Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader

by Michael Brunsfeld

  The federal government awarded Smalls $1,500 for capturing the Planter, but he still chose to enlist and fight for the Union. After making a recruiting tour of New York, Smalls was sent back to South Carolina and commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant, Company B, 33rd Regiment, United States Colored Troops. He was once again given the wheel of the renamed USS Planter, now part of the Union blockading fleet.

  Humans have about 1,400,000 hairs on their body.

  PROMOTION

  In November 1863, the Planter took part in a futile attack on Fort Sumter with Smalls as pilot under the white Captain James Nickerson. When the ship was caught in a deadly crossfire from Confederate shore batteries, the captain deserted his post and ran below deck, hiding in the coal bin. Smalls took command, keeping the guns firing while he used his encyclopedic knowledge of Charleston Harbor to maneuver the damaged ship to safety.

  A Naval Board of Inquiry dismissed Nickerson for cowardice, but Smalls was again regarded as a hero…and was given his first command. His ship: the Planter, the same ship on which he had escaped two years earlier. In combat, Captain Smalls fought in 17 naval engagements; off duty, he studied with tutors to learn to read and write, skills which had been forbidden him as a slave.

  CONTINUING THE FIGHT

  When the war ended Smalls returned to Beaufort. Using the money he earned, he purchased the house in which he was born and moved his family into it (which now included two daughters and his recently freed mother). Smalls entered politics and served five non-consecutive terms in Congress. In 1897 the government belatedly recognized his wartime service by awarding him a $30-per-month veteran’s pension.

  Robert Smalls died in Beaufort on February 23, 1915. His home has since been designated a National Historic Landmark. A naval cargo vessel, the USS Robert Smalls, was named in his honor. Beside Smalls’s grave is a statue with an inscription that sums up his life’s work: “My people need no special defense, for the past history of this country proves them to be the equal of any people, anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.”

  * * *

  “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

  —John F. Kennedy

  The odors of gardenia and orange blossoms, combined together, have no smell.

  A ROOM OF HER OWN

  Words of wisdom from worldly women.

  “The first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on a woman.”

  —Lady Nancy Astor

  “God gave women intuition and femininity. Used properly, the combination easily jumbles the brain of any man I’ve ever met.”

  —Farrah Fawcett

  “The great and almost only comfort about being a woman is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is and no one is surprised.”

  —Freya Stark, writer

  “Women are the only oppressed group in our society that lives in intimate association with their oppressors.”

  —Evelyn Cunningham

  “I’m not denyin’ that women are foolish: God Almighty made ’em to match the men.”

  —George Eliot, writer

  “When you belong to a minority, you have to be better in order to have the right to be equal.”

  —Christine Collange, writer

  “Women are like tea bags; you never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.”

  —Eleanor Roosevelt

  “Why are women so much more interesting to men than men are to women?”

  —Virginia Woolf

  “There is a growing strength in women—but it’s in the forehead, not the forearm.”

  —Beverly Sills

  “Women might start a rumor, but not a war.”

  —Marga Gomez, artist

  “A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. A woman must do what he can’t.”

  —Rhonda Hansome, actor

  “All women want from men is a partner who will share his hopes, his thoughts, his dreams. And if you don’t, we’re going to bitch at you until the day you die.”

  —Stephanie Hodge, actor

  “Until all women have made it, none of us have made it.”

  —Rosemary Brown

  A hummingbird’s heart rate drops from 500 beats a minute to 10 when it goes to sleep.

  THE WOMAN EMPEROR

  In a civilization ruled by men for thousands of years, only one woman ever made it to the top in imperial China—Empress Wu.

  HIGH CHINA

  China hasn’t had a monarchy since the Communist Revolution of 1949. But for more than 4,000 years before that, it was a ruled by 308 different emperors spanning 14 dynastic periods. Of those 308, only one was a woman.

  It happened during the T’ang Dynasty, which ruled China from A.D. 618–907, an era commonly considered the height of Chinese art, literature, philosophy, trade, and technology. The capital city, Chang’an (modern-day Xi’an), was the largest and most culturally advanced city in the world, with a population of more than a million. This was also a rare era of freedom for women in China; women had long been treated as inferior but now enjoyed such freedoms as the right to be educated, to divorce, to own land, and to take part—to a degree—in politics. But no one could have expected a woman to take as large a role as the girl known as Wu Zhao.

  LUCKY GIRL?

  Wu Zhao was born in 624 into a noble and wealthy family, and was educated from an early age in music, art, literature, and philosophy. That education would help her immensely. When she was 13 years old, her family’s connections allowed her the great privilege of becoming a Cairen, one of nine “fifth-tier” concubines of the Emperor Tai-tsung. Her education, her musical talent, her beauty, and her wit made her stand out from the other girls, and she soon became one of the emperor’s favorites. He gave her the title Meiniang, or “Charming Lady,” and assigned her to work in the imperial study. There she would add to her knowledge the workings of government—knowledge she would put to great use in the coming years.

