by Cary McNeal
Jonathan Adams, “Waiter, There’s a Toilet in My Soup,” Globalpost.com, www.globalpost.com.
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817
FACT : Hindus believe cow urine is medicinal; it is often drunk in religious festivals. They’ll never run out, that’s for sure.
Matthias Williams, “They Call it Mellow Yellow?” Reuters, February 12, 2009, www.reuters.com.
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818
FACT : A fifth of Ireland’s towns are at high risk for cryptosporidium infection, a disease spread through drinking water contaminated by human feces. But no one ever gets it because it’s not found in booze.
Rose George, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters (St. Martin’s Press, 2008).
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819
FACT : The drive-through line on opening day of a new McDonald’s in Kuwait City, Kuwait reached seven miles long at times. That’s a lot of disappointed people.
“The McDonald’s History— 1994 to Today,” McDonald’s Corporation, www.mcdonalds.com.
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820
FACT : In South Korea in 2005, a twenty-eight-year-old man was killed by a heart attack brought on by exhaustion from playing a video game online for fifty straight hours. PWN3D!!!
“S Korean dies after games session,” BBC News, August 10, 2005, www.news.bbc.co.uk.
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821
FACT : On average, a Chinese person takes his or her own life every two minutes, adding up to 250,000 to 300,000 suicides a year. Some Chinese like to save the government the trouble.
Pascale Trouillaud, “Chinese Committing Suicide Every Two Minutes,” news.com.au, December 9, 2008, www.news.com.au.
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822
FACT : In 2005, as many as twelve Iraqi barbers were executed by militant Islamic gangs for shaving men’s beards and giving Western-style haircuts. The ones who gave mullet cuts were executed twice.
Robert F. Worth, “A Haircut in Iraq Can Be the Death of the Barber,” New York Times, March 18, 2005, www.nytimes.com.
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823
FACT : Malawi president Bingu wa Mutharika vacated his home, a 300-bedroom mansion, in 2005 believing it to be haunted. It wasn’t ghosts he heard in the night, but Madonna, sneaking around looking for more kids to steal.
“Ghosts Scare off Malawi Leader,” BBC News, March, 2005, www.news.bbc.co.uk.
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824
FACT : More than a dozen Nigerian Muslims were sentenced to death by stoning in 2007 for “sexual offenses” such as adultery and homosexuality. Many others were flogged by horsewhip for drinking alcohol. Hopefully they drank enough not to feel anything.
“Gay Nigerians Face Sharia Death,” BBC News, August 10, 2007, www.news.bbc.co.uk.
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825
FACT : Afghanistan passed a new law this year allowing husbands to refuse food to wives who refuse sex. Brilliant! Either men get laid or their wives lose weight. A win-win.
“New Afghan Law Does Not Allow Marital Rape . . . But Lets Men Refuse to Feed Wives Who Deny Them Sex, Says Cleric,” MailOnline, April 17, 2009, www.dailymail.co.uk.
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826
FACT : In Saudi Arabia, sodomy is considered a legal offense for which you can be sentenced to death. I’m guessing there are a lot of things punishable by death in Saudi Arabia.
Nadya Labi, “The Kingdom in the Closet,” The Atlantic Monthly, May 2007, www.theatlantic.com.
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827
FACT : Despite the fact that fourteen women a day die because of domestic violence in Mexico, eight states have no laws against it. Wait. Mexico has laws?
Laura Carlsen, “Women’s Rights Eroding in Latin America,” CounterPunch, March 12/13, 2005, www.counterpunch.org.
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828
FACT : An eleven-year-old schoolgirl in New Delhi, India died at the hands of her teacher in 2009. The student was beaten and forced to stand outside in the hot sun for nearly two hours for her inability to say the English alphabet. I hope that guy was fired.
“Delhi Girl in Coma after School Punishment Dies,” Times of India, April 18, 2009, www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com.
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829
FACT : When a flash flood swept a bus into a river near New Delhi, India in 1973, seventy-eight passengers drowned because they belonged to two separate castes and refused to share a rope that would have saved their lives. India sounds fun. Let’s go there.
Bruce Felton and Mark Fowler, Felton & Fowler’s More Best, Worst, and Most Unusual (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1976).
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830
FACT : In 1974, the Public Works Minister for the state of Kamataka, India, informed the state legislature that his political enemies had hired witches and sorcerers to kill him. The state’s chief minister ordered police to find the sorcerers. “Round up the usual suspects!”
Chuck Shepherd, John J. Kohut, and Roland Sweet, More News of the Weird (New York: Plume Books, 1990).
