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

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Who’s John Tyndall? The Irish scientist who answered the question “Why is the sky blue?”

  ON THE MENU

  What eats cicadas? Just about any animal that isn’t a vegetarian: birds, foxes, wolves, dogs, cats, opossums, pigs, squirrels, frogs, lizards, fish, other insects…and people. Since pre-history humans have been eating cicadas either fresh off the tree, stir fried, deep-fried, or roasted over fires. “They’re high in protein, low in fat, no carbs,” Kritsky told National Geographic News during the 2004 outbreak. “They’re actually quite nutritious.” (Female cicadas, by the way, have a reputation for being meatier and more succulent.)

  If being eaten after 13 or 17 years stuck underground seems unfair, it may be preferable to two other fates. First, the cicada’s most virulent enemy, Massospora cicadina. It’s a fungal disease to which these insects are particularly susceptible. Spores can infect cicadas when they’re still underground, resulting in malformed bodies and wings. Cicadas can also be infected as they emerge. If that happens, the infected individual’s abdomen swells up and breaks off, exposing a white, chalky mass of spores. This sterilizes the cicada but does not kill it; infected cicadas pass the fungus on to others as they try to mate, infecting them, too.

  KILLER QUEENS

  Frankly, if we were cicadas, our least preferred predator would be the second one: the giant (2″ long) cicada killer wasp (Sphecius speciosis). Instead of administering a quick death, the cicada killer queen swoops down and lands on an unsuspecting cicada. She administers a paralyzing sting, straddles the cicada, grasps it with her legs, and flies it to her underground nest, where she rolls the unlucky cicada into a cell, and lays an egg on it (if the egg is female, the wasp may provide two or three cicadas). Finally, she seals the cell to create a sort of climate-controlled incubator. Two to three days later, the egg hatches and the larva emerges to discover a juicy birthday breakfast. What makes this such a horrible death is that the cicada killer’s paralyzing sting keeps the cicada alive so that the larvae can dine on living flesh for 10–14 days, until only the cicada’s outer shell remains.

  There are 25 U.S. cities, towns, and villages named in honor of George Washington. First: Washington, KY (1780).

  UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

  So, how does our cicada story end? With the entire brood dying off in a peaceful mass death like some insect Jonestown, leaving no survivors. (And predators wondering if that all-you-can-eat buffet was just some crazy dream.) From start to finish—from the time the first cicada nymph digs tunnels up until the final die-off—a brood’s above-ground life lasts about 4–6 weeks. “They come and go so quickly,” said University of Georgia entomologist Dr. Nancy C. Hinkle. But, at least we know one thing. “They’ll be back…”

  A FEW FACTS

  • There are at least 2,500 species of cicadas. Africa has about 450, Australia 200, North America at least 105, and the British Isles 1.

  • Some tropical species grow to as long as 6 inches. Some desert species can sweat to cool themselves. (Very rare among insects.) Some cold-weather cicadas can raise their body temperatures at will by more than 70°. (Very rare among not just insects, but most living things.)

  • With two large red compound eyes on the sides of the head and three small ocelli (simple eyes) in a triangle on the front of the head, periodical cicadas have excellent vision.

  • In India, one cicada species is called the “World Cup Cicada.” It emerges in synch with the FIFA soccer tournament, held every four years from mid-June to mid-July. (Who needs vuvuzelas?)

  • In China, cicada “flowers” (shells left behind after molting) are collected and used in traditional medicine. They’re a common ingredient in formulas used to cure fevers, sore throats, blurry vision, spasms, and skin irritations.

  • Because of its extended life cycle, the 17-year cicada is the world’s longest-living insect.

  • Most periodical cicadas have red eyes, but a small percentage have blue or white eyes. During the 2011 emergence of Brood XIX, which covers 15 states, word spread that researchers were paying $3,000 for specimens of blue-eyed cicadas, but according to Vanderbilt University biology professor Patrick Abbot, that was “a recurrent myth.”

  • Scientists say its tough to understand the purpose of an insect as bizarre as the periodical cicada, but they do play positive roles: They are a food source for a wide variety of species. Their tunnels aerate the soil and aid tree growth. The twig damage caused by female egg-laying “prunes” trees and stimulates future growth.

  • Periodical cicada nymphs that burrowed underground during the Clinton Administration will still be emerging until the year 2017.

  • Because of the clearing of hardwood forests, several broods of periodical cicadas are now extinct.

  • In 2004 University of Maryland grad-student Jenna Jadin put together a brochure called “Cicada-Licious: Cooking and Enjoying Periodical Cicada.” Recipes include El Chirper Tacos, Cicada Dumplings, Cica-Delicious Pizza, Banana Cicada Bread, and Cicada-Rhubarb Pie. (The brochure can be found online.)

  * * *

  MUSTACHE QUOTES

  “A man without a mustache is like a cup of tea without sugar.”

  —English Proverb

  “My mustache gets so many questions he has his own agent now.”

  —Tom Selleck

  “Hitler ruined that mustache. It’s an interesting mustache, but now, no one can wear it!”

  —Larry David

  “Guys are lucky because they get to grow mustaches. I wish I could. It’s like having a little pet for your face.”