  In 649, when Wu Zhao was 25, Emperor Tai-tsung died—not a good thing for a concubine: in keeping with tradition, all the concubines were sent to a Buddhist convent, where they were to spend the rest of their lives. But Tai-tsung’s son, Kao-tsung, became emperor and soon began visiting Wu at the convent. Many historians believe that Wu Zhao had been having an affair with the prince for a number of years, possibly because she knew he could get her out of the convent when his father died. True or not, two years later the new emperor broke tradition and had Wu Zhao returned to the palace, where she became Wu Zhaoyi, Zhaoyi signifying the highest rank of the second-tier concubines. There were now only two women above her in what became her quest for the throne: Kao-tsung’s wife, Empress Wang, and his first consort, Xiaoshu.

  How old was the youngest soldier to die in the Civil War? 12.

  HEIR REPLACEMENTS

  Within a few years, Wu Zhaoyi had two sons by the emperor—two possible heirs to the emperor’s throne if she got rid of the two women in her way. And she soon did.

  When Wu Zhaoyi’s newborn daughter died during childbirth, Wu accused Empress Wang of infanticide. Some versions of the story say that Wu actually killed her own daughter, then blamed it on the empress. In any case, in 655 the emperor imprisoned his wife and made Wu Zhaoyi empress. She quickly used her new power to have the former empress and the first concubine, Xiaoshu, executed. Wu Zhao now became Empress Wu Zetian. But she still wanted more.

  Emperor Kao-tsung allowed Wu Zetian to take an active role in the government, and historians say she did it very well. Implementing such changes as improved agricultural practices, tax reductions, and increased efficiency in government administration, the empress helped bolster an already thriving empire. She also began to eliminate people who dared oppose her, replacing them with her supporters. Emperor Kao-tsung became aware of what she was doing, but historians believe he was either afraid of her or powerless to stop her. In 660 Kao-tsung, just 32 years old, had a debilitating stroke. He
survived, but Empress Wu now essentially took his place, becoming the actual, if not the named, ruler of China. That still wasn’t enough.

  ONE MORE STEP

  Wu now began a brutal purge of the royal court. Anyone who opposed her was imprisoned, exiled, or executed—including family members. When the emperor finally died in 683, Wu’s eldest son, Hung, would have been first in line for the throne. (By this time she had four sons.) But he was already gone, having died mysteriously a year earlier after complaining about his mother’s rule. Her second son was also out of the picture; he had once complained about an affair his mother was having, so she had him exiled (he eventually committed suicide). The third son, Li Xian, was put on the throne…and was exiled 54 days later, apparently too difficult for the empress to control. That left the fourth son, Li Dan, to become emperor—in name only—and to carry out his mother’s wishes.

  The favorite pizza topping in Australia: eggs.

  By 690 Wu Zetian had eliminated enough of her enemies to do what had never been done by a woman in Chinese history: she deposed her puppet son and declared herself the sole ruler of China—giving herself the male name Emperor Shengshen.

  BIG WU

  Emperor Shengshen declared the end of the T’ang Dynasty and a return to the Zhou Dynasty (Wu Zetian believed herself to be descended from the ancient Zhou emperors). She ruled China for the next 15 years. It was an ironically brutal rule during which she spread the compassionate teachings of Buddhism while ruthlessly butchering her enemies. In 695 she expanded her royal name, taking the Buddhist title Emperor Tiance Jinlun Shengshen—the Divine Emperor Who Rules the Universe. In 705, now 80 years old, her rule was ended by a successful palace coup. Her third son once again became emperor, ending the Zhou Dynasty after having just one ruler and restoring the T’ang Dynasty. She died nine months later.

  Wu Zetian was vilified by Chinese scholars for centuries after her rule. Stories of her brutality and “immoral behavior” may even be false histories written by her critics in the centuries following her death. Many historians point out that her actions as ruler stand out only because she was a woman and were not very different from the actions of male emperors of the time. In all, the former concubine ruled China for nearly 45 years, 15 of them as emperor. No woman would ever rule China again.

  Bad omen: General Custer once accidentally shot his own horse during a buffalo hunt.

  HOAX!

  Everything you read on this page is true. Or is it?

  SHOPPING FOR ATTENTION

  Background: A new piece of ancient artwork turned up in the British Museum in 2005. The artifact was a rock bearing painted images of animals, a man, and an unusual tool. The sign beneath it read: “Early man venturing towards the out-of-town hunting grounds.”

  Exposed! The “tool” in the picture was a shopping cart; the “artifact” had been secretly placed there by British hoax artist Banksymus Maximus, also known as “Banksy.” He designed it to look like the authentic ancient pieces in the museum—and it stayed up for three days before “experts” at the museum noticed it. (The sign on the piece also dated it to “the Post-Catatonic era.”) The museum took the hoax in good humor, and even returned the piece to the artist. It quickly went up at Banksy’s latest show at another museum, with the label “On loan from the British Museum.”

  HE NEEDS HELP

  Background: A desperate Austrian man called police to his home in January 2005. He claimed the house was haunted. For weeks he had continually heard footsteps in the hallways and doors slamming through the night. He begged the police for help.

  Exposed! Police put video cameras in the house and for the next few weeks compiled footage of the “ghost”—the 42-year-old wife of one of the man’s employees. She was charged with creating a nuisance and jailed for four months. Why she did it remains a mystery.

