Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader@ (13 page)

STICK TO YOUR GUNS

Meaning:
Stand by your convictions

Origin:
This was originally a military command, “stand to your guns,” meaning “hold your position.” The first known metaphorical use dates to 1769 in
The Life of Samuel Johnson,
by Scottish biographer James Boswell: “Mrs. Thrale stood to her gun with great courage in defense of amorous ditties.” The first known use in the United States was in Earl Derr Biggers’s 1913 detective novel
Seven Keys to Baldpate,
where a Mr. Max advised a Mr. Peters to “stick to your guns.” The phrase has been with us ever since.

Benjamin Franklin experimented with electric shocks on stroke victims to stimulate their muscles, but decided it held little promise as a therapy.

WHO NEEDS BREAD?

A sandwich consists of some kind of food placed between two slices of bread, right? Technically, yes…but not necessarily, as proven by these restaurant “innovations” that can push you close to the USDA-recommended daily intake of 2,000 calories and 65 grams of fat in just a few bites
.

R
estaurant:
Friendly’s

Sandwich:
Grilled Cheese Burger Melt

Details:
In 2010 the ice cream and burger chain introduced this offering. It’s both a cheeseburger and a grilled cheese sandwich—well,
two
grilled cheese sandwiches, actually. A beef patty, a slab of cheddar, and all the fixin’s are placed in between not two halves of a bun, but rather in between two full-size grilled cheese sandwiches.

“Nutrition:”
1,500 calories, 79 grams of fat

Restaurant:
Kentucky Fried Chicken

Sandwich:
Double Down

Details:
The Double Down is a chicken sandwich, except that instead of bread, there’s chicken. Two fried boneless chicken breasts fill in for the top and bottom pieces of bread, and in between the two hunks of chicken are bacon, a slice of pepper jack cheese, a slice of Swiss cheese, and a hefty dollop of “Colonel’s Sauce” (it’s mostly mayonnaise). When it was test-marketed in 2009, many critics thought this bizarre, high-fat sandwich was an elaborate hoax. It wasn’t. It did so well in test markets that KFC put it in every store in April 2010 for a six-week limited run. Then it did so well that the restaurant kept it around until Labor Day.

“Nutrition:”
The Double Down had 540 calories and 32 grams of fat. A slightly healthier version was also available, substituting grilled chicken breasts for the fried ones. It had 60 fewer calories and seven fewer grams of fat, but a third
more
sodium.

Restaurant:
Mulligan’s, a Decatur, Georgia, restaurant

Sandwich:
Luther Burger

Details:
According to lore, soul singer Luther Vandross loved to eat at Mulligan’s, so they created a burger in his honor. Result: the Luther Burger, a bacon cheeseburger that eliminates the bun in favor of two grilled glazed donuts. The Luther is now available at dozens of bars, restaurants, fairs, food stands, and ballparks around the country. Vandross, for what it’s worth, died in 2005 of a stroke, after long battles with obesity, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes.

“Nutrition:”
An estimated 1,000 calories

Restaurant:
Applebee’s

Sandwich:
Quesadilla Burger

Details:
Once again, no simple bread on the top and bottom—the burger ingredients are placed in between two grilled quesadillas, each of which is filled with a blend of melted cheddar and pepper jack cheeses and bacon chunks. The burger itself is smothered in lettuce, salsa, more cheese, and “Mexi-ranch sauce.”

“Nutrition:”
More than 1,800 calories, 60 grams of fat, and 4,410 mg of sodium, two-and-a-half times the daily recommended amount.

Restaurant:
BrunchBox, a Portland, Oregon, food cart

Sandwich:
The Redonkadonk

Details:
The Redonkadonk takes Friendly’s sandwiches-for-buns approach to the next, heart-stopping level. There is no bun, but there are two grilled-cheese sandwiches made with extra-thick and buttery Texas Toast. Between the sandwiches sits a beef patty, a slice of melted American cheese, a fried egg…and three kinds of pork: a slice of ham, two strips of bacon, and a slab of Spam.

“Nutrition:”
Although BrunchBox hasn’t calculated it exactly, the Redonkadonk probably packs well over the daily recommended ceiling of 2,000 calories. (So what? We hear it’s
delicious
.)

FROM AN ACTUAL CRIME STORY

“An Oak Hill couple discovered a thief in their home Saturday after the homeowner told a joke and heard someone laugh upstairs.”

Youngest recipients of a Hollywood Walk of Fame star: Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (18 years old).

THE ANTHRAX ATTACKS

In late 2001, just weeks after the 9-11 terror attacks, an unknown person sent letters containing the bacterium that causes the disease known as
anthrax
to the offices of several media outlets and to two United States senators. So began what the FBI dubbed “Amerithrax.” Here’s the story of the attacks, and the history of the toxin itself (which is a lot older than you might think)
.

I
NSIDER TRADING

In 2008 longtime
Washington Post
columnist Richard Cohen wrote a piece for the online magazine
Slate
entitled “How Did I Get Iraq Wrong?” The article was about Cohen’s early support for the war in Iraq and how he eventually came to oppose it. But the piece was especially notable for one paragraph concerning the anthrax attacks of September 2001:

The attacks were not entirely unexpected. I had been told soon after Sept. 11 to secure Cipro, the antidote to anthrax. The tip had come in a roundabout way from a high government official, and I immediately acted on it. I was carrying Cipro way before most people had ever heard of it.

Cipro, short for
ciprofloxacin,
is a powerful antibiotic made specifically to fight bacterial infections. Its name became a household word after the anthrax attacks because it is the drug most often prescribed to treat the disease.

