Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader)

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  a) Touching thumbs and forefingers together to make a diamond-shaped “star” while singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” (The gesture might offend deaf people.)

  b) Falling down while singing “Ring Around the Rosie.” (It might offend epileptics and people with balance problems.)

  c) Clasping their arms together to make a rocking cradle while singing “Rock-a-bye Baby.” (Not all families can afford cradles.)

  2. In May 2011, the newly founded Journal of Animal Ethics (University of Illinois Press) asked its readers to do what?

  a) Support the creation of a labor union for racehorses, work dogs, and other service animals.

  b) Stop feeding meat-based pet foods to their pets, on the grounds that it’s cruel to animals. (Bone-shaped dog biscuits are “simulated” animal cruelty and just as bad.)

  c) Stop referring to animals as “animals.” (It’s a “term of abuse.”)

  3. In the spring of 2011, a Seattle elementary school renamed which of the following?

  a) Easter eggs: “Too religious.” The school calls them “spring spheres.”

  b) Tic-Tac-Toe: “Demeaning to kids with missing or deformed toes.” The school now calls the game “Bic-Bac-Boe.”

  c) Mohawk haircuts: “Racism.” Children as young as eight are permitted to wear them, but now they’re called “Punk-O’s.”

  Weighing over 440 lbs., one giant clam could provide enough meat for 100 gallons of chowder.

  4. In May 2010, administrators at Ireland’s University College Cork disciplined Dr. Dylan Evans, a behavioral scientist, after a colleague accused him of sexual harassment. What spurred the colleague, Dr. Rossana Salerno-Kennedy, to make the accusation?

  a) Dr. Evans insisted on calling her the department chairwoman, not the chair. “Hey, you’re a woman, not a chair,” he said.

  b) He showed her a peer-reviewed article from a scientific journal. Topic: the mating habits of fruit bats.

  c) Every time someone asked Evans a question he pointed to Salerno-Kennedy and said, “Ask the rear admiral.”

  5. In 2003 the Park Road Junior Infant and Nursery School in Batley, England, banned children under seven from reading the book The Three Little Pigs. Why?

  a) The Royal Society for the Protection of the English Wolf (PEW) objected to the stereotyping of the Big Bad Wolf as “bad.”

  b) The U.K. chapter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) objected to the Big Bad Wolf eating two of the pigs. They also objected to the third pig cooking the Big Bad Wolf in a pot after he came down the chimney of the pig’s brick house.

  c) Stories about pigs are offensive to Muslims, who don’t eat pork.

  * * *

  TEN TV SHOW TITLES THAT

  WERE CHANGED FOR RERUNS

  1. Laverne and Shirley became Laverne and Shirley and Company

  2. I Love Lucy became Lucy in Connecticut

  3. The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour became We Love Lucy

  4. Emergency! became Emergency One

  5. CHiPs became CHiPs Patrol

  6. Marcus Welby, MD became Robert Young, Family Doctor

  7. The Carol Burnett Show became Carol Burnett and Friends

  8. The Ropers became Three’s Company’s Friends: The Ropers

  9. CSI became CSI: Las Vegas

  10. Wagon Train became Major Adams, Trailmaster

  Ancient Greeks and Romans were short: men averaged 5' 5½"; women: 5' 2″.

  THE UNITED STATES OF BELGIUM?

  In the late 18th century, the United States pioneered a unique form of government—semi-autonomous states joined together under a central federal government. Plenty of other places around the world have since tried to emulate the idea, establishing their own “United States.” But the name alone does not guarantee success.

  THE UNITED STATES OF COLOMBIA

  United: In the early 19th century, Simon Bolivar led several fights for independence across South America, expelling Spain as the dominant power by 1819. Portions of countries that are today Panama, Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia united in various permutations as one nation from 1819 to 1866 under the names Gran Colombia, the Republic of New Granada, the Granadine Confederation, and finally in 1863 as the United States of Colombia.

