now the news:
Beggars CAN be choosy
HONG KONG >> The China Daily reported that a beggar plans to sue a well-wisher who threw money at him, hitting him in the face. The beggar was sitting near the entrance of the Guangzhou Airport when the donor threw the coins. The beggar chased the man and grappled with him before police pulled them apart.(It's guys like this that give beggars a bad name.)
Human slot machine tilts
BOSTON (AP) >> In a strange case just reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, French doctors were shocked in 2002 to discover a man complaining of a sore belly had swallowed 350 coins, along with assorted needles and necklaces.The patient suffered from a mental disorder called pica, a compulsion to eat unusual objects. Doctors removed the more than 10 pounds of coins, which had brought the man's stomach down between his hips. He died 12 days later.
(Since dying, there's been "no change" in the man's condition.)
Farmer mooved by cow
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) >> A farmer was saved from drowning by one of her cows. Caught in a raging flooded river, Kim Riley managed to grab onto a passing cow which dragged her to safety."When we hit hard ground, we both sat there quite exhausted, puffing and shaking a little bit," Riley said.
(Asked why the cow now only has three legs, Riley told passers-by, "Hey, a cow saves your life, you don't eat it all at once.")
'Honolulu Lite' on Sunday:
Can we put the brakes on freeway speed racers without a return to the dark days of the Gestapo-like van cams? We'd better.
Quote me on this:
"There is nothing in any religion; That forces us to love a pigeon." -- Ogden Nash
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
