Sideswipe: May 27: Wolf in sheep's clothing

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Freeing women from anti-slackism

In 1938, 28-year-old kindergarten teacher Helen Hulick made history in a Los Angeles courtroom - by refusing to wear a dress. When Hulick appeared in court to testify as a witness to a burglary, she was chided by the judge for wearing slacks. Though she was asked to put on a dress in the next hearing, she refused, and was held in contempt of court and even sent to jail. Judge Arthur S Guerin reprimanded her for wearing slacks. He said that Hulick's pants, which weren't popular with women at the time, took too much attention away from the legal issues at hand. "You tell the judge I will stand on my rights," she told The Los Angeles Times. "If he orders me to change into a dress I won't do it. I like slacks. They're comfortable." The judge once again ordered her to vacate the premises and the hearing was rescheduled, and this time, it came with a warning: return in slacks again and face jail time. "Listen, I've worn slacks since I was 15," she said. "I don't own a dress except a formal. If he wants me to appear in a formal gown that's okay with me. I'll come back in slacks and if he puts me in jail I hope it will help to free women forever of anti-slackism." Sure enough, Hulick returned to court the next day wearing pants. Judge Guerin held the kindergarten teacher in contempt of court and she was sentenced to five days in jail. Hulick was released early and her case sent to the Appellate Court. It overturned Judge Guerin's original ruling four days later, leaving Hulick free to wear whatever she liked at the next hearing. On January 17, 1939, she arrived at the courthouse in a formal evening dress.

Handy drawer

The power of pet food

The cue might be a hand in a pocket, the opening of a cupboard door, or even a word said carelessly aloud – "dinner". Before you know it, you're tripping over an excited pet gagging for that cupful of ... dull-brown dried pellets. What's in these mysterious morsels, that makes them so delectable? "Many animals rely heavily on smell to navigate the world around them, and this is often the main sense that's targeted. While human noses contain around 50 million olfactory receptors, cats have 67 million, rabbits have 100 million and dogs have around 220 million. On the other hand, their sense of taste is generally less discriminating than ours – our relatively high density of taste receptors is thought to have evolved to help us cope with our diverse omnivorous diets. The catch is that appealing to animals that find the smell of road kill, sweaty socks and vomit utterly enchanting – as carnivorous pets often do – while not making their human companions feel violently ill, is extremely tricky. "There is a slight paradox there, because the smells that cats particularly but also dogs seem to like are often the opposite of what humans like. (Via BBC)

Stolen car

Via Bad Newspaper.