Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (52 page)

His life-saving parachute webbing was made entirely from U.S.-grown cannabis hemp.

Virtually all the rigging and ropes of the ship that rescued him were made of cannabis hemp.

The fire hoses on the ship were woven from cannabis hemp.

Ironically, President Bush consistently opposed decriminalizing hemp grown in the United States.

• Does the hemp conspiracy continue? In March 1992, Robert Bonner, the chief of the Drug Enforcement Agency, effectively rejected a petition to permit doctors to prescribe marijuana for patients as a medication for chronic pain. Bonner said: “Beyond doubt the claims that marijuana is medicine are false, dangerous and cruel.” But, according to a federal administrative law judge Francis Young, “the record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people and doing so with safety under medical supervision.” (
The New York Times
)

RECOMMENDED READING

• This article was excerpted from
It’s a Conspiracy!
, by the National Insecurity Council. It’s highly recommended by the BRI for your bathroom reading.

• If you’d like a copy (and we know you would), send a check for $10 to EarthWorks Press, P.O. Box 1117, Ashland, OR 97520. Or ask for it at your local bookstore.

AND NOW, A COUPLE OF BAD JOKES...

A mushroom walks into a bar and says, “Drinks are on me.”

The bartender asks, “Why are you buying everybody drinks?”

The mushroom says “Because I’m just a Fungi.”

Q:
Why was the idiot staring at a carton of orange juice?

A:
Because it said concentrate.

The world’s first female telephone operator was named Emma M. Nutt.

More random questions and answers from America’s trivia experts
.

O
N THE SPOT

Q:
What causes freckles?

A:
“Except in the case of albinos, every person’s skin has cells called
melanocytes
, which produce a certain amount of melanin, a dark pigment that absorbs ultraviolet light. These cells produce melanin at increasing rates when the skin is exposed to sunlight—hence the sunbather’s tan. Some melanocytes are more active than others. Thus when groups of active melanocytes are surrounded by groups of less active melanocytes, the results are islands of pigment known as freckles.” (From
Do Elephants Swim?
compiled by Robert M. Jones)

INFLATED WITH PRIDE

Q:
Why is Chicago called the Windy City?

A:
Chicago is pretty windy (with a 10.3-mph-wind average), but that’s not where the nickname comes from. It comes from the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbia Exposition—which was supposed to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of the New World, but ended up being used by city politicos to hype Chicago. “So boastful and overblown were the local politicians’ claims about the exposition and the city that a New York City newspaper editor, Charles A. Dana, nicknamed Chicago ‘the windy city.’” (From
The Book of Totally Useless Information
, by Don Voorhees)

EVERYTHING’S RELATIVE

Q:
Is it true that Einstei’s parents once thought he was retarded?

A:
Believe it or not, yes. “It took Einstein so long to learn to speak (he didn’t become fluent in his mother tongue of German until age nine) that his parents suspected he was ‘subnormal.’ His teachers agreed: according to legend, when Einstein’s father ask his schoolmaster which profession young Albert should adopt, the schoolmaster replied, ‘It doesn’t matter; he’ll never make a success of anything.’ Actually, though, historians don’t know all that much about his childhood. The reason: Einstein’s memory for personal things was so bad that even
he
couldn’t remember what happened to him as a kid. ‘You are quite right,’ he said when a friend commented this was hard to believe. ‘My bad memory for personal things [is] really quite astounding.’

The world’s 1st “motor-hotel”, the Milestone Mo-Tel, opened in San Luis Obispo, CA, in 1925.

“Interesting note: Even as an adult, Einstein’s genius was not immediately recognized. As late as 1910, more than five years after he published his famous papers on statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics, and the special theory of relativity, he was still only an associate professor at the University of Zurich earning just 4,500 francs a year. The meager salary wasn’t enough to live on; he was forced to supplement his income with lecture fees and by taking in student boarders. He once told a colleague: ‘In my relativity theory, I set up a clock at every point in space, but in reality I find it difficult to provide even one clock in my room.’” (From
Late Night Entertainment
, by John Dollison)

HAIRY THOUGHTS

Q:
Why do people get goose bumps?

A:
“Goose bumps are a vestige from the days when humans were covered with hair. When it got cold, the hairs were stood on end, creating a trap for air and providing insulation. The hairs have long since disappeared, but in the places where they used to be, the skin still bristles, trying to get warm.” (From
The Book of Answers
, by Barbara Berliner)

SLICK QUESTION

Q:
Why is ice so slippery?

A:
“Ice has several unusual properties, one of them being that it melts when subjected to pressure. Your foot on ice is such pressure, and a film of melted ice—water—reduces the amount of friction and thus sliding can occur.” (From
Science Trivia
, by Charles Cazeau)

See for yourself: Sitcom characters on TV rarely say goodbye when they hang up the phone.

