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Teddy Kaczynski, the suspected unabomber, is trying to fire his lawyers so he may represent himself at his trial. Being an ex-math professor, he is fully aware of the odds of waging a successful self-administered defense, but there are those who believe him to be mentally unstable, and therefore incapable of handling such procedural legal complexities which normally require years of experience to master. The legal logic is that anyone who would consider firing his attorney must be nuts, so by definition the man is legally crackers.
Then Teddy showed up in court without his drawers, along with some conspicuous red marks on his neck, and the best forensic minds in the country have concluded that the suspected serial mail bomber tried to hang himself with his underwear in his cell. To some, this proves the man is really off his rocker. I think not, and I will offer a plethora of anecdotal proof.
See, I too, have tried to hang myself with my underwear and I'm not crazy. In fact, I tried to hang myself with my underwear several times and I'm not even in prison. Just the other day, while watching television, I tried to hang myself with my underwear. My wife has tried to hang herself with her underwear also. All my friends have tried on numerous occasions to hang themselves with their underwear. Both my parents tried to hang themselves with their underwear -- often on my very birthday. Even my grandparents have hung themselves with their underwear. Ex-employers and co-workers have tried to hang themselves with their underwear, and many of my teachers throughout high school and college have tried to hang themselves with their underwear. The dean of the college hung herself with her underwear, and the registrar too. I have attended numerous underwear hanging parties, and, as they tell you on your invitation before you RSVP, BYOU (bring your own underwear).
Teddy was a math professor back at Berkeley, and he has therefore had some training in topology. To the topologically challenged, let me explain how you, too, can hang yourself with your underwear or even someone else's. If you are like most people, you have two legs, and your underwear therefore has two holes -- one for each leg -- not including the hole for the waist. So imagine you are near an object like a chinning bar or any horizontal bar much like what one might find in a prison cell. Just thread the underwear around the bar and back through one of the leg holes, the same way one might rig a half hitch. Then you simply stick your head in the other leg hole, and drop to your knees. See, anyone can hang themselves with their underwear, not just unabombers or other people in prison. By the way, as a point of science, I have found in my own research that it doesn't matter whether you hang yourself with the left leg or the right -- either works equally well, depending of course, on the structural integrity of your underwear.
But the unabomber underwear mishap raises interesting questions. In America, the raising of interesting questions is a full time occupation for some. And while the sanity of Ted Kaczynski has come into question, this man has inadvertently put this growing problem under the national microscope to be scrutinized by our question-raising legislators, whose sanity has never come into question. Many believe it is time that our lawmakers stop ignoring this completely American problem, and start passing some meaningful underwear hanging legislation. Many feel the underwear hanging must stop. How many more must hang themselves with their underwear before we legislate what we Americans can and can't do with our underwear?
Like most meaningful issues, though, there are some who believe that hanging yourself with your underwear is fun, good for crowd control, and that the government should keep their hands out of our underwear. Many believe that the constitution grants all Americans the right to hang themselves with their underwear.
Some hold an intermediate position, and feel that more underwear public education is necessary, and perhaps underwear safety and awareness should be taught in school for credit. Ted Kaczynski has demonstrated just how dangerous underwear can be in the wrong hands, and my own personal history and painful struggle with this issue throughout my life has proven that underwear hanging should be taken seriously. I have faith in the future, though. Perhaps psychologists will develop a test to determine early in life which Americans are likely candidates to hang themselves with their underwear. And how long might it be before the FDA approves drugs to help the underwear-hanging afflicted? Perhaps this runs in families, as I suspect is the case with mine, and they will develop genetic screening -- perhaps even gene therapy. I am hopeful.
This issue is a touchy one, and I suspect someday we will all be wearing paper underwear. After all, if you asked any legislator worth his salt, I'm sure he would tell you that when you give Americans a little freedom, they are bound to abuse it, and Ted Kaczynski is living proof.
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