Category Archives: Conundrum of the Day

Conundrum of the Day

Red hasn’t posed one in a while so here goes.  Today’s conundrum is also known at the Thursday Hanging Paradox.

A condemned prisoner is told on Sunday that he will be hanged at dawn one morning in the next seven days and that it will come as a complete surprise.  At first, understandably depressed, he weeps, but then beings to ponder the situation for a moment.  He suddenly realizes that they cannot hang him next Sunday because that is the last of the 7 days and thus it would not be a surprise.  He keeps going.  If they cannot hang him on Sunday, then they cannot hang him on Saturday because Sunday is out as a possible hanging day and thus, hanging him on Saturday would not be a surprise either.  Extending this logic through the week, he concludes that they cannot hang him at all.  Of course, he is totally surprised when he is taken out of his cell on Thursday and hanged at dawn.

Conundrum of the Day – Abortion and Bowling?

Red was running some errands on Saturday when he happened to drive by several anti-abortion protestors in front of the local bowling alley.  They were holding up the usual gruesome photos of aborted fetuses at various stages of gestation.  Red admits to being rather torn up on the abortion issue.  On a personal level, Red would never encourage any woman to have an abortion absent some extraordinary circumstances and does not think abortion should be used as birth control.  On the other hand, Red supports making abortifacients easily available.  And on his hypothetical third hand, Red doesn’t really see that criminalizing and further restricting abortion would accomplish much of anything except to allow for the wealthy to travel to countries where abortion is legal and force other women to resort to dangerous alternatives if they are desperate to get an abortion.  And Red will never understand why the anti-abortion forces are also typically against easy availability of birth control and against sex education except for the demonstrably ineffective “abstinence only” ruse.  All in all, a real conundrum.

But given all that, Red is still wondering about the connection between an anti-abortion protest and bowling.  Can anyone explain?