When the world gets weird, get weirder

Marty Forth

For the past week, I have been waiting for some sort of inspiration concerning what to write my opinion article about. Friends at work and home have offered up ideas, but nothing really inspired me.

Granted, I could pick religion, but the Jesus-socks guy would set up camp in front of my house.

Or maybe I could pick American history, but I would have to put up with irate English teachers calling me young and ignorant.

I even considered the most original idea of politics, but why?

I am a Canadian and can’t vote in your country.

I am all about democracy and the voting process, but I accept the fact that I am not permitted to vote in the U.S.A.

It scares me that if I did write anything about the recent election, someone would start playing that “Larry McKibben, you better quit your fibbin'” commercial again.

I would rather shoot myself than put up with that.

I considered blasting the library for discontinuing the school’s subscription to Playboy.

That magazine is more educational than most other periodicals in the library.

But I was not sure that I could fill my allotment of space with just that argument.

I decided to look elsewhere for an original opinion article idea, something everyone would enjoy that incorporated everything that I mentioned above.

An article that would inspire guys to pat me on the back and girls to buy me beers (it didn’t work last time).

The following are the wacky and weird stories that you will not find in other newspapers but really should know:

A psychologist at the University of Michigan has proven that bimbos are really dumb.

Women who wear revealing clothing or tight clothes may spend so much more effort thinking about their appearance that their brains don’t have the capacity to do much anything else.

According to Barbara Frederickson, any clothing that could make a woman feel self-conscious about her looks could possibly reduce the mental energy needed to complete tasks and various problems.

In the experiment, she had subjects wear bathing suits and take math tests to see if their scores were noticeably different.

The “Baywatch” want-to-be’s scored lower. Frederickson cited other mental activities: looking in mirrors, tugging on a shirt and adjusting a strap as also mentally draining.

It is a wonder how strippers spin around on those poles. It has to take a whole lot of mental energy — or maybe it is just draining for me to watch.

Here’s one for a couple girls who work at the Rec. A man in Turkey, Mehmet Esirgen, tried to cure his sexual impotence by having a penis transplant.

The problem was that he wanted to use a donkey as a donor. The Agence France-Presse wire service reported that Esirgen had brought home donkeys and appealed to different doctors to perform the reattachment surgery.

No doctor would perform the surgery, leaving Esirgen hanging.

I hope that someone talks to this poor man and helps him invest in some Viagra. Otherwise, there is going to be a surplus of eunuch donkeys roaming about Turkey.

In Athens, a young woman suffered a nervous breakdown on the eve of her wedding.

In itself, this is not too hard to believe, as weddings are stressful and demanding affairs.

The bride and groom were celebrating at separate parties when the bride’s friends asked to see the wedding dress, which was at the couple’s home.

Upon arriving home, they found the groom wearing the wedding dress, which is not the worst thing that could have happened.

The groom was in a passionate embrace with the best man when the group walked in.

I think that would be more than enough to drive a girl crazy.

I mean, how could you really spend the rest of your life with someone who fits your wedding dress better than you do?

Here is some research for the multitude of agriculture majors at Iowa State.

An agricultural center in Germany has found that cows who are pampered produce better tasting milk.

By pampering, they mean having the bovines lay on waterbeds and listen to light music while they chew their cud.

I think that I could do anything better if I were laying on a waterbed and listening to light music.

Even more off the wall to consider is that prostitutes in Germany may soon be able to claim pensions, unemployment benefits and other employee rights and freedoms.

It is estimated there are nearly half a million working prostitutes in German cities.

I got to thinking and decided I was glad prostitution is not legal in North America for the sole reason that I don’t want to know at what age prostitutes retire.

For all the readers who just need some sort of religious reference in the opinion pages to make their day complete, I have this story for you.

In Miami, Florida, the lottery and local television advertisements have been joined by a large black and white billboard asking the question “What Part of ‘Thou Shall Not … ‘ Didn’t You Understand? — God.”

Other billboards include one that threatens, “Keep using my name in vain, I’ll make rush hour longer.”

Another one simply states, “Think it’s hot here?” Both also attributed to God.

Maybe it is just me, but I really didn’t know that the creator of all had such a sense of humor, let alone an advertising budget.

After researching all these stories, I had the revelation that life in little Ames, Iowa. is really not that bad.

It may be sleepy and slow, but at least God talks to you personally, the cows are better taken care of than poor students and donkeys are free to roam without the fear of losing their most valued appendages.


Marty Forth is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Waterdown, Ontario.