• The Buddhas of Bamyan (6th Century A.D.). Carved in what is now Afghanistan, the two sandstone statues were gigantic representations of the Buddha measuring 180 and 121 feet tall. They were destroyed with dynamite in 2001 by the ruling Taliban government, which felt the statues were idols and were therefore forbidden under Muslim law.
“When you step on the brakes, your life is in your foot’s hands.”
—George Carlin
In a lifetime, the average driver spends 2 hours and 14 minutes kissing in their car.
BATHROOM NEWS
Here are a few fascinating bits of bathroom trivia that we’ve flushed out from around the world.
POT O’ GOLD
In July 2008, an employee of the St. Louis County Justice Center paid a visit to the restroom and found a lot more than sweet relief: When he reached for some toilet paper, he discovered stacks of $50 and $100 bills hidden behind the tissue dispenser. Total: $55,000. Because the bathroom is used by prisoners who are being booked into the jail, it’s likely that a prisoner hid the money there. But none of the inmates would admit to knowing anything about the money. So does the employee who found it get to keep it? Doubtful. At last report, the city attorney was still figuring out what to do with it.
DINNER AND A SHOW
Cafe 52 owner Steve Bothwell was probably happy when the Aberdeen, Scotland, city council made plans to set up five portable, open-air urinals around the historic district known as The Green as part of a campaign to eliminate “weekend anti-social behavior.” Happy, that is, until the city council plopped one of the urinals down right next to his club’s brand-new $80,000 outdoor dining area. Bothwell was so mad that he had the urinal hauled to the city council offices…but a few days later it was back. “Imagine a young family sitting down to have dinner,” Bothwell told Scotland’s The Mirror newspaper, “then seeing a bunch of guys urinating right beside them.” Says a spokesperson for the city council: “We are meeting with Mr. Bothwell and hope to find a solution.”
STALL OF SHAME
The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport got a brand-new tourist attraction in 2007, not that they were very happy about it. The men’s room off the food court, near the statue of Snoopy and Woodstock, is the one where Senator Larry Craig of Idaho was arrested on charges of lewd conduct, a scandal that forced him to announce his retirement. (Craig, who pleaded guilty to the charge, insists he’s innocent.) “Where is the Larry Craig bathroom” has become one of the most-asked questions in the airport, and Craig’s stall (second from the end) has become one of the most-photographed spots in the terminal.
Some Cambodian trains are built entirely out of bamboo and spare parts.
IT’S NOT UNUSUAL
Some careers end in the men’s room; others begin there. In the summer of 2008, Christie’s auction house in London made plans to sell what is believed to be the first songs ever recorded by singer Tom Jones, who belted out a four-song demo tape in the men’s room of the Pontypridd, Wales, YMCA in 1962. Why record in the men’s room? For the same reason you sing in the shower. “He believed it had the best acoustics in the building,” said Liz Williams, current president of the Pontypridd YMCA. The tape sold for just under $5,000.
IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK
British actor Michael Caine makes a point of booking a hotel suite with two bedrooms whenever he travels with his wife of 35 years, Shakira Caine. He says it’s the secret to remaining happily married for so long. Here’s his reasoning: When he books a suite with two bedrooms, he also gets two bathrooms. “Never share a bathroom with a woman,” he says. “We book into hotels and ask for two bedrooms and you see them thinking that our marriage is on the rocks, but I’m just trying to get another bathroom.”
ANOTHER “LUCKY” FIND
Spanish workers renovating a bathroom in a resort on the Costa Blanca town of Torrevieja in January 2008 are still celebrating their good fortune, of sorts. While tearing out the old false ceiling, one of the workers found a pipe sitting atop one of the ceiling tiles and picked it up. Then, perhaps remembering that resorts in Costa Blanca had been targeted by Basque terrorists, the worker gently set the pipe down again and called the police, who sent over the bomb squad. Sure enough, the object was a pipe bomb, one with a detonator (defective) and 10 ounces of dynamite. The bomb had been sitting there since 1991, when a three-bomb threat was phoned into the authorities, but only two of the bombs went off. The bomb was disposed of safely.