  —Anita Wise

  “You offer a sincere compliment on a great mustache and suddenly she’s not your friend.”

  —Marty Feldman

  U.S. farmers use 1.5 billion pounds of pesticides each year—about 5 lb. for every American.

  BANNED BOOKS

  Each September the American Library Association sponsors “Banned Books Week” to call attention to books that have been targeted for removal from schools, libraries, and even bookstores. Here are some of the more unusual cases.

  CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG (1963)

  Book Notes: This children’s favorite, written by Norman Bridwell, is about a tiny red puppy that grows until he’s 25 feet tall. There are more than 40 titles in the Clifford series to date, with more than 126 million books in print in 13 languages. Banned! In 2006 the Clifford books were included on a list of 23 books that California’s Wilsona School District voted to ban from the Vista San Gabriel Elementary School library. Other titles on the list: Disney’s Christmas Storybook, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the Artemis Fowl series (about “a boy-genius anti-hero and criminal mastermind”), and “all the princess books,” one parent complained. Some books were banned because district trustees felt they were “inappropriate for children,” others because they dealt in fantasy. “We want books to be things that children would be able to relate to in real life,” Trustee Marlene Olivarez told the Los Angeles Daily News.

  What Happened: The trustees later admitted that they hadn’t actually read all the books they banned, and conceded that some were probably on the list “by mistake.” At a subsequent meeting, the Clifford books, Disney’s Christmas Storybook, and a number of other titles were un-banned. (Harry Potter and Artemis Fowl fans are still out of luck: Trustee Maurice Kunkel said the board wanted to support books that “are anti-witchcraft and anti-criminality.”)

  SYLVESTER AND THE MAGIC PEBBLE (1969)

  Book Notes: This book, written by William Steig, won the Caldecott Medal, one of the most prestigious awards in children’s literature. It tells the story of a donkey named Sylvester who finds a magic pebble that grants wishes.

  Banned! At one point in the story, Sylvester fails to return home, and his parents go to the police…who are depicted as pigs. The book is full of animal characters, including pigs who aren’t police officers, but law-enforcement organizations still took offense. Soon there were police-directed efforts to b
an the book in 11 states. “Please check your grade school libraries and public library to see if the book is there,” the Illinois Police Association wrote to member agencies. “If it is, please ask the library to remove it, and if they do not, please go to your local press.”

  In a 1919 publicity stunt to sell war bonds, a WWI tank tried climbing Pikes Peak…and failed.

  Steig vehemently denied that the pigs were intended as a slur against the police. “All the characters in Sylvester, except for the villain lion, are domestic animals and very likable ones, and it should be obvious that no insult to anyone could possibly have been intended,” he explained to the New York Times. “The story was written in 1968 when, as far as I know, the word ‘pig’ had not yet been used as a designation for police.”

  What Happened: The controversy helped sales of the book and probably spurred Steig’s career: He wrote more than 30 children’s books in all, including Shrek! (1990), which was made into the 2001 Oscar-winning film.

  THE MERRIAM-WEBSTER COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY

  Book Notes: The Oak Meadows Elementary School in Menifee, California, has a few college dictionaries on hand so that fourth and fifth graders can study word roots or prepare for spelling bees.

  Banned! …or at least they did until January 2010, when a parent volunteering in a classroom looked up some sexual acts in the dictionary and decided the definitions were too graphic for 9- and 10-year-olds. (No word on why the parent was looking up sex acts in the dictionary during school hours.) The tawdry tome was pulled from the shelf, and the difficult work of scouring other lexicons for lewdness began. “It’s hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we’ll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature,” said a spokesperson.

  What Happened: A few days later, the controversial dictionaries were back, but now only kids with signed permission slips are allowed to use them. Children without permission slips are directed to less offensive dictionaries (or, more likely, got their friends to look up the dirty words for them). Not all parents were impressed by the way the school handled the situation: Parent Jason Rogers asked, “What are they going to do next, pull encyclopedias because they list parts of the human anatomy?”

  Who? First person on the cover of Time (1923): Speaker of the House Joseph G. Cannon.

  BROWN BEAR, BROWN BEAR, WHAT DO YOU SEE?

  Book Notes: Written in 1967 by Bill Martin, Jr., with illustrations by Eric Carle, this classic concept book teaches pre-readers about animals and colors using simple rhyming text.

  Banned! In 2010 the Texas State Board of Education removed Brown Bear from the state’s curriculum. But not because of anything objectionable in the book. Board member Pat Hardy requested that it be eliminated on the grounds that Bill Martin had written “very strong critiques of capitalism and the American system” in his books for adults, such as the 2008 work Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation.

  What Happened: Hardy didn’t do his homework. It turns out that Bill Martin, Jr., the author of Brown Bear, died in 2004, four years before another Bill Martin, this one a college professor, wrote Ethical Marxism in 2008. Brown Bear is back in the curriculum.

  OTHER BOOKS TARGETED BY BANS

  • The Higher Power of Lucky (2006). “The word ‘scrotum’ appears on the first page.”

  • Calvin and Hobbes (1987). “Allusions to murder and sex.”

