Week in Review

Wednesday, February 4, 1998

Ouch!

A 30-year-old Illinois man volunteered to be castrated earlier this week. Jeffrey Morse offered to have himself snipped to avoid a potential 100-year prison sentence for his conviction on charges of molesting a 12-year-old girl and attempting to molest an 11-year-old girl.

Studies conducted in Germany show that castration lowers recidivism from 50 percent to 3 percent, but the effects of castration on one's attraction to White House interns remain a mystery.

Caught Red-Handed

William McCallum, a former assistant attorney general for the State of New Hampshire, was recently convicted of stealing art, computers, and other valuables from museums and schools throughtout New England.

Some of the stolen items were Dartmouth property. McCallum's lawyers claimed that he suffers from kleptomania, but his insanity defense was rejected and he faces up to life imprisonment for his conviction on 65 felony and misdemeanor counts.

Shore Leave

Larry Hillblom, one of the founders of DHL Worldwide Express and a multi-millionaire with a fortune valued at $500 million to $700 million, presumably died in 1995 when he crashed his plane in the Pacific Ocean near Saipan.

Only recently, however, is the court battle over his fortune nearing an end. It appears that Mr. Hillblom made a habit of visiting East Asian ports of call and engaging in lurid activities with young virgins.

Last month, a court on the island of Saipan awarded four of his illegitimate children up to $90 million each. The only snag is definitively establishing paternity through DNA testing. Neither Mr. Hillblom's relatives nor doctors at UC San Francisco, which is named as a major benefactor in Mr. Hillblom's will, have been willing to provide such DNA samples.

Insert Brain Here

Ever since an elderly woman won a multimillion dollar judgment from McDonald's because the chain served her boiling coffee, many Styrofoam cups have carried a warning that the contents may be hot.

Fearing similar lawsuits, many companies have affixed correspondingly curious labels to their products. New Scientist magazine has recently compiled a list of some of these helpful reminders. Certain chainsaws, for example, now enjoin those so inclined, 'Do not try to stop chain with hands.'

A bag of peanuts makes it clear that the package 'contains nuts.' Pudding cups caution that 'product will be hot after heating.' And for those expecting to quickly smooth those wrinkly slacks, an iron manufacturer has added a label to its product that advises to 'not iron clothes on body.'

Wheels of Fortune

A new survey on television from UCLA identified so-called 'reality specials,' live videos of police chases or animal attacks, as the greatest source of violence on American TV.

In Russia, however, 'Real Stories of the Highway Patrol' has reached an entirely new level. A current Russian game show called Interception, reports the Washington Post, provides its contestants with a car and a challenge: They can keep the vehicle if they can elude a couple of Moscow's finest for 35 minutes. In order to reduce the danger, the show allows no speeding and is staged only at night when traffic is less.

Nonetheless, several accidents have already occurred including an incident when a driver crashed into a pontoon boat. Some Moscow cops, though, are more upset over Interception's incongruity with authenticity. 'In real life the police have machine guns,' protested one officer to the Post. 'If the driver doesn't stop, well, they open fire. The show glorifies the thief. We get discredited.'

Foot Fetish

While con artists may not be prevalent at the College, a Norwalk, CT, man recently initiated a mysterious scheme involving shoes and female undergraduates. Identifying himself as 'Bob' and representing a shoe company, he claimed to be conducting a phone survey on the footwear patterns of Ivy League women.

Bob would get women talking by asking them about their shoe size, and then attempt to move the conversation into subject areas more lurid.

His conversations with the willing surveyees lasted up to thirty minutes.

Bob promised each undergraduate he phoned a free pair of shoes if they gave him the names of more Dartmouth women.

A woman whom Safety and Security reports identify only as 'an alert undergraduate' trapped Bob by giving him the number of Safety and Security Officer Rebel Roberts.

Quota Queen Makes It Big

Lani Guinier, Bill Clinton's original choice to head the Justice Department's civil rights division, has recently come under fire for her own views on civil rights issues. 'At the time of her nomination, I had not read her writings,' Clinton said. 'In retrospect, I wish I had.' Former Attorney General Edwin Meese III cited her 'destructive views on civil rights law' as the cause of Guinier's failure to gain confirmation.

Harvard Law School does not, however, seem to find these views particularly 'destructive.' She has recently been hired as a professor there, specializing in matters such as affirmative action, gender, and voting rights.

Miss Guinier said that she is pleased to join an institution 'devoted to issues of race and equality.' Perhaps they should take a look at her writings.

Chewing the Fat

Monday marked the beginning of Dartmouth's Third Annual Eating Disorders Awareness Week with 'Challenging Fatitiudes,' a speech by clinical psychiatrist and political activist Lisa Berzins.

Berzins also spoke of 'culturally relative' claims of beauty, noting that Marilyn Monroe ranged from a size 12 to a size 14. According to Berzins, from 1958 to 1978 the American woman's average weight rose while the model's average weight went down.

Although many in the fashion industry including Calvin Klein and Versace still find the 'waif look' acceptable and appealing, she said that some companies see a market in targeting the average American woman, whose size is 14.

Half way through her speech Berzins discarded the 'fat suit' that she had been wearing throughout the speech, which she hoped would 'challenge the assumptions people make about credibility based on size.'

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