Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  USB PAPER SHREDDER. This desktop shredder is only about 6" long, so before you can let it shred your sensitive documents into tiny pieces, you have to tear your sensitive documents into tiny pieces.

  ARMAGEDDON HUB. Possibly the most useless gadget available. It’s a small metal box with two switches, a key, and a red “ultimate destruction” button. Turning the switches and the key and pressing the button, evidently, induces international nuclear war. (Actually, all the Armageddon Hub does when “activated” is make some siren noises.)

  The little thumbnail indention on the blade of a pocket knife is called a choil.

  DUSTBIN OF HISTORY: MASABUMI HOSONO

  We all know the story of the Titanic—we’ve seen the movies (there have been several), watched the TV specials, and even read the books and magazine articles. But as we at the BRI have discovered over the years, there’s always something new to learn about even the best-known stories.

  THE LONG TRIP HOME

  In 1910 Japan’s Transportation Ministry sent an official named Masabumi Hosono to Russia to study that country’s railroad system. Hosono finished his assignment in early 1912 and, following a brief stop in London, began the next leg of his trip home by embarking across the Atlantic on the RMS Titanic. Needless to say, that leg of the trip didn’t go quite as planned. On April 14, at 11:40 p.m., just four days into its maiden voyage, the Titanic struck an iceberg while traveling near top speed and began taking on water.

  RUDE AWAKENING

  It’s doubtful that anyone on the Titanic, which had been advertised by the White Star Line as being “practically unsinkable,” realized at first that the ship had suffered a mortal blow. There were plenty of people on board who didn’t even know the ship had hit anything. Many of those who noticed felt only a slight shudder followed by the sound of the engines coming to a stop.

  Hosono apparently slept through the entire thing. The first he learned of it was shortly after midnight, 25 or 30 minutes after the collision, when he was awakened by a knock at the door of his second-class cabin and told to put on his life vest.

  Three times when he tried to make his way to the lifeboats, he was turned away by the ship’s officers, who ordered him to return to the lower levels of the ship. They likely assumed that, as a Japanese person, he must have been traveling in third class, or “steerage.” On his third attempt Hosono managed to slip past a guard and make his way to the lifeboats.

  There are more than seven million millionaires in the world.

  IN THE DARK

  Was the Titanic sinking, or was it just floating dead in the water, waiting to be assisted by the ocean liner Carpathia or one of the half a dozen other ships who’d received her distress calls and were already steaming to her aid?

  We know the answer today, of course, but on that fateful night only three men on the Titanic did—Edward J. Smith, the captain; Thomas Andrews, the chief designer; and J. Bruce Ismay, the president of the White Star Line. They knew not only that the Titanic would sink, but also that it would sink well before help arrived. And they kept the information to themselves, fearing a panic that would cause the passengers to stampede the lifeboats, which when filled to capacity could carry only 1,178 of the more than 2,200 people on board. Even the officers ordered to organize the loading of the lifeboats had no idea the Titanic was going down.

  THANKS…BUT NO THANKS

  Withholding this information did help to keep the loading of the lifeboats orderly, but probably at the cost of hundreds of needless deaths. Many passengers and even many crew members, not suspecting the gravity of the situation, preferred to remain on board rather than risk climbing into the lifeboats. If you had booked passage on a ship that was said to be unsinkable, would you be willing to leave its warm, dry, and seemingly safe environs to climb into a tiny, swinging lifeboat in the middle of the night, and be lowered on pulleys 65 feet straight down into the freezing, iceberg-filled Atlantic? Even the captain’s order to load women and children first must have cost some passengers their lives, because it meant that married women were being asked to separate from their husbands, which many refused to do.

  Besides, what was the rush? As far as the crew members loading the boats knew, the Titanic wasn’t sinking. The lifeboats were simply going to ferry passengers to the rescue ships when they arrived, and that was still hours away. There would be plenty of time to load more people into the lifeboats later, if they didn’t want to go now. The crew members filled the boats with as many people as wanted to get in, and then lowered them into the water. In the end, only three of the Titanic’s 20 lifeboats were filled to capacity when they set down in the Atlantic.