OH NO, I SAID TOO MUCH…

Cohen’s seemingly offhand comment raised eyebrows among those who had been following the story of the attacks for seven years. Among their questions: How did a “high government official” know there was a chance of an anthrax attack? Very few people in the U.S. were talking about it before the attacks actually occurred. Was that official questioned by the FBI after the attacks? And, most importantly, if Cohen really had been advised to secure Cipro, why on Earth hadn’t he warned his readers about it? Five people died in the ensuing attacks. Could Cohen or his government connection have helped prevent one or more of them?

End game: 15% of eBay auctions are won in the last minute of bidding.

Cohen’s comment is just one of several mysteries surrounding the anthrax attacks of 2001. And because the FBI has officially closed the investigation, most of those mysteries may never be solved.

THE FIFTH PLAGUE

The word “anthrax” comes from
anthrakis
—the Greek word for “coal”—because one form of the disease causes coal-black lesions on the skin. And anthrax itself is nothing new or unnatural—it’s been around for thousands of years. Descriptions of the disease have been found in ancient Greek, Roman, and Indian texts. Some biblical scholars even suggest that the fifth of the “Ten Plagues of Egypt” in the Old Testament—the Plague of Livestock Death—may have been describing an anthrax outbreak.

Anthrax is caused by
Bacillus anthracis,
a rod-shaped bacterium found in most parts of the world in the soil, where it feeds on dead and decaying organic matter. When the bacteria use up all the matter and environmental signals tell them that conditions are becoming unfavorable, they have the ability to go into a dormant
spore
state—forming hard, almost seedlike shells. The bacteria can survive in this state without food and in extremely harsh environments, such as blazing-hot droughts or freezing cold, for decades (possibly even centuries).

In nature these spores cause periodic anthrax outbreaks among grazing mammals such as deer, cattle, and sheep that ingest them as they eat off the ground. These outbreaks are often weather-related: Wind storms or floods can expose long-buried spores that are then eaten by animals.

MICRO-TERRORIST

Most of the bacteria in the
Bacillis
genus are harmless, but
B. anthracis
is different: It’s not only deadly to many mammal species (including humans), it uses their own bodies against them in devious fashion.

To learn how anthrax bacteria trick their victims’
bodies into helping them multiply and spread—
and a whole lot more—go to
page 267
.

Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig homered in the same game 72 times.

MEET OMAR
SHAMSHOON

If you’ve ever visited the Middle East, you know that when American TV programs are shown on Arab TV, culturally sensitive content is often altered or removed. Turns out some shows aren’t so easy to “Arabize
.”

M
UST-SEE TV

In late 1991, the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) went on the air for the first time. It was the Arab world’s first privately owned, independent satellite TV network, and the first to offer 24 hours of Arabic language television programming free of charge to anyone with a satellite dish.

Other networks soon sprang up, creating a huge demand for content to fill the airwaves. In the years that followed, countless American TV shows—everything from
Friends
to
The Late Show with David Letterman
to
Two and a Half Men
to
MacGyver
to
Dr. Phil
and
Oprah
—found their way onto these channels, either dubbed into Arabic or broadcast with Arabic subtitles, and with culturally offensive subject matter toned down or removed entirely.

Shows that appealed to younger audiences were especially popular. In some countries as much as 60 percent of the population was under 20 years of age, and the numbers remain high today. So it was probably inevitable that sooner or later, one of the Arab networks would set its sights on
The Simpsons,
one of most successful shows in American TV history, and try to bring it to the Middle East. In 2005 MBC did just that.

HOMER OF ARABIA

No expense was spared to prepare
The Simpsons
for the Arab market. The Arab world’s best TV writers were hired to translate episodes into Arabic, and A-list actors and actresses were hired to provide new voices for the characters. To make the show seem less “foreign,” Homer Simpson was renamed Omar Shamshoon, and the show itself was renamed
Al Shamshoon
—“The Shamshoons.”
(
Marge Simpson became Mona Shamshoon, Bart became Badr, and Lisa became Beesa.) Each episode that was selected for translation into Arabic was carefully reviewed to remove anything that might be offensive to Muslims. For example, where Homer Simpson drinks Duff beer (Islam forbids the consumption of alcohol), Omar Shamshoon drinks Duff fruit juice. Homer eats hot dogs (which commonly contain pork, also forbidden) and donuts (which are unfamiliar to most Arabs), but Omar eats Egyptian beef sausage links and
khak
cookies, which, like donuts, are often made with a hole in the middle.

A well-trained Gap employee can fold a shirt in 2 seconds flat.

Not every episode made the cut: Those with strong religious themes were out, as were the ones where the characters spent lots of time drinking beer in Moe’s Tavern. In episodes featuring shorter church and tavern scenes, they’re referred to as a “mosque” and a “coffeehouse.” And Ned Flanders? He became just an annoyingly perfect neighbor, not an annoyingly perfect
Christian
neighbor.

As for all that Simpsons-centric dialog like “Don’t have a cow, man!” and “Hi-diddly-ho, neighbors!”…well, the writers just translated as best they could. (“D’oh!” was translated as “D’oh!”)

NEITHER HERE NOR THERE

The final product was a confusing mishmash of cultural references, something not really American, not really Arab (Marge Simpson and the other female characters don’t wear veils, for example)…and definitely not
The Simpsons
. It wasn’t very funny, either, and with all the translations, revisions, and deletions, the storylines could be maddeningly difficult to follow.