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Sunday, December 26, 2004
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TENTING TONIGHT
It's been a slow week at University Diaries, of course, but it's never too early to scope out next year's Ig Noble Award nominees. (She'll link to this year's Ig Noble ceremony when she gets home to a friendlier computer.) Although at the moment she's sitting only blocks away from the MIT/Harvard ideopolis from which flows the Ig Noble, UD has no influence on the nominations process... but perhaps someone, somewhere, may learn of the work of Professor Ralph Pettman through her weblog. For UD, that will be enough. A professor of international relations at Victoria University in New Zealand, Professor Pettman has already received some thousands of dollars from his university to set up a website devoted to stamping out sex on Mount Everest (see www.stuff.co.nz). Pettman argues that one of the many things climbers apparently do to keep warm offends the Sherpas, for whom the mountain is sacred. ("I find that claim rather questionable," comments one veteran guide. "Sherpas have a very raunchy sense of humor.") UD awaits details from Pettman's website as to how he will enforce the No Sex on Everest rule. Celibacy pledges? A Sherpa in every tent? Of all the places where you'd think you'd be allowed a little privacy... |