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831
FACT : The land that later became the country of Liberia was purchased by the American Colonization Society in 1822. They bought it for a box of beads, several pairs of shoes, soap, some rum, and several spoons, among other things. They overpaid.
David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace, The People’s Almanac (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1975).
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832
FACT : Newborns in parts of northern Spain participate in an annual “baby-jumping” festival each spring, where a man dressed as the devil leaps over as many as five or six infants on a mattress at a time. The ancient rite is meant to drive away evil spirits. Because evil spirits might traumatize babies, not unlike a man dressed as the devil leaping over them.
Editors Of Mental Floss, Mental Floss Presents Instant Knowledge (HarperCollins, 2005).
“Spanish Village Holds Baby Jump,” BBC News, May 25, 2008, www.news.bbc.co.uk.
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833
FACT : Gloucestershire, England’s annual cheese-rolling contest, where contestants chase a seven-pound circular block of cheese down a steep, bumpy hill, is a dangerous event. Contestants fall, break bones, and have even split their heads open. Gloucestershire must be really boring.
Editors of Mental Floss, Mental Floss Presents Instant Knowledge (HarperCollins, 2005).
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834
FACT : In 2007, a British teacher working in Sudan was arrested and charged with blasphemy for letting a student call their teddy bear “Mohammed.” The teacher spent fifteen days in jail, but, under Sudanese law, could have been given forty lashes and three months in prison. There go my vacation plans. I need somewhere a little less intense. I wonder if North Korea is nice this time of year?
“Reports: Sudan Arrests UK Teacher for Teddy Bear Blasphemy,” CNN.com, November 26, 2007, www.cnn.com.
“Mohamed Teddy Bear Teacher, Gillian Gibbons, Is Spared Lash but Gets 15 Days in Jail,” Times Online, November 30, 2007, www.timesonline.co.uk.
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835
FACT : In the 1800s, the Chinese considered strangling a less severe punishment than other forms of execution, since the body would not be permanently disfigured. Because it’s important to look your best for the worms.
Isaac Asimov, ed., Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts (Hastings House, 1979).
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836
FACT : Dogs are considered food in some regions of East and Southeast Asia. i million dogs, 6,000 restaurants, and 10 percent of the population are involved in the dog meat industry in South Korea. I wish some dog-eating South Koreans would move to my neighborhood.
William Saletan, “Wok the Dog,” Slate.com, January 16, 2002, www.slate.com.
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837
FACT : During famines that ravaged North Korea from 1995 to 1997, starving people comm
only dug up bodies from fresh graves to eat the meat. If I ever get that hungry, please shoot me. Thanks in advance.
Doug Struck, “Opening a Window on North Korea’s Horrors,” Washington Post, October 4, 2003, www.washingtonpost.com.
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838
FACT : In 2008, Tanzanian witch doctors sanctioned a series of murders in which at least twenty-nine albino children were hacked to death for their body parts, believed by local customs to bring good luck. Because being an albino didn’t suck enough already.
Alex Duval Smith, “Albino Africans Live in Fear after Witch-Doctor Butchery,” The Observer, November 16, 2008, www.guardian.co.uk.
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839
FACT : The Parsee, a Zoroastrian sect in India, practice the ancient ritual of “sky-burial,” where the dead bodies of loved ones are placed on a high stone platform, stripped naked, and left for vultures. Once picked clean, the bones are swept into a deep well. As delightful as that sounds, I think I’ll stick with cremation.
Tim McGirk, “Shortage of Vultures Threatens Ancient Culture: Many Parsees Are Questioning the Tradition of Sky Burial,” The Independent, September 16, 1992, www.independent.co.uk.
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840
FACT : Every year on the eve of December 5th, St. Nicholas Day, Austrians celebrate Krampus Night, when people dress up as Krampus, a demon, and roam the streets looking for incorrigible children to beat with a stick. The tradition is meant to encourage good behavior in kids. Where do I sign up?
“Eight Truly Strange Christmas Customs,” Mental_Floss, December 11, 2008, www.mentalfloss.com.
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841
FACT : In Spain, a Catalonian Christmas tradition features a statue of a little man pooping as part of the Nativity scene. The entire town of Bethlehem, Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus are depicted— along with the little man, Caganer, doing his business in the corner. We all get excited about Christmas.
Some more than others.
“Eight Truly Strange Christmas Customs,” Mental_Floss, December 11, 2008, www.mentalfloss.com.
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842
FACT : In Dutch tradition, Sinterklass (Santa Claus) is accompanied by a slave named Zwarte Piet (Black Pete). Children are warned that if they don’t behave, Black Pete might take them back to Spain. And put them to work cleaning up all the Caganer shit in the Nativity scenes.
“Eight Truly Strange Christmas Customs,” Mental_Floss, December 11, 2008, www.mentalfloss.com.
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843
FACT : Ancient custom in Fiji dictated that when a man died, his wives, slaves and friends should all be strangled. The custom was discontinued when they started running low on Fijians to kill.
“History Of Funeral Customs,” Wisconsin Funeral Directors Association, www.wyfda.org.
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844
FACT : India’s Brahmin once practiced sati, or wife burning. When her husband died, a widow would dress in her finest clothing and lie with his body on the funeral pyre to be burned alive. I hope sati isn’t the same thing as satay. I’ve had satay, and come to think of it, it was a little charred.
Erin McHugh, The 5 W’s: Why? An Omnium-Gatherum of World Wars and World Series, Superstitions and Psychoses, the Tooth Fairy Rule and Turkey City Lexicon and Other of Life’s Wherefores (Sterling Publishing Company, 2005).
Jyotsna Kamat, “The Origins of the Sati System,” Kamat’s Potpourri, www.kamat.com.
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845
FACT : Chinese authorities are cracking down on the practice of hiring strippers to perform at funerals. Family and friends hire the women in order to draw more people to a funeral, since many Chinese believe that the larger the crowd, the more luck will come to relatives of the departed. I’ve always heard that one should go out with a bang. You won’t—you’ll be dead—but maybe your friends will get laid in your honor.
“Take A Trip Around The World,” My Funky Funeral, www.myfunkyfuneral.com.
“China Acts on Funeral Strippers,” BBC News, August 23, 2006, www.news.bbc.co.uk.
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846
FACT : Among some North American Indian groups, a husband has the right to bite or cut off the nose of an adulterous wife. Her nose isn’t the problem.
George Monger, Marriage Customs of the World: From Henna to Honeymoons (ABC-CLIO, 2004).
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847
FACT : According to Sharia (Islamic) law, a girl should marry soon after puberty to ensure that she is a virgin at her wedding; girls as young as nine or ten can be married off. Their weddings are hideous, though; girls that age have absolutely no sense of style.
George Monger, Marriage Customs of the World: From Henna to Honeymoons (ABC-CLIO, 2004).
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848
FACT : Hindu Laws of Manu state that a man should ideally be three times older than his wife; by this standard, the wife of a twenty-four-year-old man should be eight years old. No bride should have to plan her wedding around Brownie meetings.
George Monger, Marriage Customs of the World: From Henna to Honeymoons (ABC-CLIO, 2004).
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849
FACT : In Samoa, it was once custom for a virgin bride’s hymen to be broken publicly by the village chief. Sometimes the chief was her dad. Awkward.
George Monger, Marriage Customs of the World: From Henna to Honeymoons (ABC-CLIO, 2004).
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850
FACT : Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia are working to build a golf course in the Emerald Triangle, an area where the three countries’ borders meet, with nine holes in each country. The only problem: the region is covered with minefields left over from the Vietnam War and other regional conflicts. “What’s your handicap?” “Both legs below the knee and a hand.”
Brent W. Ritchie and Daryl Adair, Sport Tourism: Interrelationships, Impacts and Issues (Channel View Publications, 2004).
CHAPTER 18
Do You
Believe?
Facts and Claims
about Aliens, Ghosts,
the Olsen Twins,
and Other Realms
of the Unexplained
* * *
851
FACT : U.S. citizens are not legally permitted to come into contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles, according to Title 14, section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations, implemented in 1969. Does that include sex? What if you weren’t aware of the law at the time?
Mary Bennett and David Percy, Dark Moon: Apollo and the Whistle-Blowers (Adventures Unlimited Press, 2001).
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852
FACT : In July 1947, the U.S. Army Air Forces announced that they had recovered a flying saucer that crashed near Roswell Air Army Field in New Mexico. Within hours, however, the Army dismissed the statement, claiming the flying saucer was a misidentified weather balloon.
Thomas J. Carey, Donald R. Schmitt, Witness to Roswell: Unmasking the 60-Year Cover-Up (Career Press, 2007), 27–29.
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853
FACT : Since 1947, the U.S. government has changed its explanation of the Roswell crash four times. It remains one of the most a controversial, highly publicized UFO incidents in history. At least among the sixty-seven people who actually believe that shit.
Thomas J. Carey, Donald R. Schmitt, Witness to Roswell: Unmasking the 60-Year Cover-Up (Career Press, 2007), 27–29.