Drinking and riding
Brewers in Germany produce some of the best selling and most tasty beers in the world.
A German man can certainly attest to that. Ask him after he fully awakes from his all-night drinkfest.
A man, identified only as Wolfgang H., had a bit too much to drink and decided to sleep it off near an automatic teller machine, The Associated Press reported.
“It was late, it was already dark and cold,” Wolfgang told a local newspaper.
What he did next was surprising.
Because, really, is it normal to bring a horse inside a bank’s heated foyer when confronted with a lack of a hitching-post?
That’s exactly what Wolfgang did.
When a customer came across Mr. Ed and his owner, he called police. Officers woke up Wolfgang and sent him on his merry way.
But not before the horse left his own deposit.
Brian Sargent
Staff Writer
Carrie Underwood’s Visit to South Africa on “American Idol” Tonight
Carrie Underwood performs the song “Before He Cheats” at the CMT Music Awards in Nashville, Tenn., Monday, April 16, 2007.
Checotah’s superstar, Carrie Underwood, took a break from working on her next album earlier this month to visit South Africa for the “American Idol” “Idol Gives Back” charity special. An exclusive music video package from her trip will air during the two-hour results special at 7 p.m. CDT tonight on Fox.
The trip was organized by “American Idol” and Comic Relief, and during her two-day tour Underwood and three members of her band visited and played for schools, orphanages, hospices and health care centers in and around Johannesburg, South Africa.
Underwood has also recorded an acoustic version of The Pretenders’ 1994 hit, “I’ll Stand By You,” which will play behind footage of Underwood’s trip.
“American Idol” and the Charity Projects Entertainment Fund (CPEF) have partnered to raise awareness and funds for organizations that provide relief for children and young people facing poverty in the U.S. and Africa. For every vote cast, “Idol” sponsors Coca-Cola and AT&T, along with a range of additional partners, will donate money to the charity. During tonight’s broadcast, viewers will be able to make their own donations via toll-free lines and the Internet.
Did you know that the National Weather Service has on its Web site a “Hail Diameter Size Descriptor”?
The information is below. Now you’ll know that grapefruit size hail has a diameter of four inches.
inches = description
1/4 = pea
1/2 = small marble
3/4 = penny
7/8 = nickel
1 = quarter
1 1/4 = half-dollar
1 1/2 = walnut
1 3/4 = golf ball
2 = hen egg
2 1/2 = tennis ball
2 3/4 = baseball
3 = teacup
4 = grapefruit
4 1/2 = softball
Brian Sargent
Staff Writer
Of Cover-Ups and Courage
This morning, people who lived through the Tulsa race riot of 1921 and others who have become experts on it testified before a House subcommittee.
Beyond the still-shocking and sickening details of the riot itself _ white people killed dozens of black Tulsans and burned down their thriving community _ is the tale of the cover-up.
According to one witness at the hearing today, you could grow up in Tulsa and never know it happened.
John Hope Franklin, a history professor emeritus at Duke Law School, whose father survived the riot, said former Tulsa Mayor Susan Savage, who grew up in the city, told him she was “a grown woman” before she knew about the riot.
Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a law professor at Harvard University who has been representing survivors of the riot and descendants in court, said the state of Oklahoma and city of Tulsa acted “to supress all talk of the riot as well as the survivors’ attempts to seek legal redress.”
The Oklahoma Legislature approved language in 2001 saying the “conspiracy of silence served the dominant interests of the state during that period which found the riot a public relations nightmare that was best to be forgotten …”
Ogletree said, “Even those (blacks) that fled Tulsa to other parts of the state were not allowed to speak of their experiences and were not believed when they did.”
Down the hall from the hearing this morning on the Tulsa race riot, another House committee was holding a hearing.
This hearing was about the death of Pat Tillman, a former NFL player who enlisted in the Army was accidentally killed by fellow troops in 2004 in Afghanistan.
An Army ranger testified at the hearing that he was ordered not to tell Tillman’s brother, Kevin, that Pat had been killed by friendly fire. The story first released by the military was that Tillman had died engaging the enemy to protect his comrades.
It took awhile for the Tillman family to learn the truth, but they persisted.
For the survivors of the Tulsa riot _ and the people of Oklahoma who knew nothing about it _ it was the late 1990s before a special commission began to unearth details of the riot that had been suppressed for decades.
At the hearing today, Ogletree praised the people who were determined that the chapter be written, including former Oklahoma state Rep. Don Ross and Tulsa historian Eddie Faye Gates, who were at the hearing.
“It took 80 years to unbury an American nightmare,” Ogletree said. “But they did it.”
Chris Casteel
Washington Bureau
Nickles and pennies
“I’m mostly carrying nickles and pennies,” one meteorologsit said to another. He’s not talking about pocket change, but rather hail size. The largest they’ve had reports of so far was quarter-size near Iowa Park, Texas which is near Wichita Falls, Texas. The National Weather Service Norman Forecast Office covers a total of 56 counties, including eight in western north Texas, around Wichita Falls.
Bryan Painter
Page 1 Columnist
National Weather Service Norman Forecast Office
What we’ve seen and what we might
Following are comments from Mike Foster, Meteorologist In Charge at the National Weather Service Norman Forecast Office:
“We could be far from done. This first line of storms we’ve been watching have been sort of unremarkable storms, a little bit of hail mixed in here and there. We haven’t got any reports of wind damage or any reports of tornadoes. However, in north central Texas, north of the Metroplex and coming north toward the Red River, stronger storms, some with the potential to produce tornadoes, are developing and they will be moving into parts of south central Oklahoma over the next couple hours. So we’re watching those pretty carefully for developments of additional severe weather.
“In the meantime, the dryline is still in western Oklahoma and our recent thinking is there’s a fair potential for another line or another round of thunderstorms to develop back to the west of this first line.
“If that scenario were to happen there are some indications those thunderstorms could be more severe than the ones we’ve dealt with so far today.”
Bryan Painter
Page 1 Columnist, The Oklahoman
Writing from the National Weather Service Norman Forecast Office
Out the window
From radars to windows. We’re now seeing lighting and hearing thunder at the National Weather Service Norman Forecast Office. Various monitors are centered in front of the meteorologists, but on either side are windows giving them a look straight west.
Bryan Painter
Page 1 Columnist, The Oklahoman
Writing from The National Weather Service Norman Forecast Office
Hail near Davis
Rick Smith, the warning coordinnation meteorologist for the National Weather Service Norman Forecast Office, tells the meteorologists of a report of hail in the Davis area in southern Oklahoma.
Bryan Painter
Page 1 Columnist, The Oklahoman
Writing from the National Weather Service Norman Forecast Office
Advisory for Oklahoma County – not a warning
Instead of a severe thunderstorm warning for Oklahoma County, there is a significant weather advisory – not a warning.
Bryan Painter
Page 1 Columnist, The Oklahoman
Writing from the National Weather Service Norman Forecast Office
Hail!
While golf ball size hail has been reported west of Marlow in Stephens County, heavy thunderstorms are in the Edmond area in Oklahoma County moving toward Logan County and hail is possible in those areas.
A severe thunderstorm warning is in effect for Oklahoma and Logan Counties.
Bryan Painter
Page 1 Columnist, The Oklahoman
Writing from the National Weather Service Norman Forecast Office
