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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Whoever said no nudes is good news was wrong

By: Doug Speirs

Posted: 06/18/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

What with the summer solstice just days away, it's time once again for a semi-recurring feature we like to call Naked People in the News.

This is a hot-button issue we feel compelled to confront whenever the weather turns warm, even though, as a middle-aged, overweight newspaper columnist, we refuse to engage in any activity without our pants on, including taking a shower.

As any Manitoban can tell you, pants are not optional in a province where exposing your medically sensitive areas in an outdoor environment is like ringing the dinner bell for mosquitoes at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

But it's a different story in less cultured parts of the world, such as Toronto, where, according to news reports, approximately 150 cyclists pedalled their butts off Saturday in the ninth annual World Naked Bike Ride.

This is an event wherein buff bike riders streak along on two wheels in 70 cities across 20 countries as part of what organizers call, and we will quote them directly, "the global protest against oil dependency."

We were not sure whether a protest of this nature could bring OPEC nations to their knees, until we glanced at several news photographs and it became clear that, without the aid of top-flight surgeons and, in extreme cases, mechanics, most of these protesters will be attached to their bicycle seats for the rest of their lives.

We head to Albion, Ill., for our next naked newsmaker, a 20-year-old man whose compelling case was described in a news item that appeared under the headline: "Streaker was naked arachnophobe."

According to the Evansville Courier and Press, police were called in to apprehend a young man who was spotted running naked through the streets at 11 a.m.

The good news is the naked sprinter had a perfectly reasonable explanation -- he'd been sound asleep after working the night shift at a local factory when he awoke to find (get ready to be horrified) a spider in his bed.

Explained county Sheriff Darby Boewe: "I just think he was sleeping in the nude and was really disoriented from waking up to find a spider in his bed."

Before you rush to judgment, I will point out the story does not state how big the spider was. We personally have seen spiders in our basement that, like semi-trailers, emit loud beeping noises when they back up.

Next, we're off to Sweden, where a 61-year-old man's unclad plight was detailed in a story bearing (that was a pun) the headine: "Bear knocks over half-naked Swede."

It seems Ola Akesson left his cabin in the Swedish woods to answer the call of nature when a baby elk appeared in front of him. "I called to my wife to get out the iPad to film the elk, when all of a sudden she screamed there was a bear behind me," he is quoted as saying.

In the end (yes, that was another pun), the unadorned Swede was bowled over by the bear, also in its birthday suit, and the whole thing was captured on video.

We are almost out of space, so we don't have room to tell you how police in Dorchester County, S.C., subdued a naked 80-year-old woman who was threatening to bop them with her cane. (Hint: It involved a Taser.)

But we want to assure everyone that whenever and wherever naked people are making news, we will be there to expose it by pulling back the covers of secrecy.

Because you never know where you'll find a spider.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 18, 2012 A2

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