Question: Why are women historically considered the willing agents of Satan?Answer: This goes back to the biblical story of the Garden of Eden. The Devil wants Adam and Eve to disobey God's order not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (we heard recently that scholars think it was a tomato, though we'd like to see the footnotes before we sign off on that). So what does old Beelzebub do? Disguised as a snake, he tempts Eve. The woman is the conduit to the man. Eve succumbs, then seduces Adam into eating the fruit as well. Chaos erupts: They realize they're as naked as a couple of jaybirds, they get booted from the garden, and eventually the federal deficit reaches $400 billion a year.
The mythical prejudice had horrifying results in real life: The vast majority of people executed in the Salem witchcraft trials 300 years ago were women; the men were, in most cases, relatives or associates of women suspected of witchcraft. The same pattern held true in the even bloodier witch hunts of Europe.To blame this on misogyny seems too simplistic. Carol Karlsen, a professor of history and women's studies at the University of Michigan and author of "The Devil in the Shape of a Woman," says there may also have been an economic motive. Many of the women accused of being witches at Salem had no sons or brothers, meaning that they were in line to inherit family wealth, Karlsen says.
"There is a real fear of female power that's increasing in the 16th century" in Europe, says Tom Robisheaux, a professor of history at Duke University. He said that priests feared female sexual power and the way women could use sexual power to control men. Protestant reformers promoted a new morality centered around the family, with the woman as a symbol of order and piety; anything that did not fit the mold (such as an independent, unmarried woman) challenged the new orthodoxy and suggested diabolism.
One other theory: During most of human history there weren't many doctors, and so women were pressed into the roles of healers. They often practiced medicine in ways that by modern standards would look like black magic. And a few witchcraft scholars argue that some of the victims of witch hunts were, in fact, practitioners of witchcraft. You know that argument: They asked for it.
Question: Why are Sumo wrestlers so fat?Answer: Because it's a gravity-based sport. Every kind of wrestling has its own strategy. In Greco-Roman wrestling, you can win by controlling your opponent, pinning him to the canvas, escaping an attempted pin, and executing various other point-earning moves. In TV wrestling, you can win by biting your opponent's nose or distracting him while your "manager," or some wrestler who just happens to be in the audience sneaks up and clobbers him with a chair.
But in Sumo wrestling the way you win, typically, is by throwing your opponent out of the ring entirely. You can also win by making any part of his body other than his feet - even his hair bun - touch the dirt-covered floor.
A Sumo match features several minutes of grunting and stamping without any actual contact between the wrestlers. Then, suddenly, they rush together - KA-SPLAT! - flesh smacking flesh. A wrestler using the popular tactic called tsuridashi will grab his opponent by the waist sash, lift him in the air and carry him from the 4.55-meter diameter ring (the dohyo). Another fun move is called tsukitaoshi, which is basically running straight into your opponent with blind ferocity and bouncing him into the first row.
So, obviously, there is a great advantage to being heavy. The heavier you are, the more you have inertia on your side.
Now you might ask: Why do they have to be so flabby? After all, Sumo wrestlers, with an average weight of 300 pounds, are not much heavier than the average pro football lineman, who doesn't look nearly as fat and certainly would never be caught running around in a big-butt-exposing loincloth.
The explanation has to do with leverage. Sumo wrestlers are 6 feet tall on average, several inches shorter than most football players. Thus their mass is more focused; they are essentially spheric. Spheres are stable because their center of gravity never changes, no matter how they roll or squirm.
We should note that one recent champion, the Hawaiian-born Konishiki, weighs 575 pounds, about the same as some of the smaller moons of Saturn.
The Mailbag:
Janet K. of Pinole, Calif., labels as "immature" our recent response to a reader named Erika who had challenged our obsessively logical, rational approach to things. We had mocked Erika for using a computer to write us a letter ridiculing modern civilization; Janet now writes, "Did you expect maybe she should have communicated in fire signals? Written in Cree? Perhaps in blood using a feather quill pen and hieroglyphics?"
Dear Janet: You have to trust us when we say that, if you were to look deep beneath our loutish, arrogant, sophomoric exterior, you would see an astonishing inner repulsiveness. And nothing quite pushes our button like an assault on reason and logic; if people want to read myth and nonsense, they can find the horoscope not far away. (And by the way, we think our critics should communicate with us by mooing.)