The planet Uranus was originally named Georgium Sidus, and was also briefly known as Herschel.
THE TRUTH ABOUT
FOOD ALLERGIES
You hear about this more and more, it seems. Grandma can’t drink milk, your next-door neighbor’s son can’t eat peanut butter, and your best friend breaks out in hives if he even looks at a lobster. What’s up with that?
GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER You just ate dinner and now you’re not feeling very well. Your mouth is tingling, you feel nauseated. Maybe you have stomach cramps, or you have to make an emergency pit stop in the nearest bathroom. Food poisoning? Maybe so. Or maybe you’ve developed a food allergy.
A true food allergy is when your immune system has an abnormal overreaction to a normally harmless food. Your immune system decides that part of what you just ate (usually a food protein) is an allergen and harmful to your body, and it overreacts to the food by producing immunoglobin E antibodies. (Antibodies fight off bacteria, viruses, and other foreign substances in the blood.) The next time you eat that particular food, the antibodies sense its presence and signal the immune system to send histamines and other chemicals into your bloodstream. These chemicals then produce any of a range of allergic symptoms that can run from bothersome to life-threatening.
THE (UN)USUAL SUSPECTS
The majority of true food allergies are triggered by eight foods: peanuts, eggs, fish, soy, tree nuts (like walnuts and pecans), shellfish (usually shrimp, crab, or lobster), cow’s milk, and wheat. But there are some surprising twists and turns, too.
• People who are allergic to cow’s milk often have no problem eating beef.
• People who are allergic to eggs can usually eat chicken.
• People with shrimp, lobster, or crab allergies often have no difficulties eating clams or oysters.
It’s estimated that about 2% of adults and 8% of children have one or more food allergies. The most common food allergies in children: cow’s milk, wheat, and soy. Although some allergies can last a lifetime, children typically outgrow their food allergies as their digestive systems mature (as we age, our bodies are less likely to absorb food allergens). But food allergies can start at any time. You may have eaten a food hundreds of times and never had an allergic reaction…and then suddenly you become allergic.
Who was the only U.S. president with a four-syllable last name? Eisenhower.
AH-CHOO!
Allergic symptoms typically range from annoying (runny nose, itchy eyes, coughing, scratchy throat) to uncomfortable (nausea, diarrhea, stomach cramps, bloating, hives, rashes, wheezing, asthma). But some people can be so severely allergic to a specific food that ingesting it will cause anaphylaxis, a systemic reaction that can be drastic or, in extreme cases, lethal. At first it feels like an ordinary allergic reaction—tingly mouth, itchy rash, a sneezing fit. Then symptoms suddenly escalate: The throat may swell, making breathing difficult, followed by dizziness and even loss of consciousness. The pulse rate shoots up and blood pressure drops, sending the victim into anaphylactic shock. Symptoms this severe can be fatal if the victim doesn’t receive immediate emergency medical treatment.
FOOD INTOLERANCE?
There’s another kind of food overreaction that has many of the symptoms of a food allergy, but it’s not a true allergy: food intolerance. The difference is significant: Allergies involve the immune system; intolerances don’t. If you’re intolerant of a particular food, you might even be able to eat some of it without consequences. But if you have a true food allergy, the symptoms ca
n be triggered by even the smallest amount of the culprit food.
Food intolerances usually result from a deficiency of an enzyme needed for digesting a particular food. People with lactose intolerance, for example, lack the enzyme lactase. Your body needs the lactase to break down a sugar called lactose that’s present in cow’s milk. If you drink milk and your body doesn’t have enough lactase to break it down, the lactose moves to the large intestine, where it is metabolized by bacteria, producing the uncomfortable (for you) and unpleasant (for those around you) gases—methane, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms prohibits the use of the word “refreshing” to describe any alcoholic beverage.