  BUT IT SOUNDED GOOD

  Background: Massachusetts Institute of Technology student Jeremy Stribling submitted an academic paper to a leading technology conference. The paper, entitled “Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy,” was accepted, and he was invited to speak at the World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics in Orlando, Florida.

  Exposed! The paper was nothing but gibberish generated by a computer program. The program, written by Stribling and two fellow students, automatically spit out important-sounding nonsense, such as: “We can disconfirm that expert systems can be made amphibious” and “We concentrate our efforts on showing that the famous ubiquitous algorithm for the exploration of robots by Sato et al. runs in Ω((n + log n)) time [22].” Stribling later admitted to the hoax, adding that they’d done it because they were tired of being inundated with e-mail spam soliciting research papers for the conference. His conference credentials were subsequently revoked.

  Now you know: A white flag means surrender; a yellow flag means infectious disease.

  IRONING OUT HIS PROBLEMS

  Background: In 1999 Marcus Danquah, 41, of Kirton Lindsey, England, sued British appliance maker Morphy Richards, seeking $300,000. He claimed that a faulty clothes iron had given him an electric shock and a heart attack.

  Exposed! During the course of the trial the court heard that Danquah, an engineer, had rewired the iron so that it shocked anyone who touched it. The company also charged that Danquah faked his heart attack with a homemade electric device. “They say it was hidden in his underpants,” Judge Donald Hamilton reported, “and that he referred to the device as his ‘electric underpants.’” Danquah, who’d already spent more than $20,000 in legal fees, was ordered to pay the company’s court costs.

  FLOWER CHILD

  Background: The “Flower Portrait” is probably the best-known painting of William Shakespeare. The familiar portrait, showing the Bard looking slightly to his right, wearing a wide white collar pressed tight up to his chin, has been reproduced countless times. (It is often printed on the cover of programs for Shakespeare plays.) It was named for one of its owners, Sir Desmond Flower, who donated it to the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1911. According to the date on the reverse side of the picture, it was painted in 1609—while Shakespeare was still alive.

  Exposed! In 2005 experts at London’s National Portrait Gallery conducted a four-month study of the painting, using X-rays, ultraviolet light, paint sampling, and microphotography. Their conclusion: It’s a fake. It was painted between 1814 and 1840, 200 years after Shakespeare’s death. They have no idea who painted it.

  Portland, OR, and Bend, OR, each has an extinct volcano within its city limits. Honolulu has 2.

  WHAT DREAMS MEAN

  Psychologists say dreams reflect our waking lives. Although translations will vary with each individual, researchers say everybody’s dreams share some common themes. Here are some examples.

  • If you’re naked, you’re dreading an upcoming event because you feel unprepared, ashamed, or vulnerable.

  • If you’re falling, it’s a subconscious response to real-life stress. However, some experts say the “stress” could be something as simple as a mid-sleep leg or arm spasm.

  • If you die, it doesn’t portend death (yours or anybody else’s)—it suggests insecurity or anxiety.

  • If you dream about a dead relative, you’ve come to terms with the loss. Dream psychologists say we only dream about deceased loved ones when the grief process is complete.

  • If you see a car wreck, a big undertaking in your life may feel bound for failure.

  • If you’re being chased, you’re probably running away from something in real life. Being unable to run in a dream indicates feeling overwhelmed by daily pressures.

  • If your teeth fall out or crumble, you’re unhappy with your physical appearance. It may also mean you’re excessively concerned about how others perceive you.

  • If you’re giving birth, great change is unfolding. Dreaming about babies indicates a desire to behave more maturely.

  • If you can fly, you’ve
just conquered a stressful situation. If you dream that you’re able to control where you fly, it’s a sign of confidence. Flying aimlessly suggests you’re cautiously optimistic about your success.

  • If you dream about water, it represents a general sense of your emotional state. Clear water means satisfaction with work and home. Muddy water is a sign of skepticism and discontent.

  •If you’re urinating, you may be expressing desire for relief from a difficult situation. Or you may really have to pee. Or you may be doing so already.

  Author Anne Rice’s real name is Howard O’Brien. (She was named after her father.)

  THE LITTLE RASCALS

  With 221 episodes filmed over more than two decades, Our Gang/Little Rascals is the most successful, longest-running film series in Hollywood history. Here’s how the Little Rascals found their way onto the silver screen.

  STICKS AND STONES

  One day in 1921, a Hollywood producer named Hal Roach spent a frustrating morning auditioning girls for a part in one of his movies. It wasn’t going well—the kids sounded too rehearsed and their stage makeup made them look like little grown-ups. In those days child actors were supposed to act like adults, not like normal kids. They were usually well scrubbed and well behaved, and because the adult characters were almost always the center of the story, the kids interacted with grown-ups more than they did with each other. They were often little more than props.

  That afternoon when the auditions ended, Roach sat in his office and stared out at the lumberyard across the street. He noticed a group of kids that had snatched a few sticks to play with, and were now arguing over them—the smallest kid had grabbed the largest stick, and the biggest kid wanted it.