Over the years, we’ve collected “First Reports,” newspaper articles that gave readers their first glimpse of something that eventually became important in some way. Here are a few examples
.

SPACED OUT

Most people don’t know it was one incident—and one short newspaper story—that started the UFO craze. Here’s the story, sent out over the AP wire from the
Pendleton East Oregonian
on June 25, 1947
.

Pendleton, Ore. June 25 (AP)—
“Nine bright saucer-like objects flying at ‘incredible speed’ at 10,000 feet altitude were reported here today by Kenneth Arnold, a Boise, Idaho, pilot who said he could not hazard a guess as to what they were.

“Arnold, a United States Forest Service employee engaged in searching for a missing plane, said he sighted the mysterious objects yesterday at three p.m. They were flying between Mount Rainier and Mount Adams, in Washington State, he said, and appeared to weave in and out of formation. Arnold said that he clocked and estimated their speed at 1,200 miles an hour.

“Enquiries at Yakima last night brought only blank stares, he said, but he added he talked today with an unidentified man from Ukiah, south of here, who said he had seen similar objects over the mountains near Ukiah yesterday.

“‘It seems impossible,’ Arnold said, ‘but there it is.’”
This story was picked up by papers all over the world. At that moment, according to the
UFO Encyclopedia, “
the age of flying saucers began
.”

THE XEROX MACHINE

When this article appeared in 1948, Xerox was still known as the Haloid Company
.

Rochester, N.Y. Oct. 23—
“A revolutionary process of inkless printing has been developed that might completely change all the operations of the printing and publishing industry. This was announced yesterday by Joseph C. Wilson, presidential the Haloid Company of Rochester, New York.

“Known as ‘Xerography,’ this basic addition to the graphic arts reproduces pictures and text at the speed of 1,200 feet a minute, on any kind of surface.

In case you were wondering: The little flap in the back of your throat is called a
uvula
.

“Although there is no immediate prospect of applying the method to general photography, the process will be available within about six months for copying uses. Wilson said it will be in the form of a compact Xerocopying machine for reproducing letters, documents, and line work...

“Looking farther ahead, he said he foresaw incorporating the entire process in a portable Xerocamera. ‘With such a camera, the picture taker can snap the shutter and within a few seconds pull out a finished Xeroprint. If he doesn’t like the picture, he can discard it and try again, using the same Xeroplate.’”

DEAR ABBY

Dear Abby’s first column appeared in the
San Francisco Chronicle
on January 9, 1956. She answered four letters. Here’s one of them
.

“Dear Abby:
Maybe you can suggest something to help my sister. She is married to a real heel. He is 6’3” and weighs 240 and she is 5’ and weighs 106. He has a terrible temper and frequently knocks the daylights out of her.—L.L.

“Dear L.L.:
I admit your sister is no physical match for her heavyweight husband, but I’ve seen smaller gals flatten out bigger guys than this with just one look. If your sister has been letting this walrus slap her around frequently, maybe she likes it. Stay out of their family battles, Chum.”

INTRODUCING THE CD

This article appeared in the
New York Times,
March 18, 1983
. “Five years ago, the electronics industry brought out the videodisk, heralded as the future of home entertainment systems. This month, the digital compact disk audio system will make its way into American homes, making similar promises. But marketers of the audiodisk play down the kinship, with good cause; sales of videodisks have been dismal. The compact audiodisk system, meanwhile, is expected to replace stereo turntables and albums as the industry standard within the decade.

“Some question whether the audiodisk will succeed. Players now cost $800-$900, and disks are $16-20 each, far too expensive for a popular market.

“Even if prices come down...some analysts doubt whether consumers will be willing to sacrifice substantial investments in turntables and stacks of traditional recordings.”

Women have Adam’s apples, too. Men’s are larger to accommodate their longer vocal cords.

Here’s the story of a trial that’s stranger than anything you’ll ever see on “Court TV” or “Judge Judy
.”

B
ACKGROUND.
The late ninth century was a difficult period in the history of the Catholic Church. The Holy Roman Empire was disintegrating and as the empire’s power slipped away, so did the authority of the Church; not strong enough militarily to survive on its own, it had to depend on powerful European nobles for protection.

HERE COMES GUIDO

In 891, Pope Stephen V turned to Duke Guido III of Spoleto for protection. To cement the relationship, Stephen adopted him as his son and crowned him Holy Roman Emperor.

...AND POPE FORMOSUS

That relationship didn’t last long. Pope Stephen V died a few months later and a new pope, Formosus I, was elected to head the Church. Guido was suspicious of the new pope’s loyalty. So in 892, he forced Formosus to crown him emperor a second time. He also insisted that Formosus name his son Lambert “heir apparent.”