Obama In '08?

Marietta (Georgia) bar owner Mike Norman says the T-shirts he's peddling, featuring a look-a-like of cartoon chimp Curious George peeling a banana, with "Obama in '08" underneath, are not meant to offend.

Norman acknowledged the imagery's Jim Crow roots but said he sees nothing wrong with depicting a prominent African-American as a monkey.

Muskogee Frosh (Sounds Like A Sick Album Title...)

A 19-year-old freshman at the University of Oklahoma was elected mayor Tuesday of Muskogee, a city of 38,000 in the northeastern part of the state.

With all precincts reporting, John Tyler Hammons won with 70 percent of the vote over former Mayor Hershel Ray McBride, said Muskogee County Election Board Secretary Bill Bull.

"The public placing their trust in me is the greatest, humbling and most awesome experience I've ever had in my life," said Hammons, who is from Muskogee but attends the university in Norman.

"Being elected does not change my desire to continue my education," he said. "We will schedule our time in an appropriate fashion so that I can be mayor and stay in school."

Fallon Hard Times

Jimmy Fallon's kindergarten yearbook at St. Mary of the Snow in Saugerties, New York, listed him as "most likely to take over for David Letterman."

Letterman's going nowhere, but close enough: Fallon is succeeding Conan O'Brien as the host of NBC's "Late Night" sometime in the middle of next year. NBC on Monday made official a plan that's been talked about since 2003, when a network executive first broached the idea of doing a talk show with the former "Saturday Night Live" star.

NBC's plan is to have O'Brien move west to take over for Jay Leno at the "Tonight" show next year. After a break to refurbish the Rockefeller Center studio where O'Brien now works, the 33-year-old Fallon will take over.

The Dump Seat

A Manhattan man is feeling flush with anger after he says he was forced to sit in the bathroom for three hours on a cross-country JetBlue flight.

Gokhan Mutlu says it all happened Feb. 23, when a flight attendant volunteered to sit in a “jump seat” so Mutlu could make it onto the flight headed from San Diego to New York, according to the New York Post.

About 90 minutes into the flight, however, Mutlu says he got a rude awakening when the pilot informed him that the flight attendant was uncomfortable in the jump seat and would be taking the regular seat back.

According to the suit, the pilot went on to inform Mutlu that the jump seat was "for personnel only" and he could not sit there. The pilot said Mutlu should just "go and 'hang out' in the bathroom," the suit says. In the meantime, the stewardess took Mutlu's seat, "closed her eyes and pretended to sleep."

Now suing Jetblue for $2 million, Mutlu says he was "mortified, disgraced, degraded and shamed,” according to the New York Post.

Mr. Dundee?

An Australian driver who secured a carton of beer in his car with a seat belt but left a 5-year-old child unrestrained was fined 750 Australian dollars ($710), police said Tuesday.

The 30-can carton was strapped in between the two adults sitting in the back seat of the car. The child was also in back, on the vehicle's floor.

"The child was sitting in the lump in the center, unrestrained," Burnett told reporters Tuesday. "I haven't ever seen something like this before," he said. "This is the first time that the beer has taken priority over a child."

What's The Pro(m)blem?!?!

Master Of Your Domain

According to Esquire:

4. Score a baseball game.
5. Name a book that matters.
9. Write a letter.
14. Chop down a tree.
17. Make one drink, in large batches, very well.
19. Approach a woman out of his league.
30. Feign interest.
41. Speak to a waiter so he will hear.
44. Ask for help.
46. Tell a woman's dress size.
62. Hold a baby.

For the rest: http://www.esquire.com/features/essential-skills-0508?src=rss

Neilyoungi or Orbisonorum?

An East Carolina University biologist, Jason Bond, discovered a new species of trapdoor spider and opted to call the arachnid after his favorite musician, Canadian Neil Young, naming it Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi.

”I really enjoy his music and have had a great appreciation of him as an activist for peace and justice," said Bond.

Neil Young, 62, whose solo work ranges from older albums such as Harvest to newer CDs like Living with War, has long been an activist for social and anti-war causes.
Bond discovered the new spider species in Jefferson County, Alabama, in 2007. He said spiders in the trapdoor genus, who tend to live in burrows and build trap doors to seal off their living quarters, are distinguished from one species to the next on the basis of differences in genitalia.

Young is not the first musician to have a creature named after him. A species of beetle that looks as if it is wearing a tuxedo -- the whirligig beetle, or Orectochilus orbisonorum -- was named earlier this year after the late rock 'n' roll legend Roy Orbison and his widow Barbara.

Hey Lamb- Try Counting Sheep!

A 3-year-old Florida boy with a rare condition has not slept in three years.

Doctors said Rhett Lamb of St. Petersburg apparently has a condition called chiari malformation that puts pressure on his brain.

Rhett has never taken a nap or gone to sleep at night, forcing his parents to keep watch day and night.

"(My husband) has the day shift and I kind of have the afternoon shift," mother Shannon Lamb said. "We share the night shift because no one can sleep in the house when he is up anyway."

According to the May Clinic, chiari malformation is a rare abnormality where brain tissue protrudes in the spinal canal. Part of the skull is abnormally small and puts pressure on the brain.

Rhett checked into a hospital for an experimental surgery last week.

Straight To Your Dome Piece

Three teenagers were arrested after two of them told police they dug up a secluded grave north of Houston, removed the skull from the coffin and converted it into a bong (actual skull not shown here).

Police were interviewing Kevin Wade Jones about the use of a stolen debit card when he told them about the grave theft, which purportedly occurred around March 15, according to court documents.

Matthew Gonzalez confirmed the story to investigators in a follow-up interview. Police were led to a heavily wooded site in Humble where they found a knocked-over headstone and water-filled hole more than 4 feet deep. At the time, the muddy water did not allow police to see if the coffin had been disturbed.

"They dug into this gravesite and that was enough to warrant the abuse of corpse charge," Chomiak said. "There has to be further investigation into the actual gravesite."

Police believe the grave is that of an 11-year-old boy who died in 1921.