Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Your heart beats faster during a heated argument than during sex.

  SELLOUTS?

  It can be quite unsettling when you hear your favorite song being used to sell hemorrhoid medicine. Sometimes artists sell out for a good reason; other times they simply see dollar signs.

  Artist: The Who

  Background: In 1967 they released an album called The Who Sell Out, a sarcastic take on commercialization. The album cover featured poses of band members Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey in fake ads for deodorant and baked beans.

  Cashing In: Turns out they were being prophetic. Thirty years later, Townshend allowed his classic rock anthems “Baba O’Riley,” “Bargain,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” and “Happy Jack” to be used to sell Nissans and Humvees, while music from the rock opera Tommy helped push allergy medicine. And there was more for sale: Their 1978 hit “Who Are You” became the theme for the TV show CSI and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” became the theme for CSI: Miami.

  Artist: Sir Laurence Olivier

  Background: Actors often appear in commercials, but for someone like Olivier—perhaps the finest actor of his generation—to appear in a commercial was unthinkable.

  Cashing In: In 1972 the unthinkable happened—the classically trained Olivier became the first TV spokesman for Polaroid cameras. But Olivier had a good reason: he’d just been diagnosed with a serious muscle disorder and was afraid he might die at any time. Result: He took every job offered to him so that his family would be financially secure after he was gone. Olivier even mocked his selling out by appearing in Paul Hardcastle’s 1986 music video “Just for Money.” He also acted in some of the worst movies ever made, including Clash of the Titans and Inchon.

  Artist: Folk-rock singer Jewel

  Background: She began her career with the image of a sensitive singer-songwriter. She seemed like the real deal; unlike other female pop stars, Jewel wrote her own songs, played an instrument, wrote poetry, and refused to play up her looks. “I’m not slick. I don’t have a big image thing,” Jewel told People in 1997.

  Michael Jackson owns the rights to South Carolina’s state anthem.

  Cashing In: In 2003 she began wearing provocative clothes, gyrating in music videos, and singing radio-friendly dance music on her album 0304. The switch was so startling, some thought her new image was a joke. But it wasn’t. And the first single off the album, Intuition, was used in an ad for Schick’s razor for women called...Intuition.

  Artist: Jerry Rubin

  Background: Rubin was a different kind of artist—he was one of the most vocal, aggressive, and influential figures of the 1960s counter-culture movement. Along with Abbie Hoffman, he organized street theater, demonstrations, and protests for political causes, most often to oppose the Vietnam War. Rubin and Hoffman formed the Youth International Party (the “Yippies”) and were among the Chicago Seven, indicted for their part in organizing the protest demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

  Cashing In: In the 1970s, Rubin abruptly changed everything. He abandoned activism to become a stock trader and businessman, making a fortune off the ’70s health food craze. Former Yippies lambasted him, labeling Rubin a sellout and coining the term “yuppie” (from “young urban professional”) specifically to mock him.

  Artist: Orson Welles

  Background: In the early 1940s, Welles was considered a creative genius. RKO Studios gave him unprecedented full control over the movies he directed. Critics call his films—Citizen Kane (1941), The Stranger (1946), The Lady from Shanghai (1947) and A Touch of Evil (1958)—among the best ever made.

  Cashing In: Welles gave up directing and became an actor-for-hire, appearing in a few classics (The Third Man, Catch-22). But as he got older, his lifestyle, not to mention his appetite, got more extravagant...and expensive. “Ask not what you can do for your country,” Welles said. “Ask what’s for lunch.” So he became a voice actor and took any work at all, ranging from TV commercials for California wine (“We will sell no wine before its time”) to forgettable animated movies, including The Enchanted Journey (as a chipmunk) and Transformers: The Movie (as a giant robot from outer space).

  First film to win more than 10 Oscars: Ben-Hur.

  NEWS OF THE WILD

  Some news that will make you go ape.