  Un-stated: By that point, the federation included only Colombia and Panama. In 1903 Panamanian rebel groups began agitating for independence from Colombia, urged on and financed by American interests who wanted to build a canal across the isthmus of Panama. Panama got its freedom, Colombia got a little smaller, and the U.S. got its canal.

  THE UNITED STATES OF BELGIUM

  United: Between about 1500 and the early 1800s, Belgium was variously under the control of Burgundy, the Habsburg monarchy, Spain, Italy, Austria, and France. In 1790 Belgians revolted against then-ruling Habsburg emperor Joseph II and established the republic of the United States of Belgium.

  Un-stated: It was short-lived—the Habsburgs regained control by the end of the year and retitled it the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. (Modern-day, independent Belgium emerged in 1830 after splitting from the Netherlands.)

  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, no homes in N. Dakota are worth more than $1 mil.

  THE UNITED STATES OF BRAZIL

  United: Brazil won its independence from Portugal in 1822. The name “Brazil” (after the brasil tree, harvested for its red dye) had long been used by Portuguese settlers. In 1889, when Brazil became a republic, it adopted as its official name the Republic of the United States of Brazil.

  Un-stated: In 1964 Brazil’s left-wing president Joao Goulart was overthrown in a military coup after he tried to introduce socialism to Brazil. Seeking to distance itself from the republican and socialist eras, in 1967 the military changed the name of the country to the Federative Republic of Brazil.

  THE UNITED STATES OF INDONESIA

  United: At the end of World War II, the native people of the Dutch East Indies declared independence from the Netherlands, but it took four years of bloody fighting before the Dutch conceded the inevitable and granted independence to the “Republic of the United States of Indonesia,” which consisted of Indonesia and fifteen smaller states created by the Dutch since 1945.

  Un-stated: In early 1950 the fifteen other states were dissolved and incorporated into Indonesia. With no other states left in the United States, in August 1950, the RUSI was officially dissolved and the Republic of Indonesia was proclaimed a unitary state.

  THE UNITED STATES OF STELLALAND

  United: The Republic of Stellaland was a Boer (Dutch-speaking settler) republic in southern Africa that broke away from British Bechuanaland in 1882. The following year it merged with another breakaway Boer republic, the State of Goshen, to form the United States of Stellaland in the hope of better resisting the British.

  Un-stated: It didn’t work: In December 1884, the British invaded Stellaland, abolished the republic, and reabsorbed the territory into British Bechuanaland.

  * * *

  “Like Superman, I too have a Fortress of Solitude. Only mine flushes.”

  —Jerry Thomas

  Acrobat Joseph Spah survived the Hindenburg disaster by diving out the zeppelin’s window.

  DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU HEAR

  At the BRI, one of our goals is to make readers look at the world in a new way. After reading this article, you’ll also be listening in a new way. Listening to what? To sounds that seem real…but aren’t.

  WHAT’S NEW IS OLD AGAIN

  Have you ever heard of a skeuomorph? Pronounced SKEW-a-morf, it’s a feature that’s been added to a new version of a product that, while not functionally necessary, makes consumers more at ease with the new technology. For example, the “PLAY” button on your DVD player has a little arrow on it that points to the right. There’s nothing inside a digital player that actually moves to the right, but there was on old VHS tape players. The arrow remains because consumers are used to it.

  When it comes to sound, skeuomorphs
are a big deal: If a product doesn’t sound right, it can be a very tough sell to consumers. Companies employ sound designers—not unlike the sound engineers who work on Hollywood movies—to ensure that every noise a product makes will be pleasing to the ears. Sometimes it’s for nostalgia’s sake; sometimes for safety…and sometimes for more nefarious reasons.

  • Digital cameras: For more than a century, film cameras had mechanical shutters that clicked when the shutter button was pressed. Digital SLR cameras have a similar electro-mechanical shutter that also clicks, although not as loudly. But what about cell phone cameras and small point-and-shoots? They, too, have shutters, but they’re so small that the sound they make is barely audible. So manufactures have added fake shutter sounds to let the picture-taker know that a picture has been taken. Many people find this feature annoying, and some camera models allow you to change the sound to a beep. A few models even allow you to turn off the sound altogether.

