Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader®
Page 23
THE PIRATES’ REVENGE
Menendez’s treachery did not go unmarked, though he justified the massacre as being done “not as to Frenchmen but as to heretics.” Unfortunately for him, Laudonnière made it home. Soon tales of the slaughter spread across France. Dominique de Gourgues, a French nobleman, had his own score to settle with Spain. In his youth, he had been taken captive and consigned to the brutal Spanish galleys. Enraged by the massacre, he disguised himself as a slaver, equipped three ships with 200 men-at-arms, and headed across the Atlantic.
Volleyball was originally called Mintonette.
WHO GOT THE LOOT
Spanish soldiers at the fort on the St. John’s River—renamed San Mateo—were completely fooled by the fake slavers, and saluted as de Gourgues’s ships sailed into the river. That night, de Gourgues and his men came ashore, slew the guards at their posts, and over-ran the garrison. They hanged Menendez’s men on the same trees Menendez had used as gallows for the French at Fort Caroline. De Gourgues posted a sign that read, “I do this not as to Spaniards nor as unto Mariners, but as to Traitors, Robbers, and Murderers.”
Historians have speculated that had the French and Spanish not been busy fighting each other for control of Florida, either country might have secured an unbreakable hold over the New World. Their squabbles most benefited another colonial power: England.
TWO McDONALDS (B)AD CAMPAIGNS
• Members of the company’s marketing department knew they had their work cut out for them when they were faced with the task of pitching the dark, PG-13-rated Batman Returns to McDonald’s young customers in 1992. The company rolled out a line of Happy Meals that downplayed connections to the film: A free toy featuring the Penguin looked like the character in the comic book instead of the grisly, deformed villain in the film, played by Danny DeVito. Even so, the company was slammed with complaints from angry parents who took their young children to the movie after seeing the toys. To avoid further controversy, the company yanked the campaign.
• McDonald’s has helped promote dozens of animated Disney films over the years, from The Little Mermaid to Bambi rereleases. They missed the mark on a promotion for Mulan, the 1998 movie based on an ancient Chinese legend. Commercials featured Ronald McDonald in a headband comically karate-chopping the company’s logo, and encouraged customers to sit on the floor when they ate their Happy Meals. Jeff Yang, founding editor of A, an Asian-American magazine, called the racial stereotyping in the ads “the equivalent of a drive-by mooning.”
Aptly named: The world’s largest herd of Holstein dairy cows is in Elsie, Michigan.
MOVIE QUOTE QUIZ #1
Can you name the movies that launched these familiar quotations? Give yourself an extra point if you know the year of the film, too. (Answers are on page 538.)
1. “It’s not a tumor!”
2. “When you’re slapped, you’ll take it and like it!”
3. “Excuse me while I whip this out.”
4. “I must break you.”
5. “Dad always used to say the only causes worth fighting for were the lost causes.”
6. “San Dimas High School football rules!”
7. “We all go a little mad sometimes.”
8. “Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there.”
9. “Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!”
10. “You ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?”
11. “The power of Christ compels you.”
12. “Get off my plane!”
13. “It’s a trap!”
14. “Snap out of it!”
15. “Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!”
16. “We’re goin’ streaking!”
17. “Please, sir. I want some more.”
18. “Fish are friends, not food.”
19. “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
20. “I once had wealth, power, and the love of a beautiful woman. Now I only have two things: my friends and my thermos.”
21. “We’ll do it for Johnny!”
22. “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”
23. “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
24. “You’re not too smart, are you? I like that in a man.”
In some remote villages in New Mexico, people still speak a form of 16th-century Spanish.
OUR STATE IS #1!
Everybody likes to know that they’re the best at something... unless that “something” is a little embarrassing. Here’s a list of two things that each state in the U.S. excels at.
ALABAMA
• Lowest taxes on goods
• Adult-onset diabetes
ALASKA
• Heliports
• Teen death
ARIZONA
• Copper production
• Alcoholism
ARKANSAS
• Best-trained math teachers
• E. coli infections spread by petting zoos
CALIFORNIA
• Roller coasters
• Air pollution
COLORADO
• Flu shots
• Cocaine usage
CONNECTICUT
• Dentist visits
• Electricity consumption
DELAWARE
• Most-profitable farms
• Gasoline theft
FLORIDA
• Freshwater turtles
• Mortgage loan fraud
GEORGIA
• Best condition of roads
• Personal bankruptcy filings
HAWAII
• People who carpool to work
• Highest cost of living
IDAHO
• Rainbow trout fishing
• Highest suicide rate
ILLINOIS
• Pumpkins
• Nuclear power production
INDIANA
• Elevator manufacturing
• Divorce
IOWA
• Percentage of residents over the age of 85
• Water pollution
KANSAS
• Helium manufacturing
• Obsolete bridges still in use
Free rent? The Tennessee capitol building’s architect is entombed within its northeast wall.
