A good laugh

Argh, I just wrote a post and then put in some faulty code and the page froze and I lost the post. Anyhow….

In light of all the bias and hate incidents occuring on a campus in my city lately, I was feeling in need of a good laugh. Russell’s Teapot sent me over to The Smoking Gun to read this post, and it provided the needed humor:

Dead Reverend’s Rubber Fetish

Autopsy: Pastor found in wet suits after autoerotic mishap

OCTOBER 8–An Alabama minister who died in June of “accidental mechanical asphyxia” was found hogtied and wearing two complete wet suits, including a face mask, diving gloves and slippers, rubberized underwear, and a head mask, according to an autopsy report. Investigators determined that Rev. Gary Aldridge’s death was not caused by foul play and that the 51-year-old pastor of Montgomery’s Thorington Road Baptist Church was alone in his home at the time he died (while apparently in the midst of some autoerotic undertaking). While the Montgomery Advertiser, which first obtained the autopsy records, reported on Aldridge’s two wet suits, the family newspaper chose not to mention what police discovered inside the minister’s rubber briefs. Aldridge served as the church’s pastor for 16 years. Immediately following his death, church officials issued a press release asking community members to “please refrain from speculation” about what led to Aldridge’s demise, adding that, “we will begin the healing process under the strong arm of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”

You simply must click on the link about what the police discovered, and then read the last sentence of the first paragraph on that page of the autopsy report. Normally this would be sad instead of funny (My opinion is by all means engage in your fetishes as long as they don’t involve unwilling partners, but be safe about it!), but given that the man is an Alabama Baptist Reverand, it’s funny.

On a similar note (about how people manage such hypocrisy), I listened to a great podcast by the Center for Inquiry today which interviewed a professor of psychology who studies the phenomena of dissonance and self-justification. I’ll definitely check out her book at some point: Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson.