North Carolina seems to have more than its share of good old boys with three-word-names wandering around in search of gas and cigarettes.
The late 43-year-old Gary Allen Banning of Havelock, N.C. was not a Buddhist monk.
Banning was at a friend’s apartment and went into the kitchen finding a jar of 'soda' by the sink. After gulping, Gary realized it was gasoline and quickly spit it out. Some of the gas landed on his shirt. (why was there a mason-jar of gasoline on a kitchen counter?)
After a few minutes, Banning went outside to smoke a cigarette. The second he lit the cancer-nail remnants of gasoline on his shirt burst into flames. Banning died a short time later in the hospital.
The difference between Gary and the Buddhist monk is noteworthy. The monks lit themselves intentionally in protest over Johnson's war. Gary did it because the inbreeding leading to him left out the gene that would warn an intelligent person that gasoline is still flammable, even after it dries on your tee-shirt.
