State College probably full of Darwin Award nominees

For those of you who don't know, let me pause to offer a brief explanation. The Darwin Awards are legitimate awards granted posthumously to people who, through single-minded self-sacrifice and sheer stupidity, have done the most to eliminate undesirable elements from the human gene pool.

As an example, I humbly offer: the 1996 Darwin Award winner. You may remember the man who, moments after attaching a Jet-Assisted Take-Off pack to his car and switching it on, realized that it could not be turned off. He went on to make a 300 mph dent in a picturesque Arizona cliff.

Let this give you out there in Readerland an idea of the kind of caliber of person that we look for when accepting nominees. Here are a few more examples of suggested nominees from around the globe.

I like to think that we here in the United States are second to none when it comes to injuring ourselves in really stupid ways. This is one of the few places where we outrank Japan. So let's get the ball rolling with some nominees from right here in the good old U.S. of A:

The Kalamazoo Gazette brings us the story of an Alamo, Mich., man who died while attempting to repair his "farm-type" truck. The man, James Burns, 34, heard a noise he could not identify coming from his vehicle. He asked a friend to drive his truck on the highway while he hung underneath it to see if he could pinpoint the source of the sound. Burns' clothes caught on something and his friend found him "wrapped in the drive shaft."

A Connecticut man was lamenting a break up with his girlfriend. To console himself, he bought a six-pack of beer and climbed to the top of a 60-foot-high metal transformer tower to think things through.

After the fifth beer, he had to do what many people have to do after they drink five beers and he figured that there was no sense in climbing all the way to the bottom of the tower when he could just as easily do his business from the top. So he started to go, but he happened to be aimed at the conductor wire. A bolt of electricity arced to his stream (apparently urine is a great conductor of electricity), traveled up to his private parts and blew him off the tower where he was discovered the next day by repairmen.

Here are some very tough competitors from other countries:

In Spain, a poacher named Marino Malerba was hunting in a protected reserve. Suddenly, he saw a beautiful stag standing on a cliff about 30 feet above him. He aimed, fired and was promptly squished when the body of the animal fell on him.

In Cairo, Egypt, six people drowned while trying to rescue a prized chicken that had fallen into a well some 60-feet deep. An undercurrent running beneath the water's surface apparently pulled in an 18-year-old farmer, his sister, his two brothers and two elderly farmers. The bodies of the six were later pulled out of the well, as was the body of one chicken, which survived.

In Toronto, a lawyer fell 24 stories after attempting to demonstrate the strength of a skyscraper's windows to visiting law students. Garry Hoy, 39, plunged to his death after he shattered the pane of glass by charging into it with his shoulder. His colleagues later described him as "one of the best and the brightest" of the 200-man organization. And they were serious.

So we can see that this is a worldwide phenomenon and I am quite sure that State College is not immune. We have been known to pull some block-headed boners in our time, am I right?

So if you know anyone who you think deserves a nomination for the first ever Penn State "I can't believe you are still alive" Miniature Darwin Award, drop me a line via E-mail. Your nomination need not be a resident of State College. Don't forget to include the person's name, age and the details of the incident.

Make sure and send your votes to me and not The Daily Collegian News Division people who will laugh openly at your folly and add your name to my nomination list. I will report the results to you in my next column on Monday, March 16. Happy hunting and remember: People are idiots.