MONDAY, APRIL 28 The week begins with some good news for circumcised men. After centuries of seething penile resentment of their intact brethren, today circumcised guys received some much-appreciated relief as Reuters reported the results of a new study that found no significant difference in the penile sensitivity of cut and uncut men. Popular theory has long attributed a cumulative loss of sensitivity to the heads of circumcised penises, which spend their lives rubbing against their owners' underpants, as opposed to the heads of uncircumcised penises, which remain safely nestled away like baby kangaroos. But at tomorrow's meeting of the American Urological Association in Chicago, Dr. Arnold Melman will pronounce this theory to be hogwash, offering as proof the results of his study at New York City's Montefiore Medical Center, where a team of researchers evaluated the penile sensitivity of 43 uncircumcised men and 36 circumcised men through a variety of methods, from vibration and pressure to spatial perception and warm and cold thermal thresholds. (To level the playing field, the foreskins of uncircumcised men were pulled back during testing procedures.) Dr. Melman told Reuters that researchers found "no statistically significant differences" between the sensitivity levels of circumcised and uncircumcised penises, effectively burying the uncircumcised sensitivity myth, and robbing countless white men of the only thing they had to complain about.

··In other good news: Tonight Last Days had the great pleasure of attending a performance by our most beloved band of the moment (by a mile), the Libertines, a quartet of fiercely musical Londoners whose half-hour onstage at the Crocodile fully corroborated the promise of Up the Bracket, the band's miraculous, Mick Jones-produced debut, and Last Days' postwar narcotic of choice.

TUESDAY, APRIL 29 Speaking of postwar narcotics: Today the UK's Times Online published a fascinating essay by macho American blowhard Norman Mailer, who took postwar conspiracy theorizing to a thrilling new level. "We went to war, I could say, because we very much needed a war," wrote Mailer. "The US economy was sinking, the market was gloomy and down, and some classic bastions of the erstwhile American faith (corporate integrity, the FBI, and the Catholic Church, to cite but three) had each suffered a separate and grievous loss of face. Since our Administration was probably not ready to solve any one of the serious problems before it, it was natural to feel the impulse to move into larger ventures." What's more, Mailer wrote, "The Administration knew something a good many of us did not--it knew that we had a very good, perhaps even an extraordinarily good, if essentially untested, group of Armed Forces, a skilled, disciplined, well-motivated military... run by a general staff who were intelligent, articulate, and considerably less corrupt than any other power group in America." From there Mailer veered into the sexual-archetype stratosphere, presenting the war in Iraq as a panegyric for "the ongoing malaise of the white American male," whose supremacy has been diminished by everything from the women's movement to the glories of nonwhite athletes. "With their dominance in sport, at work, and at home eroded, Bush thought white American men needed to know they were still good at something," wrote Mailer. "That's where Iraq came in...." A cynical theory, to be sure. But when even Norman fucking Mailer is calling the U.S. on its egregious macho bullshit, it's time to listen.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30 Speaking of egregious macho bullshit: Today 11 members of a fraternity in Plattsburgh, NY, were charged with causing the hazing death of an 18-year-old pledge. According to Albany's Times Union, Walter Dean Jennings, a freshman at Plattsburgh State University of New York, died on March 12, the final day of a 10-day pledging period during which Jennings "was ordered to funnel very large quantities of water until he vomited several times," police say. And while initial medical reports attributed Jennings' death to a brain aneurysm, an autopsy revealed the cause of death to be brain swelling due to water intoxication. "They refer to it as 'the water torture,'" said Plattsburgh Police Chief Desmond J. Racicot to the Times Union. "Hazing is against the law, and there's a reason for it. People get injured and obviously die." For their part in the alleged torture, 11 members of the Psi Epsilon Chi fraternity face charges of criminally negligent homicide, a felony carrying a sentence of up to four years in prison.

··Speaking of the twisted things men collude to do to one another: Today in Manhattan federal court, a former Mafioso turned government informant testified to killing his mob boss--John "Johnny Boy" D'Amato--because D'Amato had engaged in gay sex. "Nobody's gonna respect us if we have a gay homosexual boss sitting down discussing La Cosa Nostra business," explained Anthony Capo, a former soldier for the New Jersey-based DeCavalcante family, at the trial of Stefano Vitabile, a DeCavalcante counselor charged with racketeering, murder, and conspiracy. The New York Post reports that Capo learned of his boss' homo proclivities from D'Amato's girlfriend, who told Capo of D'Amato's sexcapades, which not infrequently involved the smoking of cock by the would-be Godfather. Describing the 1992 killing to the Manhattan jury, Capo told how he and another mobster arranged to pick up D'Amato from his girlfriend's home in Brooklyn: "John D'Amato got in the car and sat in the back. He said, 'Let's go eat,' and as we drove away, I turned and shot John D'Amato." (And handily banished the only known member of the "gay Mafia" to the grave.)

THURSDAY, MAY 1 Last Days' week of phallic masculinity comes to something of a head today with this Hot Tip from Aaron, who was riding the #43 Metro toward the U-District this morning when he spotted a "late-middle-aged man in pretty decent shape" standing before a picture window sporting a bald head, a T-shirt, and a humongous boner. "The funniest part was his posture," wrote Aaron, describing how the home exhibitionist held his hands behind his back like a lecturing college professor. "The pose sort of said, 'Ho hum, here's my enormous cock for you to look at,'" says Aaron.

FRIDAY, MAY 2 Speaking of unfortunate images: Today a variety of news organizations reported on the hiker who was pinned beneath a 200-pound boulder in Utah's Blue John Canyon for five days before amputating his trapped right arm with a penknife and hiking to safety. London's Evening Standard reports 27-year-old Aron Ralston of Aspen, CO, spent four days hoping for rescue before committing his drastic action. Upon being found wandering dazed and tourniquetted around the canyon's floor, Ralston was taken by authorities to a Colorado hospital, where he remains in serious condition.

SATURDAY, MAY 3 Nothing happened today (unless you count the horribly unfortunate man made to dress up in a fuzzy chicken costume and flap his wings at the corner of Boren and Union, ostensibly to inspire passersby to lease at First Hill's Decatur Apartments. Our sympathies to the chicken man, and shame on you, Decatur).

SUNDAY, MAY 4 Nothing happened today.

Steve Wells: Get better soon. Everyone else: Send Hot Tips to lastdays@thestranger.com.