The Odd Post

Although this may initially sound strange, one of my hobbies is to read the “Odd News” on Yahoo. My homepage is set to my.yahoo.com, and one of the main sections of the page contains the “Most Commonly Viewed Oddly Enough” articles. Whenever I open up firefox, the odd news section always pops up, and I find myself uncontrollably reading it. Each article either leaves me with deep questions, or a sense of relief that I am not that stupid. Whatever the story may be, they are typically fairly interesting. For example, I read an article the other day that quoted a book that told its readers to clean the toilet for good luck. This Japanese book, which was inspired by Buddhist teachings and Feng Shui teaches readers how to attract good fortune using cleaning products. It gets even better as the cover of the book has short testimonials saying “I won the lottery!” and “I got pregnant!”. The book went farther by saying that a beautiful toilet can even make one more beautiful. Perhaps that good overall hygiene and maintenance of the bathroom can lead to taking care of one’s self? I didn’t exactly gain any sudden revelations from the article, but it did lift my spirits.

An example of a thought provoking article was one that dealt with sex offenders. The state legislature of Ohio pushed for a law which would force sex offenders to fluorescent green license plates so that they would be easily identifiable in the state. Although I agree that people have the right to know and in fact should know who these people are, I think this is being a little extreme. A lifetime of humiliation for one crime is hardly fair. Plus, it is not only humiliating to the offender but also his/her family. If they ride in the car, people may get the wrong impression of them. Anyone who rides in the car becomes susceptible to criticism and false perceptions, which I believe is unfair.

There are also the strangely sexual or just plain odd news that occasionally appears, such as when a man tried to revive his deceased father who had been dead for over two years. Such articles humble me, as I realize how lucky I am to function normally. With each article comes the opportunity to not only understand the strange world around me, but also my views on such topics, creating a deeper understanding of myself.

The links to the two articles mentioned above:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070301/od_nm/japan_luck_dc;_ylt=AvV00NiU7eK_B.pLo.TpuQcSH9EA
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070301/od_nm/usa_crime_sex_plates_dc;_ylt=AhpsH4sxYonY.bJmIrIMoY4SH9EA