  One of the screenwriters of the James Bond movie Goldfinger was a former secret agent.

  However, there’s a movement underway to mandate that these fake shutter sounds not only remain, but that they become louder. Reason: to prevent creepy voyeurs from secretly snapping photos in locker rooms and dressing rooms. In 2009 U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) drafted a bill called the “Camera Phone Predator Alert Act” which would “require mobile phones containing digital cameras to make a sound when a photograph is taken.” In Japan and South Korea, the governments have urged camera makers to keep the fake shutter noise to deter people from secretly taking pictures up women’s skirts (apparently a problem in the Far East). So far, camera makers haven’t complied, and King’s bill went nowhere, but the shutter-noise issue remains controversial.

  • Car doors: When you close a steel car door, it’s loud. In recent years, safety and emissions standards have forced auto makers to use lighter materials, resulting in new doors that sound more like toys. Because most people equate a lower pitch with power, and a higher pitch with weakness, auto engineers have redesigned lighter car doors with dampeners and other materials in order to replace the tinny “tink” with a much more satisfying “thunk.”

  • Turn signals: The “tick-tock” you hear in newer cars doesn’t correspond to the actual signal mechanism, which is a silent electrical relay switch. The sound is there mainly to alert the driver that the signal is on, but it’s been carefully crafted to be noticeable without being too loud, and to have a pleasing tone. (In fact, nearly every noise you hear in a new car has been labored over by engineers—from the seatbelt click to the sound the seat makes when your butt hits it. If the sound doesn’t sound good enough, it will be tweaked until it does.)

  • Electric car motors: To ensure that pedestrians and cyclists hear them coming, silent electric cars come with speakers under the hood that play a recorded engine noise. But not just any random engine noise will do: The designers of the electric Nissan Leaf, for example, hired focus groups to listen to dozens of engine sounds and then vote on the one they found the most satisfying.

  • Harley-Davidsons: These motorcycles make a very distinctive “potato-potato” sound, but that wasn’t originally by design; it was the result of the cylinders of the V-twin engines firing at an uneven rate (which was necessary to pack more punch into a smaller engine). Over time that noise became so associated with Harleys that other bike makers tried to copy it, leading the company to attempt to trademark the sound in the 1990s. The trademark bid was unsuccessful, but Harley-Davidson claimed they had won “in the court of public opinion.”

  Breath test: The Pyruvate scale measures pungency in onions and garlic.

  Ironically, in recent decades Harley engineers have had to perform some trickery to retain that distinctive sound. Because of tighter engine regulations, the cylinders now fire at a more even rate, so the company has set up a “Noise, Vibration & Harshness Department” tasked with meeting regulations, but also meeting riders’ expectations of what a Hog should sound like.

  • Segways: If you’ve heard a Segway scooter rolling down the sidewalk, you know it makes a very distinctive whir that sounds a bit like the futuristic vehicles from The Jetsons. That’s no accident. Segway designers tweaked the two-stage transmission until both stages hit notes that are exactly one octave apart. That gives the Segway a modern, musical sound—whereas two random notes could have made it sound clunky and out of tune.

  • Computer mouses: The Apple Mighty Mouse makes a clicking sound when the user scrolls, yet there’s no actual mechanism that clicks. Instead, a tiny speaker inside the mouse plays a simulated clicking sound. (To see if your mouse has a speaker inside, unplug it and roll the scroll ball. If it’s silent, the click is fake.)

  • Ebooks: There are some aspects of reading a real book that simply can’t be captured by reading an ebook…but that hasn’t stopped ebook makers from trying. Some ebook readers feature faux paper texture, page-turning animation, and the actual sound of a paper page turning.

  • Slot machines: As tickets replace coins in slot machines, the familiar “ching-ching” sound is in danger of going away. No problem: Newer slot machines that award tickets play recorded coin sounds. To entice non-gamblers into the room, the same sound is heard whether the player wins 25 cents or 25 dollars. And not just any “ching-ching” will do. As one slot machine designer explained, “We mix several recordings of coins falling on a metal tray and then fatten up the sound.” On digital slots that don’t have a spinning wheel inside, a simulated spinning sound is played. Same thing if there’s no lever. In fact, some slot machines employ up to 40 fake sounds just to keep people gambling.

