Denise Noe: The Madwoman Speaks!

April Fool’s Day: Glory and a Downside By Denise Noe          The precise origin of April Fool’s Day is unknown.   However, there are traditions in a variety of cultures that are believed to have provided models for it and out of which it may have grown.   Ancient festivals in which slaves or servants were allowed to boss around their masters and children pretended to switch places with parents are likely antecedents for April Fool’s Day. The earliest recorded mentions of “All Fool’s Day” date from the Middle Ages.   The Middle Ages is often thought of, and not without reason, as a grim period in European history.   It was a culture of rigid, birth-based hierarchies, of torture as an officially sanctioned punishment for many offenses, of death as a punishment for trivial ones, of widespread superstition, and the terrible slaughter caused by the bubonic plague. So perhaps it was inevitable that the Middle Ages gave ...

Grooms For Life By Denise Noe The pro-life movement is, at least in America, allied with conservatism.   This leads to an inevitable contradiction.   Any additional law means more government.   This is especially ironic now that we are about to save taxpayer dollars through welfare reform. Is there a way to radically decrease abortions without asking the government to do it?   Adoption is often suggested here and that is a good alternative but I think there is another as well. Marriage.   I am not talking just about a return to the "shotgun marriage"; rather, I think an offer of marriage from a man who is not the father but will assume all the traditional responsibilities of fatherhood would be accepted by many unmarried pregnant women.   The motif of a man proposing marriage to a woman pregnant with another man's child is a common one on soap operas that are a fairly good gauge of female fantasy.   These stories represent the ...

Published in Exquisite Corpse . Why Do Aliens Look the Way they Do? By Denise Noe          Frequently trumpeted by UFOlogists is the fact that Aliens, as described by those who claim to have seen them, look alike.   85% of reports indicate that the visitors share a common origin.          Skeptics note that the Aliens described not only look like each other but also look like those depicted in the media: giant head, big, almond-shaped eyes, slit mouth, hairless body, skinny limbs.          There is no doubt that a particular version of the extraterrestrial has entered contemporary folklore -- and I believe it does not require tabloid gullibility to discern the creature's true origins.          Who is this Alien?   An Oriental whiz kid.   I use the word "Oriental" rather than "Asian" deliber...