  LOCK-JAWS

  “A man attacked by a shark while snorkeling had to swim back to shore, walk to his car, and then drive to a surf club for help—with the shark still attached to his leg. Lifeguards at a beach near Sydney, Australia, were stunned when the man walked in with the two-foot carpet shark biting his leg and refusing to let go. Once he reached shore, people tried to help, but couldn’t remove the shark. Lifeguards flushed its gills with fresh water, forcing it to loosen its grip. The man had 70 needle-like punctures; the shark later died.”

  —Edmonton Sun

  CHIMP CHANGE

  “Police in the Colombian capital of Bogota say they have caught a monkey which had been trained to pick pockets. The monkey was captured following complaints from locals who said it had stolen wallets, mobile phones, and other valuables.

  “Officials say that after the creature returned home with the stolen goods, it was rewarded with bananas by its owner. Bogota police say the monkey has now been taken to an animal rehab center.”

  —BBC News

  BREATHTAKING

  “Scientists at the Lawn Hill National Park in Queensland announced in 2003 that they had found a male Lavarack’s turtle, which was thought to be extinct but has apparently survived relatively unchanged for thousands of years. The turtle’s primary distinction is that its sex organs and breathing apparatus are both located in its rear end.”

  —The Australian

  SUMO SNORING COMPETITION

  “A Romanian man has been sued by his apartment neighbors because his dog snores so loudly that they can’t sleep at night. The dog, named Sumo, is a Neapolitan mastiff. Neighbors say they can’t get any peace when Sumo falls asleep because his snoring can be heard in every apartment. One of the neighbors says the dog snores so loud that it interferes with his alarm system.”

  —Ananova

  Look out! Snakes can continue to bite after they’re dead.

  THE GORILLA CHANNEL

  “Gorillas in the Moscow Zoo will soon watch TV programs, says zoo director Vladimir Spitsyn. The animals will be able to watch videos about the life of monkeys in the wilderness. Spitsyn thinks these programs are important for the intellectual progress of anthropoids. ‘We want them to pick their noses less and think more.’”

  —Pravda

  WE WOULDN’T SHIH TZU

  “National Geographic TV recently reported on designer-breeding of dogs, with emphasis on the not yet officially recognized species of Labradoodle. Breeding decisions must be carefully made, say experts, because some interspecies pairings create unhealthy off-spring. For example, mating a pug with a Pekingese might create a dog whose eyes would fairly easily dislodge from their sockets. Yorkipoos and schnoodles, on the other hand, appear to be safe.”

  —National Geographic

  THAR SHE BLOWS!

  “In August 2003, scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division, traveling by boat on a research mission to attach satellite-tracking devices to whales to study their habitats, managed to capture what they believe is a historical first photo: the water pattern that results from the bubble when a huge whale releases flatulence. Said researcher Nick Gales, ‘We got away from the bow of the ship very quickly.’”

  —The Australian

  “Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this—no dog exchanges bones with another.”

  —Adam Smith

  Kissing can cause wrinkles.

  THE GIMLI GLIDER, PT. I

  Statistically, airplanes are the safest form of long-distance travel available. So why would anyone be afraid to fly? This article answers that question. (Warning: If you’re reading this on an airplane, you might want to save it un
til you’re back on the ground.)

  JUST ANOTHER FLIGHT

  Air Canada Flight 143 on July 23, 1983, started out like any other flight. Captain Robert Pearson and First Officer Maurice Quintal had arrived ahead of time to go over the aircraft and prepare it for departure. The flight was scheduled to depart Montreal shortly before 6:00 p.m. They were going to make a quick, 19-minute hop to Ottawa to pick up more passengers before flying 1,700 miles across Canada to Edmonton, Alberta.

  The plane was a twin-engine Boeing 767, one of the most sophisticated commercial aircraft of its day. It was also one of the first commercial jets with a “glass cockpit”—meaning that nearly all of the standard instruments and gauges had been replaced with a bank of computer screens displaying the same information in a digital, graphic format. (Kind of like trading up from a pinball machine to a video game.)

  NEW AND IMPROVED

  The 767 was so new that Air Canada owned only four of them, none of which had been in service for more than a few months. Captain Pearson, who had more than 26 years on the job, was one of only a handful of Air Canada pilots qualified to fly the plane.

  The glass cockpit offered numerous advantages over traditional instruments: Fewer moving parts meant fewer instrument failures. That translated into fewer flight delays, lower operating costs, and higher profits for the airlines. And because so much information was condensed and presented in easy-to-read displays, it eliminated the need for the pilot to scan numerous tiny gauges all over the cockpit, which reduced eyestrain and fatigue.

  The new 767s were so sophisticated, in fact, that only two people—the pilot and first officer (co-pilot)—were needed to fly it, instead of the usual three. The position of flight engineer had been eliminated, and the job had been divided between the onboard computers, the ground crew, the pilot, and the first officer. Every task had been accounted for.

  Is this a good thing? Helen Keller could identify her friends by their odors.

  Or so everyone thought.

  A BAD OMEN

  As soon as Pearson and Quintal stepped onboard, the ground crew told them that something was wrong with the “fuel quantity processor”—the instrument that measures the available jet fuel and displays the amount on the computer screen. Result: The fuel gauge display was blank. And no spare fuel quantity processors were available on such short notice—the planes were too new. Captain Pearson would have to fly the plane without any fuel gauges.

  But was that even permitted? In a traditional jumbo jet the answer was no, but the 767’s fuel management system was much more sophisticated than a traditional mechanical fuel gauge. It could measure the rate at which the fuel was being consumed, something that had never been possible before. That meant if you manually told the computer how much fuel was in the tanks at the start of the flight, it could automatically subtract the amount consumed to give a precise estimate of how much fuel was left. It would even display the quantity in the form of a digital “estimated fuel” gauge.

  But these were only estimates, and they only worked if the pilot entered the correct fuel load into the computer at the start of the flight. If the pilot miscalculated, the information displayed in the estimated fuel gauge would be totally off.

  NOT BY THE BOOK

  Understandably, Captain Pearson had reservations about flying a jumbo jet without any working fuel gauges. Who wouldn’t? So he consulted the 767’s official Minimum Equipment List, or MEL, to see if the plane would even be cleared to fly with its fuel gauges out. It wasn’t.

  But when Pearson pointed this out to one of the mechanics, the mechanic assured him that the plane had been cleared to fly by Air Canada’s Maintenance Control division, which has the final say—even over the MEL—as to whether an airplane is safe. Captain Pearson still had misgivings—he didn’t like reading one thing in the MEL and hearing something else from the airline. But the 767 was a sophisticated plane, so he figured that if Air Canada said it was safe to fly, it was.

  The first crossing of the United States by automobile took 52 days in 1903.

  MEASURE FOR MEASURE

  Air Canada’s four 767s were unique in another way, too: they were the first jumbo jets in the entire fleet to use the metric system instead of the traditional British “imperial” system of weights and measures. Canada began phasing in the metric system in 1979, and now Air Canada’s air fleet was beginning to make the switch.

  This 767’s fuel was measured in kilograms, not the imperial pounds that Air Canada pilots were used to dealing with. Adding to the confusion, while the plane measured its fuel by weight—kilograms—the fuel truck measured its by volume—liters. And with the fuel quantity processor broken, all the calculations—normally done by computers—now had to be done by hand.

  But whose job was it to do the math? On an ordinary jumbo jet it was the flight engineer’s job to calculate fuel load. But on the 767, that position had been eliminated. As an investigation later revealed, the pilots had been told that fuel calculations were now the job of the ground crew, but since the ground crew hadn’t been trained to do the calculations, then either the captain or the first officer had to be responsible for them now.