  Nothing to snicker at: 71% of office workers surveyed agreed to trade their computer passwords for a chocolate bar.

  Hosono must have sensed what was happening earlier than many of the passengers did, because as he stood next to Lifeboat No. 10 as it was being loaded, he was already steeling himself for the end. “I tried to prepare myself for the last moment with no agitation, making up my mind not to leave anything disgraceful as a Japanese,” he explained in a letter to his wife. “But still I found myself looking for and waiting for any possible chance to survive.”

  That chance came moments later, when the officer loading No. 10 could not coax any more women or children into the boat. “Room for two more!” the officer called out. Hosono watched as another man jumped into the boat.

  “I myself was deep in desolate thought that I would no more be able to see my beloved wife and children, since there was no alternative for me than to share the same destiny as the Titanic,” he wrote. “But the example of the first man making a jump led me to take this last chance.” Hosono hopped in, and at 1:20 a.m. he and 34 other people were lowered to safety in a boat built to hold 65.

  FINAL MOMENTS

  The Titanic, by now sitting very low in the water, had just one hour left to live. Eight of the 20 lifeboats had already launched and only one of them—Hosono’s No. 10—was filled even halfway to capacity. (Lifeboat No. 1 launched with only 12 passengers out of a possible 40.) Many of the passengers still aboard the Titanic were just beginning to realize that the “unsinkable” ship might really be sinking.

  When the Titanic finally slipped beneath the waves at 2:20 a.m., Hosono watched from Lifeboat No. 10. He described the experience in his letter to his wife, which he wrote on board the Carpathia as it brought the survivors to New York. “What had been a tangible, graceful sight was now reduced to a mere void. And how I thought about the inevitable vicissitudes of life!”

  AFTERMATH

  Of the more than 2,200 passengers and crew aboard the Titanic, just over 700 survived, including 316 of the 425 women and 56 of 109 children. Even if every woman and child had been accommodated in the lifeboats, there still would have been enough room for nearly 700 of the 1,690 men, yet only 338 men survived. Not everyone who perished did so because they declined an opportunity to climb into a lifeboat, not by a long shot. But this must surely have been the cause of many deaths.

  In the shock and horror that followed one of the worst peacetime disasters in maritime history, many of these subtle details were lost on the newspaper-reading public. As they counted up the 162 dead women and children, many readers wondered how 338 men had managed to find their way into the lifeboats, “displacing” those helpless victims. Hosono received some of the harshest criticism of all. Not from the American newspapers, who expected chivalrous self-sacrifice from well-bred gentlemen of the middle and upper classes, but were dismissive of foreigners and the rabble traveling in steerage. Few American papers even took an interest in Hosono’s story. One that did celebrated the good fortune of the “lucky Japanese boy.”

  SAVED…AND CONDEMNED

  No, the harshest attacks against Hosono came from his own countrymen. For in surviving the Titanic disaster, he had broken two cultural taboos. Not only had Hosono chosen ignominious life over an honorable death, he had done so in public—on a European passenger liner with the e
yes of the world upon him.

  Hosono was denounced as a coward by Japanese newspapers and fired from his job with the Transportation Ministry. The ministry hired him back a few weeks later, but his career never recovered. College professors denounced him as immoral, and he was written up in Japanese textbooks as a man who had disgraced his country. There were even public calls for him to commit hara-kiri—ritual suicide—as a means of saving face.

  Hosono never did kill himself, but there must have been times when he wished he’d died on the Titanic. He never spoke of the experience again, and forbade any mention of it in his home. After he died in 1939, a broken and forgotten man, his letter to his wife, written on what is believed to be the only surviving piece of Titanic stationery, sat in a drawer until 1997, when the blockbuster film Titanic staged its Tokyo premiere. Then the Japanese public’s interest in the doomed liner’s lone Japanese passenger was renewed again, this time with much more sympathy.

