The Coast News, March 22, 2013

A46 THE COAST NEWS
MARCH 22, 2013
by CHUCK
SHEPHERD
ODD
FILES
Doping on Ice
Leaders of the ice-fishing
community, aiming for official
Olympics recognition as a
sport, have begun the process
by asking the World Anti-
Doping Agency to randomly
test its “athletes” for performance-enhancing
drugs,
according to a February New
York Times report. However,
said the chairman of the U.S.
Freshwater Fishing
Association, “We do not test
for beer,” because, he added,
“Everyone would fail.” Icefishing
is a lonel y, frigid
endeavor rarely employing
strength but mostly requiring
guile and strategy, as competitors
who disco ver advantageous
spots in the lake must
surreptitiously upload the
hauls lest competitor s rush
over to drill their own holes.
Urine tests have also been
run in recent years on competitors
in darts, miniature
golf, chess and tug-of-war, and
in 2011, one chess player, two
minigolfers and one tugger
tested positive.
Cultural Diversity
— A frequent sight on
Soweto, South Africa, streets
recently is crowds of 12-to-15year-old
boys known as
“izikhotane” (“boasters”)
who hang out in their designer
jeans, “shimmering silk
shirts, bright pink and blue
shoes, and white-straw, narrow-brimmed
fedoras,”
according to a February BBC
News dispatch. Flashing wads
of cash begged from beleaguered
parents, hundreds
may amass, playing loud
music and sometimes even
trashing their fancy clothes as
if to feign an indifference to
wealth. Since many
izikhotanes’ families are
working-class survivors of
apartheid, they are mostly
ashamed of their kids’ behavior.
“This isn’t what we struggled
for,” lamented one parent.
But, protested a peer -
pressured boaster, “(Y)ou
must dress like this, even if
you live in a shack.”
— India’s annual “Rural
Olympics” might be the cultural
equivalent of se veral
Southern U.S. “Redneck
Olympics” but taken somewhat
more seriously, in that
this year, corporate sponsorships
(Nokia and Suzuki)
helped fund the equivalent of
about $66,000 in prize money
for such events as competitive
pulling using only one’s ears
or teeth. “We do this f or
money, trophies, fame and
respect,” one ear-puller told
The Wall Street Journal in
February. This year, in the
four-day event in Punjab
state, the 50,000 spectator s
could watch a teeth-lifter pull
a 110-pound sack upward for
about eight seconds and an
ear-puller ease a car about 15
feet.
— Weird Japan: (1) A
generous local businessman
recently graced the city of
Okuizumo with funding for
replicas of two Renaissance
statues (“Venus de Milo” and
Michelangelo’s “David”) for a
public park. Agence France-
Presse reported in February
that many residents, receiv-
ing little ad vance warning,
expressed shock at the unveiling
of “David” and demanded
that he at least be given
underpants. (2) Fax machines,
almost obsolete in the U.S.,
are still central to many techsavvy
Japanese families and
companies (who bought 1.7
million units last year alone),
reported The New York Times
in February. Families prefer
faxes’ superiority to e-mail for
warmly expressing Japan’s
complex written language,
and bureaucrats favor faxes’
preserving the imperative of
paper flow.
Readers’ Choice
(1) Two brothers, celebrating
a winning lotter y
ticket in Wichita, Kan., in
February, bought a stash of
marijuana, but then,
attempting to light a bong
using butane lighter fluid,
one accidentally blew up the
family home. That brother
was hospitalized with second-degree
burns, and the
other was arrested for marijuana
possession. (2) Megan
Thode, 27, went to trial in
February in Easton, Pa.,
suing Lehigh Uni versity,
accusing a pr ofessor of i llegally
discriminating against
her with a C- plus grade in a
class in 2009 i n the sc hool’s
graduate counseling program,
in which a B w as the
minimum required to continue.
Thode demanded $1.3
million for future damage to
her career (but not a tuition
refund — as she had matriculated
for free because her
father is a Lehigh professor).
Four days after the trial
began, the judge ruled
against her.