The Straight Dope 06/09/2006

The Straight Dope -- By Cecil Adams
http://www.straightdope.com

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THE STRAIGHT DOPE 06/09/2006

Dear Cecil:

I'd like the Straight Dope on one of the great controversies: Who was
first to reach the north pole? I lean towards Robert Peary because of
Frederick Cook's background, but is it that simple? --Richard, via
e-mail

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Cecil replies:

Not unless you'll take "maybe neither of the above" as an answer--the
claims of both men were bitterly disputed at the time and things haven't
cooled off much since. Cook's story is easier to dismiss. He said he
reached the pole in April 1908, a year before Peary supposedly made it.
His Inuit companions reported otherwise. The party traveled across the
ice a few days, always in sight of land, until Cook implausibly
announced they'd arrived. Cook's photographs, among them one of "Bradley
Land," a mythical landform allegedly encountered en route, were faked.
"Proofs" Cook submitted to a Danish commission lacked the expected
astronomical observations--at one point he maintained, incredibly, that
he'd left them in Greenland. In his later book he included such
observations, one of which shows signs of having been cribbed from
Peary. Among Cook's papers after his death were found several north pole
diaries that read like evolving drafts of a novel--which probably isn't
far from what they were.

Other events confirm Cook's character. 

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/060609.html

STAFF REPORT

Dear Straight Dope:

I recently saw the movie Castaway with Tom Hanks. In the film he is the
victim of a plane crash and presumed dead for four years. Eventually he
escapes the island he is stranded on and makes it back to civilization.
There's mention once he gets back about "bringing him back to life,"
which involved a lot of paperwork. I got thinking this sort of thing has
to have happened in the past and there must be rules on the books on how
it's handled. So, how IS it handled? Is there in fact a LOT of
paperwork? And what about debts? -- Scott

SDSTAFF Gfactor replies:

The law calls people who disappear "absent" or "missing." Professor
Jeanne Carriere prefers a more dramatic term: "the living dead." In her
article, "The Rights of the Living Dead: Absent Persons in Civil Law,"
published in the Louisiana Law Review, she says 

The number of these "living dead" in the United States has been
estimated at between   60,000 and 100,000. They create a morass of legal
problems. Questions may arise   concerning the security of transactions
with the missing person's estate, such as the   disposition of his land,
the right to proceeds of insurance policies on his life and pensions,  
the right to a cause of action, the necessity of providing for his
dependents, the marital   status of his spouse, the paternity and
legitimacy of children of his spouse's second   marriage, the
conservation of his property from possible waste, the devolution of  
succession rights that would pass to him, the release of property from a
life tenancy, the   requirement of his consent to certain transactions,
the merchantability of land titles from   his estate, and claims of
inheritance from him. 

For more, see: 
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mlegallydead.html

STRAIGHT DOPE CLASSIC - 10/14/1988

Dear Cecil: 

Where is Podunk? --Thomas G., Dallas  

Cecil replies:  

You're not the first guy to wonder about this, Tomaso. As a matter of
fact, the search for Podunk, the archetypal jerkwater town, is one of the
great adventures of philology, which, as you can probably appreciate, is
not a field that has great adventures in abundance.   

Allow me to quote from a letter to the editors of the Daily National Pilot,
Buffalo, New York, 1846: "I hear you ask, `Where in the world is Podunk?' 
It is in the world, sir; and more than that, is a little world of itself. It
stands `high up the big Pigeon [river],' a bright and shining light amid
the surrounding darkness." There is a great deal more, all in a satirical
vein, indicating that even then Podunk was thought to be a locality
which, being imaginary, one might safely have a little fun with.  

The idea that Podunk was purely mythical survived a long time. In 1925
philologist G.P. Krapp noted that no Podunk was to be found in the list
of American post offices, which he took to be proof of the town's
nonexistence--an alarming conclusion, given current opinions of the post
office, but Krapp's was an innocent age. His one concession to the
reality of Podunk was that it was an Indian word that had been applied
to a few minor geographic features in New England.  

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_132.html

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