  There are about 550 hairs in one of your eyebrows.

  THE LAST MEAL

  On April 14, 1912, the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank, killing more than 1,500 people. This is the lavish meal served that night to the ship’s first-class passengers…which, for many, would turn out to be their last.

  First Course

  Various hors d’oeuvres, oysters

  Second Course

  Consommé Olga (beef broth, port, celery, leeks, carrots, gherkins) Cream of Barley Soup

  Third Course

  Poached Salmon with Mousseline Sauce (hollandaise with whipped cream) and Cucumbers

  Fourth Course

  Filet Mignon Lili (steak served on baked potato slices and topped with artichoke pieces, foie gras, truffle slices, and a veal reduction sauce) Sauté of Chicken Lyonnaise (an onion, white wine, and veal sauce) Vegetable Marrow Farci (stuffed squash)

  Fifth Course

  Lamb with Mint Sauce, Roast Duckling with Apple Sauce Sirloin of Beef with Château Potatoes (potato nuggets cooked in butter) Green Peas, Creamed Carrots, Boiled Rice, or Parmentier (potato soup)

  Sixth Course

  Punch Romaine (white wine, rum, sugar syrup, and citrus juices)

  Seventh Course

  Roast Squab (young pigeon) and Cress

  Eighth Course

  Cold Asparagus Vinaigrette

  Ninth Course

  Pâté de foie gras with celery

  Tenth Course

  Waldorf Pudding, Peaches in Chartreuse Jelly, Chocolate and Vanilla Eclairs, or French Ice Cream

  All the treasures of earth cannot bring back one lost moment. —French Proverb

  BIZARRE BRAZIL

  South America’s largest country turns out to have some of the world’s strangest news items.

  UP, UP, AND AWAY

  In April 2008, Father Adelier Antonio di Carli, a Catholic priest, took off from the coastal city of Paranagua in a specially designed chair strapped to 1,000 helium-filled party balloons. Although he had a parachute, a GPS device, and plenty of food and water…he was never seen again. The eccentric priest was trying to raise money for a “spiritual rest stop for truckers.”

  A MODEST PROPOSAL

  Mayor Elcio Berti of Bocaiuva do Sul banned the sale of condoms in any of the town’s stores in 1998 because, he said, he was concerned that the availability of birth control might result in the town suffering a reduction in population. The law was struck down as unconstitutional, so Berti did something that he thought would counteract condom sales—he spent $35,000 of his own money on Viagra and gave it away to any men in the city who wanted it.

  A CUT ABOVE THE REST

  Brazilian supermodel Angela Bismarchi danced in, well, nothing, basically, at the head of a 300-person samba ensemble in 2008’s Carnival celebration in Rio. She did it to celebrate her latest cosmetic surgery operation—which put a slant in her eyes to fit with the Carnival’s theme: the celebration of 100 years of Japanese immigration to the country. It was Ms. Bismarchi’s 42nd plastic surgery operation, putting her just five off the world record of 47, held by American “living doll” Cindy Jackson. “I was always vain,” said Bismarchi.

  MOMS DO THE DARNEDEST THINGS

  Claudia Michelle de Brito and her husband tried for four years to have kids, with no luck. They finally opted for a surrogate, but Brazilian law states that only close relatives can be surrogate mothers; de Brito is an only child and none of her female cousins were willing. So her mom volunteered. In 2007 Rosinete Serrao, 51, had four of her daughter’s eggs (fertilized by her son-in-law) implanted in her uterus. In September she delivered twin boys, making her one of the few women ever to give birth to her own grandchildren.

  You can tell if a skunk is near if you smell only .000000000000071 ounces of its spray.

  THE HORSE-PITAL

  The Jockey Club is a Rio de Janeiro medical facility for horses, with extra-large versions of human hospital equipment, such as X-ray and MRI machines. And if you’re an obese person in Rio and you need such a test—that’s probably where you’ll go. Hospitals there started using the horse facility for extra-large people in 2007.

  THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

  In June 2008, Sao Paulo police raided the home of a known murderer and found two guns, a gym set, a plasma-screen TV, and $173,000 in cash. All of that might have been fine, but the “home” where he and the contraband were found was a prison cell in a federal penitentiary. An investigation into how the convict managed his posh (and armed) life in a prison is underway.

  FANG YOU VERY MUCH

  In July 2008, Gabriel Almeida, an 11-year-old Sao Paulo boy, was playing in his back yard when he was attacked by his uncle’s pit bull. The dog bit the boy’s left arm, at which point the boy responded by sinking his teeth into the dog’s neck. Some nearby bricklayers chased the dog off before it could attack again. And Gabriel bit the dog so hard that he lost a tooth…a canine tooth. The boy—and the tooth—made television news all over Brazil.

  I AM BARACK OBAMA

  In August 2008, Alexandre Jacinto decided to run for a seat on the town council in Petrolina, Brazil—but not under his own name. Brazilian election law says candidates can use any name they want, so Jacinto ran as “Barack Obama.” “I read a book about Obama’s rise,” Jacinto said, “a poor, simple man who became a senator. My aim too is to get to the top—the presidency.” He wasn’t the only one: Five other candidates around the country also chose the name. So who knows? There just may be a “President Barack Obama” of Brazil someday.

  Does yours? 41% of American homes have three or more television sets.

  DOING BUSINESS

  A new paradigm of core values is emerging from executive team leaders who think outside the box and are able to facilitate synergistic business models by empowering their people-based commodities. Translation: Some people in big business have shown flashes of common sense.

  “All of us believe that the product we produce is important. But 99.9% of your customers couldn’t care less about your product or service. You are not that important in their universe. And that’s almost impossible to accept.”

  —Peter Drucker

  “There’s no genius behind it. It’s persistence and listening to people.”

  —Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist

  “Failures in business are caused by self-centeredness, treating business as a short-sighted profit-making endeavor, and clinging to outmoded practices.”

  —Konosuke Matsushita, founder of Panasonic

  “Sales are vanity; profits are sanity.”

  —Silas Chou

  “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.”

  —Warren Buffett

  “It doesn’t make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.”

  —Mary Kay Ash

  “Just because your ratings are bigger doesn’t mean you’re better.”

  —Ted Turner

  “There is only one boss. The customer. And he
can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”

  —Sam Walton

  “Business opportunities are like buses: there’s always another one coming.”

  —Richard Branson

  “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful—that’s what matters.”

  —Steve Jobs

  Leading cause of death in China: respiratory disease.

  VIDEO TREASURES

  Ever been in a video store with no idea what to rent? It happens to us all the time. So we decided to offer a few recommendations.

  AMERICAN HEART (1992) Drama

  Review: “Jack is a suspicious ex-con, newly released from prison, with few prospects and little hope. He also has a teenage son he barely remembers but who desperately wants to have his father back in his life. Hard-boiled, poignant, and powerful.” (Videohound’s Golden Movie Retriever) Stars: Jeff Bridges, Edward Furlong. Director: Martin Bell.

  THE STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL (2004) Documentary

  Review: “A rare white camel calf is born among the herd of a family in the Gobi Desert. The calf struggles for survival after its mother, traumatized by the difficult labor, refuses to allow it to suckle. How this family deals with this small crisis is an unguessable miracle that will delight children and adults alike.” (Decent Films Guide) Directors: Luigi Falorni and Byambasuren Davaa.

  KENNY (2006) Comedy

  Review: “This Australian charmer of a mockumentary about a hardworking, jovial employee for a portable toilet company is a low-key study of underdog pride rather than a bodily function jokefest. Droll about the perceived embarrassment of his trade, Kenny is a barrel-chested, kind-eyed Aussie king in the stand-alone outhouse business, proud of his sewage-handling capabilities. Reminds us of what’s winning about lovable lugs.” (Los Angeles Times) Star: Shane Jacobson. Director: Clayton Jacobson.