May 23, 2005
News of the Weird
Eating disorders have such a hold on many young women that
some Internet sites glorify anorexia and bulimia as a quasi-divinity,
using religious language to command obedience to a goddess of
thinness known as "Ana," according to a May story in
Minneapolis's Star Tribune. Said one Minnesota college
freshman, "Ana is definitely a higher power, not higher than God,
but higher than myself." There are Ana prayers, Ana psalms, and
Ana commandments. One site has instructions for a ritual at an
altar, culminating in a blood contract "with the anorexia deity."
An Arizona doctor reported that a 13-year-old anorexia patient
suddenly spoke "an incantation, like a hex, as if to scare me off."
[Star Tribune, 5-1-05]
News of the Weird has already reported that some people have a
fondness for inserting 3-inch steel hooks in their skin and hanging
from pulleys for minutes, or even an hour, at a time. In April,
about 100 such aficionados attended a gathering in Providence,
R.I., and participants seemed thrilled, according to a Reuters
dispatch. A Connecticut teen: "It was euphoric. It was spiritual.
I'd do it again today if I wasn't so sore." A woman, watching her
boyfriend slowly swing: "Look at his face. He's so serene. We've
had some really rough times this year, and he needed this really
bad." A Canadian man: "The first couple of times, I didn't enjoy
it. The first time, I blacked out, and one time I was convulsing.
But the third time I got better. I wasn't blacking out anymore."
[Reuters, 4-5-05]
The governments of Spain and Nanjing, China, appear to have
had similar ideas but with different rationales. Both are readying
regulations to keep track of who important people are nailing. In
Spain, that would be directors of companies, in order to keep up
with lovers who might be insider trading, and in Nanjing, it's city
officials, in order to discourage public money from going to mistresses.
A Chicago gas-station clerk tricked a robber in February by the
simple ploy of telling him there was more money "up there,"
pointing toward the ceiling. The robber looked, then said, "What
are you talking about? There's no money up there." However,
there was a surveillance camera there, and police were grateful for
a full-face shot of the robber, according to WMAQ-TV. [WMAQ-
TV (Chicago), 2-15-05]
A model wears a design by Russian designer Mia Shvili on the runway during Miami Fashion Week of the Americas in Miami Beach @
The Latest Remote Touching Experience: Following previous
Pro Edition reports about hands-on cyber sex is the invention by
the "Mixed Reality Lab" at the National University of Singapore:
the Touchy Internet. You feel up a model of an animal, loaded
with sensors and connected to the Internet, and a real animal
somewhere else is thereby petted in the very same way in the very
same spots. For some reason, the animal they used to demonstrate
the thing on was . . . a chicken. Said Prof. Adrian David Cheok:
"This is the first human-poultry interaction system ever
developed." (Egg-heads Invent Tele-petting)
via news of the weird pro-edition
Posted by Cieciel at May 23, 2005 05:26 AM