After researchers noted an increase in the number of French people who no longer ate breakfast, Jacques Puisais, founder of the French Institute of Taste, followed stereotype closely and managed to find a way to blame this trend on America. Puisais told the Scripps Howard News Service that French families once enjoyed a communal breakfast followed by a trip by a family member to pick up croissants at the local baker's shop. But then Kellogg's began advertising corn flakes as a breakfast alternative, which Puisais calls a "miserable" and "inhumane" food fit only to be consumed shamefully in solitude. As a result, Americans were also responsible for a marked increase in loneliness, isolation, and existential angst among the French.

[Ed.: To combat foul odors pervading the Paris Metro, officials have developed a new "perfume," titled "Madeleine" after the worst-offending station, which they plan to apply throughout the system. The plan's developer, Pierre Pichat, research director at France's National Centre for Scientific Research, said the product is based on titanium dioxide, a chemical used in suntan creams that freshens the air when exposed to ultraviolet light. "The search for the right product has lasted years," commented Pichat. Perhaps they can also look into another brand-new technology—it's called washing with soap.]

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Daniel Shapiro, a professor of philosophy at West Virginia University, was reported to the campus Office of Social Justice for using the word "wife" in the classroom. There he learned that the word "wife" is sexist and that he should instead use nonsexist terms such as "friend" or "partner."

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A disgusting mess was discovered at Swarthmore College's Intercultural Center that turned out to be vomit and what appeared to be excrement but was later determined to be chocolate cake with sprinkles mixed in. The identity of the perpetrator was unknown, and the motivation was unclear at best since the room where the mess was found was used for any number of student support groups. College officials were nevertheless quick to label the act an expression of hate, and an anti-hate rally soon drew 500 people, with cries of "respect, safety, unity" echoing through the campus.

Speakers described the mess as the work of "a handful of people who are hateful and scared," and said the act "had the symbolic effect of a hate crime." One speaker equated a general feeling of security with personal space, saying, "when you violate that space, you violate me." Another said he had cried all night: "I was overcome by tears and mucous.... It wasn't a good cry; it was a bad cry." But because of the rally, he now felt "tears of hope." The director of the Intercultural Center drew tears from the crowd as she spoke about the long, painful healing process the college would have to undergo. A list of ten years' worth of harassing incidents was read, one of which was criticism that one student incurred because her boyfriend wore a dress.

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