Uncle John's Actual and Factual Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Even the ancient Romans had wedding cakes…of sorts: They were barley cakes, and the groom broke one over the bride’s head for good luck.

  But if Planet 9 is at a more distant point along its orbit, only the largest, most sophisticated telescopes will be able to see it. More bad news: as a planet moves farther away from the Sun, it slows down. This means that it spends more time in the part of its orbit that is far from the Sun, so it’s more likely to be far away than it is to be nearby. Finding it, if it really exists, may prove to be quite a challenge.

  PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING

  Mike Brown’s discovery of the dwarf planet Eris in 2005 led to the reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet, and many fans of the former planet still haven’t gotten over it. The discovery of Planet 9 may help ease their pain. “All those people who are mad that Pluto is no longer a planet can be thrilled to know that there is a real planet out there still to be found. Now,” he says, “we can go and find this planet and make the solar system have nine planets once again.”

  OOPS!

  •Three Tennessee Air National Guard members got into big trouble following a 2018 swearing-in ceremony. Master Sergeant Robin Brown took her oath while holding up a dinosaur hand puppet mouthing the words: “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Brown was promptly removed from her post, and the colonel who administered the oath received an official reprimand. So did the unit sergeant who filmed the ceremony…which went viral.

  •The American men’s curling team shocked the world at the 2018 Winter Olympics by coming from behind to win gold. Even the award presenters must have been shocked, because they awarded the men gold medals that read “Women’s Curling.”

  •Beverly Harrison, 62, was living in an Alabama motel room in February 2018 when some family members brought her a ham. Harrison hates ham. She hates it so much that she threw it in the garbage and lit it on fire. Then she took her dog for a walk. While she was out, the fire heated up a nearby can of butane, which exploded, sending shrapnel and ham chunks flying and blowing out the room’s door and window. When Harrison returned from her walk, she was arrested and charged with arson.

  According to NASA researchers, the perfect length for a nap is 26 minutes.

  JUST SAY NO TO

  CHICKEN POWDER

  In 2017 the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency declassified a report that listed all known nicknames, street terms, and strain names for various illegal drugs. Some of them refer to the color or shape of the product and others refer to…well, we don’t really know. Regardless, please remember: Drugs are no laughing matter—even if some of these names for them are.

  MARIJUANA

  Blue Cheese

  Gorilla Glue

  Barbara Jean

  Love Nuggets

  Mother

  Platinum Jack

  Acapulco Gold

  Big Pillows

  Animal Cookies

  Christmas Tree

  Burritos Verdes

  Gummy Bears

  Hairy Ones

  METHAMPHETAMINE

  Colorado Rockies

  Hawaiian Salt

  Chicken Powder

  Accordion Pantalones

  Bud Light

  Peanut Butter Crank

  Witches’ Teeth

  Pointy Ones

  PCP

  Water

  Butt Naked

  Dummy Dust

  Horse Tracks

  Alien Sex Fiend (when mixed with heroin)

  Black Whack

  Amoeba

  Detroit Pink

  Love Boat

  Gorilla Biscuits

  Embalming Fluid

  Leaky Leak

  T-Buzz

  PRESCRIPTION PAINKILLERS

  Rims

  Wheels

  Bananas

  Blueberries

  Hillbilly Heroin

  Hulk

  School Bus

  OPIUM

  Chocolate

  Dream Gum

  Gondola

  Aunt Emma

  Joy Plant

  Chinese Molasses

  Zero

  Cruz

  Midnight Oil

  Toys

  MDMA (ECSTASY)

  Kleenex

  Baby Slits

  Scooby Snacks

  Skittle

  Doctor

  Disco Biscuits

  MUSHROOMS

  Hongos

  Alice

  Boomers

  Silly Putty

  Anna Strong, a Revolutionary War spy, sent coded messages by hanging petticoats and handkerchiefs on her clothesline.

  RUSSIAN SPY WARS

  The Cold War ended in 1991, but we appear to be entering Cold War 2.0. To help you understand Russian espionage, here is a glossary of its not-so-secret terms.

  Active measures. The steps the Kremlin takes to influence the affairs of nations around the globe. The modern “active measures” arsenal includes propaganda, disinformation, deception, forgery, funding of extremist and opposition groups, election tampering, spreading conspiracy theories and rumor, cyberattacks, espionage, and.…assassination.

  Chekist. The KGB term for intelligence officers, used in honor of the Cheka, Vladimir Lenin’s vicious and brutal secret police. In modern Russia, all current intelligence officers continue to commemorate their lineage by calling themselves Chekists, because as Russian president—and KGB veteran—Vladimir Putin says, “There are no former Chekists.”

  Honeypots. It’s not specifically a Russian term, but refers to a trap of desire, designed to seduce an unsuspecting target. Once ensnared, the target is ripe for blackmail. The seducer may be a “swallow” (woman) or a “raven” (man). The honeypot itself can be sex, money, information, power—whatever is desirable and most valuable to the target.

  Wet work (also wet affairs or liquid affairs). A euphemism for murder or assassination. The Russian term can be traced to 19th-century criminal slang used to describe any robbery that involved murder or the spilling of blood.