There are other kinds of food intolerances as well. You might have a bad reaction to a flavoring agent like monosodium glutamate, to aspartame, to food dyes, or to chemical preservatives such as sulfites and nitrite. Some people can’t tolerate caffeine; others get headaches from very ripe cheese or red wine.
RANDOM FACTS
• Some people feel sick every time they see, smell, or even think of a particular food. No one knows how or why this happens, but according to scientists, it is a genuine form of food intolerance.
• The odds that you will develop a food allergy are greater if someone in your family has allergies.
• It used to be thought that chocolate was a major food allergen, but studies now show that chocolate allergy is extremely rare.
• People with food allergies and intolerances have always had difficulty shopping in supermarkets—they need to know exactly what’s in the products they buy so they can avoid the foods that make them sick. Until recently, manufacturers didn’t have to disclose whether their products contained any of the top eight allergens (milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, peanuts, nuts, wheat, and soy). But thanks to the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004, now they do.
• Number of deaths in the United States caused by allergic reactions to food: about 200 per year.
• Children are more likely to outgrow milk and soy allergies, but less likely to outgrow allergies to fish, shellfish, or peanuts.
• Some ingredients have names that may be unfamiliar when you see them on food labels. For instance, even if a food product says “nondairy,” it could have casein or whey, which contain milk proteins—something the lactose-intolerant might want to avoid.
• A British 12-year-old boy named Tyler Savage eats “chicken or tuna with carrots and potatoes and maybe some grapes or an apple.” And that’s all he eats. Why? Because he has a rare condition called eosinophillic enteropathy—he’s allergic to wheat, gluten, dairy products, eggs, and soy products. “I’m a little bored eating the same food all the time,” said Tyler, but he knows he’s fortunate that doctors were able to pinpoint his condition before it killed him.
NOT-SO-EASY RIDERS
A rider is a the part of a performer’s contract that includes a list of the artist’s backstage demands. The promoter must provide these items, or else the performer might not go on. Here are some real excerpts from real riders.
Foo Fighters: Among the food items requested by the alternative rock band are “stinky cheese” and a vegetarian soup, because “meaty soups make roadies fart.”
Cher: The singer requires a separate room, adjacent to her dressing room, for her wigs.
Clay Aiken: Nuts, shellfish, mushrooms, coffee, chocolate, and mint are banned from all backstage areas. The singer is severely allergic to them.
Metallica: Their 24-page rider states that it’s “very important that bacon be available at every meal and during the day.”
Prince: The artist demands that all items in his dressing room be covered by clear plastic wrap, which may be removed by nobody other than Prince himself.
Coldplay: This British rock group won’t perform unless there are eight “stamped, local postcards” in their dressing room.
Poison: Apparently, this hard rock band played a little too loud in the 1980s, because on recent tours, they’ve asked for a sign language interpreter to accompany them onstage.
50 Cent: A box of Cuban cigars—which are illegal.
The Wallflowers: In no press materials is singer Jakob Dylan (Bob Dylan’s son) to be referred to as “Bob Dylan’s son.”
Ted Nugent: His dressing room must be stocked with tropical-fruit-flavored Slim-Fast.
K.C. and the Sunshine Band:
No strobe lights may be used during the band’s performance. Why? A member of the group has epilepsy. If strobes are used, he could have a seizure, in which case the blame—and the hospital bills—would be given to the promoter.
Burt Bacharach: He requires a bottle of “first-class” red wine and some peanut butter.
Camels will refuse to carry an unbalanced load.
Dionne Warwick: Most singers want to be picked up at the airport in a limo. Warwick demands a station wagon.
John Mayer: The singer requires several boxes of sugared cereal from which to choose… and four toothbrushes.
Razorlight: This British band requires a plate of cornbread and a selection of music magazines that feature articles about themselves.
Peter Gabriel: He requires promoters to provide a female masseuse to give him a massage, “hippie style.”