  In Canada, Santa’s postal code is H0H 0H0.

  • Phones: You can set your phone’s ring tone to whatever you want, but when you make a call—be it on a mobile phone or on a landline—you always hear the familiar “ring-ring” sound. Callers haven’t actually heard the sound made by an phone ringing on the other end since the 1950s. It’s been simulated ever since.

  • Football games: Sports fans have certain auditory expectations when they go to the stadium, so little is left to chance. Even the vendors who walk through the stands are trained to yell “Get yer hot dogs!” and “Cold beer here!” in a certain way. That adds to the nostalgia value of going to a game. But some things you hear at a sporting venue may be designed to give the home team an advantage. In 2007 the Indianapolis Colts were accused of piping in fake crowd noise during a home game against the New England Patriots—but only when the Patriots had the ball and the snapper needed to hear the quarterback’s call. Colts officials denied it, claiming that what fans watching on TV said sounded like a “CD skipping” was actually feedback caused by the CBS Sports broadcast of the game. Nevertheless, the NFL enacted strict rules against this practice, with heavy fines for offenders. Since then, a few other teams have been accused of using fake crowd noise, but nothing’s been proven.

  • The Olympics: During the 2012 broadcast of the Summer Games in London, NBC admitted to some fakery with the rowing races. Because the motors on the chase boats and the TV helicopters were so loud, it would have been impossible to pick up audio from the actual rowers. So the Games’ official sound engineer, Dan Baxter, didn’t even try to use the live audio. Result: The viewers watching at home heard a playback of rowers on a calm, quiet river that Baxter had recorded himself. “Some people think it’s cheating,” he said. “I don’t think I’m cheating anybody. The sound is there. It’s just not necessarily real time. When you see a rower, your mind thinks you should hear the rower and that’s what we deliver.”

  At birth, babies usually cry in the key of C or C-sharp.

  A METEORIC FOOTNOTE

  On page 373 we told you the story of the devastating Chicago and Peshtigo fires of October 8, 1871. Were they caused by the wrath of God, as many believed at the time? Were they caused by a long drought and a gigantic low-pressure system? Or did something else spark the fires on that fateful day? After almost 150 years, the debate rages on
.

  AHOT THEORY

  The chance of two historically significant fires starting on the same day only 250 miles apart still baffles experts. No definitive conclusion has yet been reached about what started either fire or why they spread so fast and furiously.

  In 2003 former fire captain Mica Calfee read an article about the fires in Firehouse Magazine. Like most people, Calfee knew about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, but when he read that an even bigger fire had occurred nearby on the same night, he was astounded. Then he read this statement: “Some astronomers point out that there was a meteor shower that night and suggest this as a possible cause.” Calfee decided to investigate.

  FIRE IN THE SKY

  Survivors of the Peshtigo Fire had described a “horizontal tornado, with tremendous winds blowing fire everywhere.” These stories convinced Peshtigo historian Robert Couvillion that the meteor theory was true. To Calfee, that sounded like a meteor blast, but as a master firefighter, he also knew that any large fire—especially one as big as the Peshtigo inferno—could create a horizontal draft.

  Several other sources, including retired McDonnell Douglas physicist Robert Wood, claimed that a comet called Biela was to blame for the 1871 fires. The periodic comet was first spotted in 1772. In 1846 observers noted that the comet had split in two. Both parts were spotted in 1852 and were due back in 1872, but they were never seen again.

  What happened? Wood theorized that the primary or secondary part of Biela could have sped up as it passed Jupiter so that it arrived a year early…in 1871. “The debris carried a mixture of rock and ice when the Earth plowed through the field in October 1871,” said Wood. “The result was hundreds of hot rocks flying through the atmosphere and in many cases striking tinder-dry woods.”