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Florida, Workman, and the Case of the Tossed Dwarves

The first blog entry I wrote for the Devil’s Dilemma was on the ethical implications surrounding a bizarre New Zealand past time known as Possum Tossing. I thought that was the strangest topic I’d write about, but I can now say that this new story takes the cake, and it’s happening right here in America.

A Florida state representative, Ritch Workman, is pushing a campaign to lift the ban on “dwarf tossing.” The strange activity is it exactly what it sounds like, and (not surprisingly) often takes place in bars or other events involving alcoholic libations. In this activity, dwarves wear some sort of padded clothing, usually with Velcro, and are then thrown (or “tossed”), usually onto a mattress or similar surface coated in Velcro. It may come as no surprise that dwarf tossing is nearly universally banned, both in America and the world. Continue reading “Florida, Workman, and the Case of the Tossed Dwarves”

L for Lingerie

The first ever time I read about LFL, I thought it stood for Ladies Football League. I pictured women in shoulder pads and helmets and you know, football. Well, I was right about all of that except for the “Ladies” part, and from the title, I’m sure you know what is coming.




Yes, LFL stands for Lingerie Football League, and it is, as the name suggests, women playing football in their lingerie.

Attractive women in lingerie playing football? It probably does not take wild imagination to realize why it attracts a primarily male audience.

Judging from the highlights, the football part is real and it is definitely not just a strip show designed to appeal to men’s pleasure. In fact, judging from everything I’ve been reading, the women players love it—many of them have actually been playing for free.

But this just does not seem quite right to me. I think it is awesome that there is a league that supports women football players, and I most definitely understand the need to distinguish from NFL and drive in profit, but dressed in that? Does that really help promote women’s football? And what kind of message is it sending out to society?

This reminds me of Eddie’s post on “PETA porn” and my other post on, well, “news porn.”

So now that we are also throwing “football porn” into the mix, is this really what we want from our society? If not, how do we ensure that the “market pull” does not turn everything we know into something like that? (I personally don’t think high school teachers in bikinis teaching trigonometry is a good idea.)

And if you agree with me that LFL is not that great of a concept (and if you disagree with me, I would love to hear your point), how do we also approach the fact that the women players seem to have zero problems doing this? Even if a less scantily clad version of women’s football exists, I am guessing that many of the players would rather play in lingerie and be watched than play in an empty gym.

(On a more unrelated note of the day, should little kids play football like this?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdWWQr-7c1g

To Toss a Possum or Not?

In New Zealand, that is the question. Just last September the BBC World News front page featured a headline that read like something out of The Onion: “Row Over NZ Possum Tossing Contest.”

The contest occurred at a local NZ elementary school…after all, what third grader doesn’t want to toss a possum during recess? For the animal-tossing uncultured among us, a possum-tossing contest entails the following: one, catching and humanely killing possums; two, tossing them as far as you can. That’s about it. See the video below for an example.  Sounds like a normal Sunday for me…




Continue reading “To Toss a Possum or Not?”