  MATH PROBLEM

  Captain Pearson knew that 1) he needed 22,300 kilograms of jet fuel to get to Edmonton, and 2) there were 7,682 liters of fuel in the tanks. So how many liters of additional fuel did he need to get to 22,300 kilograms? More simply put, how many liters of jet fuel are there in a kilogram? That was the question.

  Pearson was used to thinking in terms of gallons and pounds, and his knowledge of the metric system was a little rusty. So he asked the guy on the refueling truck how many liters were in a kilogram. “One point seven seven,” the guy answered. That sounded about right; First Officer Quintal thought so, too.

  PROBLEMS MULTIPLY

  How hard was it to do the math? See if you can follow along:

  •If there were 7,682 liters of fuel in the tanks and 1 liter is equal to 1.77 kilograms, that meant the tanks contained nearly 13,600 kilograms of fuel. Thus, they had to add 8,700 kilograms to get the 22,300 kilograms they needed.

  Stenophobia is the fear of narrow spaces.

  •Dividing 8,700 by 1.77 to convert back to liters, the fuel truck had to add a little over 4,900 liters of fuel to fill the tanks to roughly 12,600 liters.

  •Multiply 12,600 by 1.77 and you get 22,302 kilograms—more than enough fuel to get to Edmonton.

  Simple, right? Well, it’s a little confusing in the best of circumstances, harder if you’re just learning to master the metric system, and worse still if there’s a plane full of people waiting for you to finish the math and take them where they want to go.

  But just to be on the safe side, Pearson and Quintal checked and rechecked their math. Sure enough, every time they multiplied 12,600 by 1.77, they got 22,302. According to their calculations, they had enough fuel on board to make the flight, with plenty to spare.

  AND AWAY WE GO

  Finally satisfied, they programmed their fuel load into the computer manually, then finished their preflight checks and made the 19-minute flight to Ottawa.

  During the 43-minute stopover, they had the ground crew check the fuel levels again. Pearson multiplied the remaining liters by 1.77 and concluded that he still had more than 20,000 kilograms of fuel onboard. He entered this estimate into the computer to get the estimated fuel gauge, finished his preflight procedures, and at 7:05 p.m. was cleared for takeoff.

  A few minutes later, the Boeing 767 lifted into the air with 61 passengers and 8 crew members aboard. In their wildest dreams, none of them could have imagined what was about to occur.

  For Part II of the story, turn to page 319.

  SOARING COSTS

  A used DC-9 airplane costs more today than it did when it was new in the 1970s.

  An eagle’s bones weigh half as much as its feathers.

  I HEARD IT IN THE BATHROOM

  We here at the BRI love rumors and urban legends. Especially when they involve ou
r favorite room.

  RUMOR: To clean a toilet, pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl. Let the “real thing” sit for one hour, then flush clean.

  BACKGROUND: The Coke-as-bowl-cleaner story was spread as one item on an e-mail list of “household hints.” Other items on the list: the “facts” that Coke is so highly acidic a human tooth or a T-bone steak soaking in it will dissolve completely in two days (a steel nail will dissolve in four); Coca-Cola trucks must display “hazardous material” placards when transporting Coca-Cola syrup; and several state highway patrols carry gallons of Coke in their trunks to clean the blood off the highway following auto accidents.

  THE TRUTH: Carbonated beverages do contain carbonic acid, and Coke also contains small amounts of citric acid and phosphoric acid. But overall, it’s less acidic than many fruit juices. Coke can’t dissolve teeth, nails, steaks, or anything else, and it’s not considered a hazard...or a toilet cleaner. Any commercially available cleaning product with a picture of a toilet on the label will probably do the job better than Coke. And there’s always soap and water.

  RUMOR: Microsoft is developing a combination toilet/computer called the “iLoo.”

  BACKGROUND: In April 2003, someone purporting to be a representative from the software giant’s U.K. office issued a press release describing the project, and the story was picked up by newspapers all over the world. The “iLoo,” they claimed, would have a built-in computer, complete with wireless keyboard and monitor, making it possible for “end users” to surf the Web while doing their business.