  Department S. The most secret department of the KGB and where men and women were trained and deployed to live as deep-cover agents, known as “illegals” in the West. While the KGB no longer exists, Russia is still seeding deep-cover spies throughout the world. In 2010 the FBI conducted an operation called Ghost Stories, arresting ten illegals, some of whom had been installed in the United States before the fall of the Soviet Union.

  Wet boys. The assassins who do wet work.

  Kamera. The “Chamber”—a laboratory established by Lenin in 1921 to study and develop poisons into weapons. While it has been called many names over the years—the Special Room, Laboratory No. 1, and Lab X—its informal name has always been the Kamera. This is the place where the R&D focuses on killing people without leaving a trace.

  Air-conditioning was invented by Willis Carrier in 1902—to lower humidity in a printing plant.

  Deza (short for dezinformatsiya—“disinformation” or fake news). An old-school Soviet tactic—weaponizing lies to make the public doubt something that is true and demonstrable. From its very beginning, deza was meant to deceive. Stalin deliberately created the French-sounding term and then falsely declared it was of Western origin. In the hands of Russian espionage, deza is designed to embarrass, destabilize, and shift public opinion. While it’s an old-school tool, the internet—along with social media, bots, and trolls—makes it much easier and faster to distribute.

  Illegals. Deep-cover spies who live and work in their target country as ordinary citizens, keeping their real identities hidden from everyone, including their children. They may spend decades developing their “legend,” or cover story, while working covertly for the Kremlin.

  Spetsbureau 13 (“Department of Wet Affairs”). The top-secret department of the KGB/FSB whose agents have the license to kill.

  Kompromat. A combination of two words—“compromising” and “ma
terial.” In the hands of the Kremlin, kompromat is a collection of documented evidence that, if released, could destroy the reputation of an individual or business entity. Sex, pornography, financial crimes, and corruption are all dark material that the target would rather not have see the light of day. The fear of kompromat is almost as potent as the kompromat itself. The beauty of kompromat is that it doesn’t matter if the evidence is real, just as long as it creates enough doubt so that it can be used for blackmail.

  Glavy protivnik. That’s Russian for “main adversary”—the Soviet Union’s term for the United States during the Cold War. Given that the current tensions between Russia and America appear to be returning to Cold War levels, it should be no surprise to learn that, according to some sources, Putin has revived calling the United States its “main adversary.”

  ZPELLBOUND

  Ever notice that prescription drug names seem to include Xs and Zs more often than regular words? (For example, Celebrex and Xeljanz.) That’s because drug manufacturers have to come up with unique names in order to differentiate their products from all the other medications on the market. Result: “Z” appears in drug names 18 times more often than it does in regular English, and X appears 16 times more often.

  In the video game Walden, players write in a journal, visit with Ralph Waldo Emerson, and walk in a forest.

  THOU SHALT READ!

  It’s been said that what you read as a child stays with you in a way that no other book ever will…and it’s true. Not only can children’s books affect their readers, they’re meant to do that very thing. They teach, indoctrinate, influence, and—at their best—they inspire. Here’s a look at important milestones in the nearly 400-year history of children’s literature and children’s publishing.

  1658 The world’s first known picture book is published: Orbis Sensualium Pictus (The World of Things Obvious to the Senses Drawn in Pictures) by John Amos Comenius. This compendium of knowledge included pictures of everyday activities such as baking bread, brewing beer, and butchering animals. Each activity was described in detail. The barber, for example, cut more than just hair:

  Sometimes he cutteth a Vein

  with a Pen-knife,

  where the Blood

  spirteth out….

  Within the Orbis Pictus, kids could find a little bit about “all things that can be shewed.”

  •To teach them their ABC’s, it had a picture to illustrate each letter, along with a descriptive caption such as “the Goose gagleth,” “the Chicken peepeth,” and “the Frog croaketh.”

  •Kids could learn about shipwrecks (“Dead Folks” are carried out of the sea upon the shores), magnifying glasses (“a Flea appeareth…like a little Hog”), and marriage (“they are joined together,” and “when she is dead he becometh Widower”).

  •There was even a section about “Monstrous and Deformed People,” including the crump-footed, the blubber-lipped, the great-nosed, and the bald-pated.

  The Orbis Pictus became the world’s first international children’s book sensation. At least for some children. Actually, just boys. “Come boy,” the book begins, “and learn to be wise.” (Girls do get a mention in a section called “The Seven Ages of Man.” They’re “the other sex.”)

  1693 British philosopher John Locke wrote about politics and human consciousness, but he also had a lot to say about raising children, and wrote an influential book titled Some Thoughts Concerning Education. Learning to read, he insisted, should be fun. If children enjoy reading instead of dreading it, “there will be but very rarely an occasion for blows or force” in their education. Instead of being about learning to read, he said, children’s books should share stories.

  1765 Another John—John Newbery—took Locke’s words to heart, publishing what has been described as the first children’s novel: The History of Little Goody Two Shoes. The book was ostensibly written for the benefit of those

  Who from a State of Rags and Care

  And having Shoes but half a Pair;

  Their Fortune and their Fame would fix,

  And gallop in a Coach and Six.

