Hung, Out to Dry: Newspaper Tipped Off to Phallic Shape in Photo

By: E&P Staff The Des Moines Register was tipped off by an anonymous City Hall source that the city's "detention basin," which helps to prevent flooding, has a remarkably phallic shape to it.

Accompanied by an aerial photograph, a story on the paper's Web site notes that engineers claim not to have purposely made the basin in an obscene shape.

"There's no artistic statement in our detention basin," Des Moines City Engineer Jeb Brewer is quoted as saying when asked about the $5.7 million project.

The headline for the piece is: "Des Moines' well-endowed flood control."

While you're at it, take a look at the shape at the top of the newspaper's home page which carries the name of the site.