Billy Idol: Backstage caterers must provide one large tub of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.
Boy George: The 1980s pop star’s performance requires a “crack oil machine,” a primitive fog machine used in British theaters in the 19th century.
Iggy Pop: “No toy robots.”
Johnny Cash: Not surprisingly, the late singer required a large American flag to wave while he was on stage.
Janet Jackson: Beverages for the singer are to be presented in “fresh, clean, crushed, or cubed ice,” and never in “fish ice” (whatever that is).
Nine Inch Nails: Lead singer Trent Reznor needs two boxes of cornstarch (to help him squeeze into a tight pair of leather pants).
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIANT?
On wanted posters in New Zealand, the law forbids police from displaying pictures of suspects under 18 years of age. In the town of Christchurch, police found an interesting way to get around the law. They noticed that a teenager suspected in a string of burglaries looked a little like Scottish-born actor Robbie Coltrane, best known for playing Hagrid, the friendly giant in the Harry Potter movies. So the cops put the actor’s face on the wanted poster. Underneath the photo was written: “Robbie Coltrane is not the burglar, but imagine him aged 16 with lank greasy hair and you have the picture.”
So why don’t they do it? Kraft produces enough Cool Whip in one year to fill the Grand Canyon.
FIRST LADY FIRSTS
Just being the spouse of the President of the United States is historic in its own right. But these women made history in other ways.
First to live in the White House: Abigail Adams (1797). First to not live in the White House: Anna Harrison, wife of William Henry Harrison. She did not accompany her husband to his inauguration in 1841 because she was ill. President Harrison died a month later; his wife never set foot in the White House.
First to enjoy indoor plumbing at the White House: Abigail Fillmore (1850).
First to be related to her husband (by blood): Eleanor Roosevelt was a fifth cousin, once removed, of Franklin Roosevelt.
First to be the mother of a president: Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, and mother of John Quincy Adams. (Barbara Bush was the second.)
First to serve in a presidential administration: Sarah Polk was the official secretary of President James K. Polk (1845).
First to make a cameo appearance on a sitcom: In 1975 Betty Ford guest-starred on an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
First to have her own Secret Service agent: Florence Harding (1921).
First to have a monument erected in her honor: Lady Bird Johnson. In 1969 a grove in the Redwood National Forest was named for her.
First to be foreign-born: Lou
isa Adams (wife of John Quincy Adams) was born in London in 1775. She’s the only First Lady born outside of the United States.
First to be honored by Outlaw Biker magazine: In 1995 the publication named Barbara Bush “First Lady of the Century.”
First to have her own press secretary: Jacqueline Kennedy. In 1962 Kennedy performed another first: She was the first First Lady to give a televised tour of the White House.
Every human has a unique smell.
THE ORIGINAL
DUNGEON MASTERS
When one of the inventors of Dungeons & Dragons died in 2008, Uncle John was surprised that his name wasn’t more familiar. That made him wonder: how many other people have never heard this story?
ROLLING THE DICE
Gary Gygax (pronounced GHEE-Gax) was an insurance underwriter living in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in the late 1960s. He made his living calculating the probabilities that an individual seeking to buy insurance would become sick or disabled or die, and he used these estimates to set the premiums and payouts on the policies he reviewed. Every policy was like a roll of the dice: If Gygax calculated correctly, the individual received sufficient coverage at a fair price, and the insurance company had a good shot at earning a fair profit. If he was incorrect, either the individual or the insurance company would lose.
In Gygax’s free time, he loved to roll dice of a different sort: He played war games in his home with fellow members of a club called the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association. There, on a giant table in the basement—just as war gamers had done since the invention of Kriegsspiel in the early 1800s (see page 251)—Gygax and his friends re-created famous battles such as Gettysburg or the D-day landings of World War II and fought them all over again in miniature, devoting countless hours to killing each other’s soldiers with one roll of the dice after another.
Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader Page 44