The Straight Dope 03/30/2007

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

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THE STRAIGHT DOPE 03/30/2007

Dear Cecil:

My girlfriend and I have been battling recently over a medical question:
Is there benefit to urinating while you're in the shower? I have long
held as "common sense" that peeing in the shower can actually tame (if
not cure) common problems like athlete's foot and other skin fungi. My
girlfriend thinks I'm just into some weird fetish. (Maybe it's because I
have better aim while "curing" my foot problems.) More than who's right,
which theory is right?--Josh from Chicago

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Cecil replies:

Josh, you must be one charismatic hombre if you can get a female human
being to associate with you once she's learned your idea of common sense
is peeing on your feet. As for urine's medicinal properties, let's put
it this way: the most reputable scientific proponent of pee as a cure
for athlete's foot is Madonna (Letterman show, 1994). After that you
start getting into some serious flakes.

Urine therapy in various forms has been around since time immemorial. As
I've discussed before, the stuff is usually pretty sterile and in most
cases harmless. Gross though it may sound to normal folk, the oft-cited
practice of irrigating battlefield wounds with urine isn't completely
stupid   if the other options are using water of dubious sterility or
letting things fester, what the hell. The question is whether it makes
any sense if you've got a choice of antibacterial or antifungal agents.
Instinctive answer: Of course not, nitwit. Diplomatic answer: OK, delete
the nitwit part. But Josh, honey bunny, the answer is . . . 

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/070330.html

STAFF REPORT

Dear Straight Dope:

When governments or police departments offer a monetary reward "for
information leading to the arrest and conviction" of people who commit
crimes, how often do they ever actually pay? Specifically, did the
person(s) who located the Washington, D.C. Beltway snipers ever receive
the reward money?--Dan Wasser, Gaithersburg, MD

SDSTAFF Gfactor replies:  

Some people got rewards and some didn't. In a March 2004 article entitled
"Sniper tipsters get reward of $500,000" in the Washington Times, Tarron
Lively reported, "Robert Holmes of Tacoma, Washington, will get $350,000
for first notifying authorities that his friend, John Allen Muhammad,
might be the shooter. Whitney Donahue of Greencastle, Pennsylvania., who
called authorities when he saw Muhammad's vehicle at a Frederick County,
Maryland rest stop in October 2002, will receive $150,000." Why did the
tipsters have to wait two years to get their rewards? There were lots of
claimants. In a USA Today article from December 2002, Martin Kasindorf
reported that the arrest prompted a barrage of calls from people demanding
the reward. The police had to "decide which of the 67,000 tips is worth
money." He also pointed out that it could hurt the credibility of
a witness at trial if it came out that the witness received a reward.  

Offering rewards or bounties for help capturing criminals and the problems
thereby created date back to the Roman Empire. Tacitus wrote:

The rewards of the informers were no less odious than their crimes;
for while some seized  on consulships and priestly offices, as their
share of the spoil, others on procuratorships,  and posts of more
confidential authority, they robbed and ruined in every direction amid  
universal hatred and terror. Slaves were bribed to turn against their
masters, and freedmen  to betray their patrons; and those who had not
an enemy were destroyed by friends. [Thanks to Straight Dope Message
Board member Helen's Eidolon for directing me to Tacitus.] 

For more, see: 
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mrewards.htm

STRAIGHT DOPE CLASSIC - 2/22/1991

Dear Cecil: 

In Science magazine a while back an article about the latest attempts to
calculate pi to the umpteen zillionth decimal place made a passing
reference to a curious Oklahoma law. It said Oklahoma legislators had
passed a law making pi equal to 3.0. I also remember Robert Heinlein in
one of his novels mentioning that Tennessee had passed a similar law.
Did either of these states ever pass such a law? Are they still on the
books? What are the penalties if I proclaim that pi equals 3.14159...?
--Wulf Losee, Andover, Connecticut  

Dear Wulf:  

Cecil had heard this story too, only the state in question was Kansas,
leading him to believe the whole thing was made up by big-city sharpies
having a little fun at the expense of the rustics. However, with the help
of Joseph Madachy, editor of the Journal of Recreational Mathematics, I've
learned the story does have a germ of truth to it.

It happened in Indiana. Although the attempt to legislate pi was
ultimately unsuccessful, it did come pretty close. In 1897 Representative
T.I. Record of Posen county introduced House Bill #246 in the Indiana
House of Representatives. The bill, based on the work of a physician and
amateur mathematician named Edward J. Goodwin (Edwin in some accounts),
suggests not one but three numbers for pi, among them 3.2, as we shall
see. The punishment for unbelievers I have not been able to learn, but I
place no credence in the rumor that you had to spend the rest of your
natural life in Indiana.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_341.html

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