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Family will ring in
holidays with Belle

The power of the press is so great that Belle, the Catahoula herding dog abandoned by two families to the Hawaiian Humane Society was adopted a day before my Sunday column detailing her plight ran.

Someone with less ego might concede that the adoption had nothing to do with the column. But I vowed Belle would find a home this week and, hey, it happened.

After that column, I heard from a few cat lovers asking why I singled out a dog for adoption. So, in the interest of fair play, I invite cat fanciers to take a look at "Cat," an adorable young black-and-white shorthair waiting for YOU at the Humane Society since June.

Now the news ...

Ape-jam blocks roads

HIMACHAL PRADESH, India (AP) » One of India's busiest mountain highways is to be cleared of monkeys after complaints that hundreds of primates are causing accidents and harassing commuters.

Authorities said an operation will attempt to remove more than 2,000 monkeys from the Kalka-Simla national highway.

(The cleanup will begin once officials decide to use either "monkey plows" or "monkey blowers" for the operation.)

Jet wheelchair has zip

BEDFORDSHIRE, England (BBC) » A man who put a jet engine on the back of his mother-in-law's wheel chair has hit top speeds of 60 miles per hour at local model airplane shows.

"Originally it was a gimmick," said Giuseppe Cannella. "I had a jet engine and I was going to put it on a go cart. But the missus said put it on something unusual so I put it on the mother-in-law's wheelchair."

(If he comes by another jet engine he said he plans to rev up mum-in-law's dentures.)

Drunk rats aid study

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) » A collection of drunken rats is helping University of Northern Carolina researchers understand how brains repair themselves after chronic drinking.

Rats who are intoxicated and then sobered up produce more than normal amounts of neurons. That might explain why the brains of rats with simulated alcoholism shrink during chronic drinking but grow after the abuse stops.

(It doesn't explain, however, how the rats sneak the beer kegs and sorority girls into the testing lab at night.)

Honolulu Lite on Sunday:
There was a time when flying not only was not scary but actually had its funny moments. Like the time the captain came on the loud speaker after the plane came in for a bumpy landing and said, "Whoa, big fella, WHOA!" Today, authorities would tell that pilot "So long, big fella." See Honolulu Lite on Sunday for more fun in the skies of days gone by.

Quote Me On This:
"An expert is one who knows so much about so little that he neither can be contradicted nor is worth contradicting." -- Henry Ward.

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