  If the story sounds familiar…it should. It’s a rustic version of Cinderella. Farmer Meanwell and his wife hit hard times and lose their farm. Then the father and mother fall ill and die, leaving their children, Margery and Tommy, orphans. Life for Margery is tough. On top of being alone in the world: “Tommy had two shoes but Margery went barefoot.” But a rich gentleman comes along and offers to take Tommy with him to London. And then a tearful Margery learns that the gentleman has ordered her a pair of shoes. “Two shoes!” she rejoices. She says it so often that she gets the nickname Goody Two-Shoes. (“Goody” is an archaic version of “Mrs.” or “Miss.”) Margery lives happily ever after—she learns to read, becomes a teacher, and marries a local landowner. No balls. No gowns. No fairy godmother. Just two shoes and a man of means.

  1865 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (real name: Charles Dodgson) took children’s books down a rabbit hole into what some believed must have been a drug-induced fantasy. The story had mushrooms that make you smaller or taller, a hookah-smoking caterpillar, and a Mad Hatter singing “Twinkle, twinkle little bat…how I wonder where you’re at?” In response to those who see drug usage in his books, experts insist that while such modern interpretations may make for interesting scholarly theses, they do not reflect the author’s actual habits or inclinations.

  In fact, Wonderland began in a rowboat on the Thames with Dodgson—a young Oxford mathematician—trying to amuse the dean’s three children by making up a story. The book’s main character was named for one of those children, 10-year-old Alice Liddell. In the story, Alice follows a white rabbit, falls down a deep hole, and lands in a room with a table and a bottle labeled “Drink me.” After checking to make sure it’s not poison, Alice does drink it, noting that it tastes of “cherry-tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast.” Thus begins a tale destined to change children’s books forever because it had one purpose: to entertain readers. That’s what makes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland a milestone. Instead of trying to teach children, the author simply wanted to give them a smile (like the Cheshire cat’s).

  1960s Short simple sentences. Three-letter rhyming words. Theodore Seuss Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) brought back books that teach kids to read, but his snarky sense of humor, his playful way with words, and his whimsical illustrations also brought something new to the staid world of children’s book: silliness.

  He wrote his first in 1936. It was an ABC book featuring imaginary creatures. At the time, the “long-necked whizzleworp” and the “green-striped cholmondelet” did nothing for New York publishers. His work was so weird that 27 editors turned it down. In fact, if one of his old college friends hadn’t become a children’s book editor, he might never have found a publisher for his first published effort, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. The long title itself might have done him in. But fortunately for the future of kids’ books, he bumped into his friend on Madison Avenue, showed him the manuscript, and the rest is publishing history. “If I had been going down the other side of Madison Avenue,” Seuss later said, “I’d be in the dry-cleaning business today.”

  That would have been a huge loss for generations of children who grew up with The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and Horton Hears a Who…and an even bigger loss for his publishers. By 1960 three million Seuss books were in the hands of eager readers. By 2015 the number had climbed to more than 750 million. More than half a century after their original publication dates, Dr. Seuss’s children’s books continue to top best-seller lists.

  1962 For generations, when it came to children’s books, every book that rolled off the American and British presses reflected the dominant (white) culture. When people with dark skin showed up, they were never the heroes. Ezra Jack Keats changed that. Keats came from an immigrant family of Polish Jews who lived in Brooklyn. After years of illustrating books for other write
rs, he got the chance to write and illustrate his own book, and for his hero, he chose a spunky kid whose picture he’d clipped from a copy of Life magazine. The book, The Snowy Day, was about a little boy putzing around his neighborhood on a snow day. What’s so groundbreaking about that? The kid—who Keats named Peter—was black.

  Keats wasn’t black, but he understood discrimination at a gut level: after all, he’d served in World War II and changed his name from Katz to Keats in a response to the violent anti-Semitism of his era. If the book had faded into obscurity, the door to diversity in children’s books might have slammed shut. It didn’t. The Snowy Day won the Caldecott Medal in 1963, given for the most outstanding illustrated book of the year. It also became a best-seller. For kids of color, it turned the mirror around so they could see themselves as heroes. “For the first time,” one teacher wrote to Keats, “the kids in my class are using brown crayons to draw themselves.”

  1970s Through the centuries, children’s books changed to reflect changes in the culture around them. Those changes once oozed out slower than ketchup from a glass bottle. The youth-led culture shift of the 1970s was kind of like sticking a butter knife up the neck of that bottle. Stories that were different, dark, or debatable flowed into publishers’ offices and a new generation of editors fought to give them a place on bookshelves.

  Today’s young readers may not know it, but they can thank their grandparents’ generation for the fact that, these days, anything goes when it comes to children’s books. They gave us books about boys playing with dolls (William’s Doll, Charlotte Zolotow, 1972), books protesting the mutually destructive nature of war (The Butter Battle Book, Dr. Seuss, 1984), and books about protecting the planet (50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth by our own Uncle John, 1990).