Lead Story
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
In January the Albuquerque Journal reported on the efforts of local emergency room physician Sam Slishman to find a facility for his Endorphin Power Company, which he says will be a rehab center for drug-addicted and alcoholic homeless people that partly offsets its expenses by enlisting patients’ help with the electric bill: as part of their therapy they’ll exercise on stationary bikes, treadmills, and weight machines that are hooked to generators. Endorphin Power, Slishman says, will be the city’s “inspirational flagship for social rehabilitation and renewable energy use.”
Dental Follies
In January the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council dismissed the complaint of a radio listener in Calgary, Alberta, ruling that a song by a cappella group Da Vinci’s Notebook wasn’t obscene because its subject was self-esteem, not sex. The lyrics to “Enormous Penis” include “I’ve got the cure for all my blues / I take a look at my enormous penis / And my troubles start a-meltin’ away” and “I gotta sing and a-dance / When I glance in my pants.”
For roughly 48 straight hours in February, anyone tuning in to 106.7 FM in central Pennsylvania heard “Pop Goes the Weasel” over and over again as the station switched formats from country to “power pop.” In December in Pikeville, Tennessee, corrections officials discovered a partial methamphetamine lab (Coleman fuel, tubing, foil, coffee filters, and a jar of “red liquid”) hidden in air vents in the county jail. And in February a father in Pacifica, California, filed his fourth claim against the school district (this one for $380,000) because teachers and administrators haven’t protected his 12-year-old son from taunts, gay epithets, and an alleged death threat; the boy is an internationally acclaimed competitive ballroom dancer.
