The Milwaukee Post

18 • Milwaukee Post • September 13, 2013 NEWS OF THE WEIRD BY CHUCK SHEPHERD Lead story ■ Happiness is a clean toilet. Beginning in 2011, about three dozen people in Tokyo have been meeting every Sunday morning at 6 a.m. on a mission to scrub down, one by one, the city's grungiest public restrooms. "By 7:30," said an Associated Press reporter who witnessed an outing in August, the team had left behind a "gleaming public toilet, looking as good as the day it was installed." Explained the hygiene-intense Satoshi Oda (during the week, a computer programmer), the mission is "for our own good" – work that leader Masayuki Magome compares to the training that Buddhist monks receive to find peace. (In fact, to fulfill the group's motto, "Clean thyself by cleaning cubicles," the scouring must be done with bare hands.) A squad supporter spoke of a sad, growing apprehension that the younger generation no longer shares the Japanese cultural conviction that restrooms should always be clean and safe. Medical marvels ■ Colleagues were stunned in May when ABC News editor Don Ennis suddenly appeared at work wearing a little black dress and a red wig and declaring that he had begun hormone therapy and wanted to be called Dawn Ennis. As co-workers accommodated his wishes (which did not seem so unusual in contemporary professional society), Ennis began to have second thoughts, and by July had blamed his conversion on "transient global amnesia," brought on by marital difficulties, and had returned to work as Don. Apparently the primary lingering effect is that he must still deal with Dawn's hormone-induced breasts. The entrepreneurial spirit ■ Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a mirror that makes a person appear happy even when not. A builtin camera tracks facial features in real time, then tweaks the image to turn up the corners of the mouth and to create the beginnings of a smile in the eyes. Of what practical use would such a mirror be? Other Japanese researchers, according to a Slate.com report in August, believe that happy-face mirrors in retail stores would improve shoppers' dispositions and lead to more sales. Animals gone wild ■ Two macaques escaped from the Straussberg Adventure Park in eastern Germany in July, apparently on the run from the jealous bullying of "Cornelius," the resident alpha male. When park officials recaptured the two, they reported that (even though everyone seems to be against "bullying" these days) "Fred" and "Richard" would have to be castrated. It was not punishment, the officials explained; it was to calm them and reduce the overall "hormone imbalance" in the park, since males greatly outnumber females. HINTS FROM HELOISE BY HELOISE Perspective ■ The Costa Rican government announced recently that it would close all its zoos, effective March 2014, and free animals either to the wild or to safe "retirement" shelters. Since the country is known for its expansive biodiversity (500,000 unique organisms, despite occupying barely more than 1/100th of 1 percent of Earth's area), it is time, the environment minister said, to allow the organisms to interact instead of imprisoning them. Costa Rica is also one of only four countries to ban the exploitation of dolphins. Leading economic indicators ■ In July, following sustained criticism, Thomson Reuters business information company suspended an advance-release service for the crucial monthly "consumer confidence index" that has been known to signal stock markets to abruptly "buy" (driving up prices) or "sell" (sending them lower). The University of Michigan prepares and distributes the index promptly at 10 a.m. Eastern time on its release date, but Thomson Reuters offers two advance peeks. It pays the school about $1 million a year to see the index at 9:55 a.m., to share with its best customers. The suspended program gave an even earlier tip-off – at 9:54:58 – and high-frequency trading firms paid $6,000 more a month for those two seconds, which allowed their computer robots to execute hundreds of thousands of trades before other professional traders had access to the index. ■ First-world problems: Self-indulgent New York City parents have been hiring "play-date" coaches for their preschool youngsters, apparently out of fear that the kids' skill set for just having fun might not impress admissions officers at the city's elite private schools. The CEO of one consulting outfit told the New York Post in July that $400 an hour gets expert monitoring of a 4-year-old in small groups, evaluating, for example, how the child colors in a book, shares the crayons, holds a pencil and follows the rules of Simon Says. ■ An unidentified school in the West Coast Conference recently self-reported a violation of controversial NCAA rules that restrict privileges for student-athletes, ordering a member of its women's golf team to pay back $20 after she washed her car using a hose (and water) belonging to the school but which were not available to other students. (A University of Portland coach said he heard about the violation at a conference meeting, and Yahoo Sports, seeking confirmation, reported that an NCAA spokesman softpedaled the illegality, calling the school's action a "miscommunication.") Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL., 33679 or by email to WeirdNews@earthlink.net. The scent of home Dear Heloise: After reading your column about how to find a lost pet, I just had to send an idea that has successfully been implemented in our area several times. Leave an article of clothing with your scent in an area where your pet was last seen. Check the area several times a day to see if your dog is sitting there – with the scent of his or her owner. – Ellen D., Bow, N.H. Good advice! Also, if your pet must be hospitalized or spend the night away the , same hint works! I send a T-shirt or bath towel with Cabbie. – Heloise Travel hint Dear Heloise: For those who travel a lot on business: I carry a little blue cloth bag that came with a bottle of liquor. Put keys, wallet and other valuables in the bag, and place it in your briefcase prior to the airport screening process. When you get to a convenient location, just empty the bag. You'll never leave anything behind or lose it. – A reader Omaha, Neb. , Send a great hint to Heloise, P.O. Box 795000, San Antonio, Texas 78279-5000 or email to heloise@Heloise.com. Answers on Page 23

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