For the Record

By Bill Donahue, Paul Kvinta, and Kimberly Lisagor (with Dave Plank)

That's Gotta Hurt

"The waves were often 60 feet high," recalls British sailor Josh Hall rather grimly, "and I had four capsizes, and then I dislocated my knee, and then ..." Yes, the notoriously brutal southern Indian Ocean was characteristically unkind to Hall when he last encountered it as a competitor in the 1990 BOC Challenge, yachting's longest solo race around the world. Now, as Hall and 38 other sailors gather in Charleston, South Carolina, for the September 26 launch of the fifth Around Alone (the contest was recently renamed), the most dreaded part of their marine ordeal looms more ominously than ever. This year, the course of the 27,000-mile, eight-month odyssey has been altered so that the southern Indian Ocean leg offers not only the race's most menacing stretch but also, at 6,884 miles, its longest. "Two extra days on the world's worst sea," groans Hall, who sailing insiders say stands a good chance of becoming the first non-Frenchman to win the event. "More freezing to death. More icebergs and howling winds. More challenge. Isn't that what life is about?"

But Suppose It Was Filled with a Robust Merlot ...
If ever there were any doubt that Europe is chock-full of purer-than-thou cycling snobs, the issue has now been decisively put to rest. When four riders showed up for the Dauphine Libere road race in Megeve, France, last June, Union Cycliste Internationale officials took one look at the CamelBak hydration systems bulging beneath their jerseys and ordered them removed. The UCI's argument? The devices somehow "decrease aerodynamic drag" and imbue their wearers with an unfair advantage — logic so bizarre that a week later the UCI withdrew the charge. But only after offering up another lame excuse. "They were not used before in European races," says UCI world coordinator Alain Rumpf, apparently unimpressed by the fact that elsewhere on this planet, no self-respecting cyclist would race without one. "So we must study them before they are permitted." The claim held no water with Rumpf's American counterparts. "For them, it's always the old-fashioned over the technologically advanced," says USA Cycling Federation spokesman John Tarbert. "They're absolutely elitist."

We Wish We Were Making This Up
"We're talking about one sick individual," sighs James Disner, the Larimer County detective in charge of tracking down a man who attempted to videotape, from below, a woman availing herself of an outhouse in Colorado's Horsetooth Mountain Park in June. Outfitted with hip waders, garbage bags, and a camcorder, the Peeping Tom escaped through the privy's manhole, leaving a rather vexing question hanging in the air: Could this be a new trend in backcountry crime? Though park officials are reluctant to acknowledge a pattern of such incidents, the rich array of X-rated voyeur sites on the Internet (we spare no effort in researching these stories) suggests that many acts of clandestine latrine surveillance go unreported — a prospect that leaves even seasoned field officers bug-eyed in amazement. "We had some satanic worshipers dig up a grave and steal the corpse's head a while back," admits Joshua Tree National Park ranger Cindy Von Halle. "But this outhouse thing is really weird."

Feel the Burn, Grasshopper
Like peasants everywhere, the farmers of Madagascar tend to be a level-headed and stoical bunch. Unless, of course, a seven-mile-long cloud of grasshoppers suddenly falls from the sky — in which case all hell breaks loose. Such was the situation in June, when millions of the insects chomped their way through rice, corn, and potato fields on two-thirds of the island nation. While farmers were urged to report ravaged sites to the military, many opted instead to dash through their fields lighting fires, fearful that the government's insecticide-squirting helicopters would never reach them. "A swarm like that can devastate crops in a day," says University of Nebraska entomologist Ron Seymour, noting that grasshoppers often take flight en masse when food sources dwindle — as has happened across much of drought-stricken East Africa. "They're not exactly fussy eaters."

Sorry, We're Out of Ice
"It's plain to see," declares University of Colorado geologist Mark Meier. "They are receding." Meier is referring to the results of his recent (and rather disturbing) study positing that the majestic 5,000-year-old masses of ice for which Montana's Glacier National Park is named will be reduced to tepid, ignominious puddles at some point in the next 50 years. Meier's report, which reveals that the park's glaciers are receding at a rate of 1.8 feet per year, predicts a similar fate for roughly 160,000 glaciers worldwide, from Spain to New Guinea to Russia — all casualties of global warming. Sobering news, to be sure. But Montanans, at least for the moment, seem unperturbed by either the troubling climactic implications or the identity crisis that the impending meltdown would seem to create for their park. "The glaciers are melting?" remarks Dale Scott, head of Glacier's concessions and a man who clearly needs a refresher course in the rudiments of geothermal physics. "Mmm. So ... that means we're going to have hot springs here, eh?"

With Any Luck, Lyle and Erik Will Be Next on the Docket
"The government does not deem this 'trial' important enough to comment on," says Sergio Moncada, spokesman for the Honduran Embassy in Washington, D.C. Such disdain augurs poorly for Christopher Columbus, a man desperately in need of high-ranking character witnesses to help deflect the volley of genocide charges that is being posthumously leveled against him. Under auspices of the so-called Council of Popular Organizations and Indigenous People, descendants of the Maya in Honduras are currently staging a mock court proceeding to weigh historical evidence that the explorer murdered millions by, among other things, ordering mastiffs to disembowel villagers and importing exotic diseases. The verdict is apparently a foregone conclusion. "He led a gang of murderers," declares CPOIP head Salvador Zuniga, cheerfully adding that the inquisition will conclude next month with an elaborately choreographed bow-and-arrow execution of the Genovese admiral's effigy.?

Illustrations by David Miller (top) and Gregory Nemec