  • Walter the Farting Dog (2001). “Focus on flatulence”; “offending words used twenty-four times in the book.”

  • The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby (2002). “Scatological humor and bad spelling make it inappropriate for kids.”

  • Bromley Climbs Uluru (1993). The story of a teddy bear that climbs the Australian landmark formerly known as Ayers Rock. “Offensive to Aboriginal peoples.”

  • On the Bright Side, I’m Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God (2000). “Parents objected to the ‘sex god’ title, not the book’s content.”

  • World’s Most Famous Ghosts (1989). “Pollutes the minds of teenagers.”

  • Freaky Friday (1972). “Words or deeds not permitted in school should not appear in the pages of school library books.”

  A salmon’s sense of smell is thousands of times more acute than a dog’s.

  AUTHOR VS. AUTHOR

  The pen truly is mightier than the sword.

  Mary McCarthy on Lillian Hellman: “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’”

  Robert Louis Stevenson on Walt Whitman: “A large, shaggy dog just unchained scouring the beaches of the world and baying at the moon.”

  Stephen King on Stephanie Meyer: “They both write for young people, but the real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Meyer can’t write worth a darn.”

  Harold Bloom on J.K. Rowling: “If you cannot be persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do.”

  D. H. Lawrence on Herman Melville: “Nobody is more clownish, more clumsy and sententiously in bad taste.”

  Truman Capote on Jack Kerouac: “That’s not writing, that’s typing.”

  Dorothy Parker on Ayn Rand: “Atlas Shrugged is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”

  Virginia Woolf on James Joyce: “Ulysses is the work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.”

  Salman Rushdie on Dan Brown: “Do not start me on The Da Vinci Code, a novel so bad that it gives bad novels a bad name.”

  Ralph Waldo Emerson on Jane Austen: “Vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in the wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow.”

  Mark Twain on Jane Austen: “Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”

  William Faulkner on Mark Twain: “A hack writer who would not have been considered fourth rate in Europe, who tricked out a few of the old proven sure-fire literary skeletons with sufficient local color to intrigue the superficial and the lazy.”

  First college to offer a degree in surfing: England’s University of Plymouth.

  FROM GOLD MEDAL TO SILVER SCREEN

  After the Olympics, there aren’t a lot of options for athletes who want to stay in the public eye—it’s not like they can go join a pro gymnastics team or National Weightlifting League. The destination: Hollywood.

  Olympian: Jim Thorpe

  Sport: Pentathlon and decathlon

  Details: Thorpe was widely known as “the world’s greatest athlete.” That’s because in addition to winning gold medals at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics in the pentathlon and decathlon, he’d also played pro football and semi-pro baseball. That led to his medals being taken away, because he wasn’t really an “amateur,” as the Olympics then required. Thorpe’s popularity wasn’t affected, and he was offered several movie roles. But because he was half Native American, they were mostly cameos as either an “Injun” or as himself. However, he starred as a football coach in the 1932 film Always Kickin’ and as a baseball player in 1935’s One Run Elmer. One movie Thorpe didn’t appear in: Jim Thorpe, All-American. (He was played by Burt Lancaster.)

  Olympian: Mitch Gaylord

  Sport: Gymnastics

  Details: Gaylord won a gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. While female gymnasts are small and light, male gymnasts have huge upper bodies, making them naturals as action stars. Or so Gaylord thought. In 1986 he starred in the sports drama American Anthem. It should have been easy—he plays a guy who becomes an Olympic gymnast. But the film bombed, and Gaylord got a Razzie Award nomination for Worst New Star.

  Olympian: Bruce Jenner

  Sport: Decathlon

  Details: Jenner became an American hero at the 1976 Summer Games thanks to three world-record-setting performances, which “took back” the decathlon gold medal from the Soviet Union. After the Games, Jenner hung up his track shoes and went to Hollywood, hoping to cash in on his sex-symbol status. H
e auditioned for the lead role in the upcoming Superman movie, but lost the part to Christopher Reeve. Jenner did land a supporting role in 1980’s Can’t Stop the Music, a disco-themed musical starring the Village People. The film flopped; it received the Razzie Award for Worst Movie of the Year. Jenner went on to a modest TV career—including CHiPs, game shows, sportscasting, and Keeping Up With the Kardashians—but didn’t make it back to the big screen for 30 years, when he appeared in Adam Sandler’s 2011 comedy Jack and Jill…which also won the Razzie for Worst Movie.

  Only country to not win a gold medal while hosting the Summer Olympics: Canada (1976).

  Olympian: Kurt Thomas

  Sport: Gymnastics

  Details: One of many athletes whose Olympic dreams were shattered by the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games, Thomas was predicted to take the gold in several events. By 1984 he was too old to compete at a world-class level, so he turned to Hollywood, where he was cast in the cult-classic B-movie Gymkata. Thomas plays Jonathan Cabot, an American spy who must infiltrate Communist territory in order to secure a mineral contract. Fortunately, every time the bad guys attack him in the woods, there’s a tree or rock that looks and functions just like a pommel horse or high bar.

  Olympian: Tonya Harding