KENTUCKY
• Horse breeding
• Deaths from smoking
LOUISIANA
• Affordable hospitals
• Gonorrhea and syphilis
MAINE
• Youngest median age
• Per capita rate of asthma
MARYLAND
• High school students who take college-level courses
• Movie bootlegging
MASSACHUSETTS
• Adults with college degrees
• Government health care spending
MICHIGAN
• Navy bean production
• Unemployment
MINNESOTA
• Per capita rate of preventive colonoscopies
• Tornadoes
MISSISSIPPI
• Wetland restoration and preservation projects
• Obesity
MISSOURI
• Sport hunting
• Meth labs
MONTANA
• Number of restaurants per capita
• Drunk driving
NEBRASKA
• Livestock
• Domestic violence
NEVADA
• Gold mining
• Home foreclosures
NEW HAMPSHIRE
• Lowest percentage of people living in poverty
• Skin cancer rates for women
NEW JERSEY
• Millionaires
• Population density
NEW MEXICO
• Lowest
cancer rates
• Children who drink alcohol
NEW YORK
• Charitable donations
• Longest daily commute
NORTH CAROLINA
• Most diverse population of salamanders
• Lowest teacher salary
NORTH DAKOTA
• Lowest rate of AIDS
• Lowest rate of seat belt use
Senior spider: Tarantulas live for up to 20 years.
OHIO
• Library visits
• Traffic tickets issued
OKLAHOMA
• Per capita use of electric and hybrid cars
• Women in prison
OREGON
• Solar panels
• Homeless population
PENNSYLVANIA
• Covered bridges
• UFO sightings
RHODE ISLAND
• Drive-in movie theaters
• Per capita illegal drug use
SOUTH CAROLINA
• Lowest gas prices
• Strokes
SOUTH DAKOTA
• Lowest personal income tax rate
• Per capita Facebook use
TENNESSEE
• Immunizations
• Painkiller prescriptions
TEXAS
• Wind power
• High school dropout rates
UTAH
• Community service volunteers
• Online pornography use
VERMONT
• Percentage of children who are read to daily
• Fewest registered organ donors
VIRGINIA
• Places on the National Historic Register
• Least amount of employee leave
WASHINGTON
• Largest fleet of nonmilitary ferries
• Lowest availability of psychiatric care
WEST VIRGINIA
• Pre-death funeral planning
• Heart attacks
WISCONSIN
• Organic farming
• Binge drinking
WYOMING
• Coal production
• Injuries from lightning strikes
40 million Americans experience bruxism in their sleep. What is it? Tooth grinding.
I SHOOT YOU
WITH...MY KEY FOB!
Guns disguised as everyday items aren’t just for James Bond movies.
GLOCK AND ROLL
In March 2011, police in the city of Luleå, Sweden, responded to a tip about a man who had a stash of illegal weapons in his home. When they raided the house, they found six unlicensed guns...and an electric guitar. On closer inspection, they discovered that the guitar was actually a shotgun: The neck had been hollowed out and was concealing two gun barrels, and inside the guitar body was an almost-completed triggering device. The man told officers that he kept the guns as a form of therapy “to keep off the drink,” and that he was building the shotgun-guitar “for fun.” He faces several charges.
REACH OUT AND SHOOT SOMEONE
A special police mafia unit in Naples, Italy, raided the headquarters of the Gionta crime family in 2008. One of the things they found was a cell phone, with what appeared to be a normal keypad, a screen, and an antenna—except that it was actually a cleverly disguised gun. Here’s how it works: You slide the keypad to the left to reveal four holes under the fake screen. Load four .22 caliber cartridges into the holes and slide the phone closed. To fire: Press the four buttons in the top row one at a time, and each time a bullet is shot out of the fake antenna. Police said the phone-guns first appeared in eastern Europe around 2000, and the fact that they were now in mafia hands was “worrying.”
What do you call the noise your epiglottis makes when it flaps? A burp.
KEY WITNESS
In November 2004, Junior Collins, 27, was arrested for drunk-driving in Manchester, England. In Collins’s pocket police found an electronic car door opener. The device was black, about four inches long by one inch wide, and had three buttons on it and a key ring attached to one end. The cops didn’t give it much thought—until one of them remembered that they’d been briefed about “key fob guns” coming into the country from eastern Europe. (A “key fob” is a term for any decorative item attached to a key ring.) They looked closer, and sure enough, the thing was a gun. And it was loaded with two .22 caliber cartridges. Collins admitted that the device was his, but said a friend gave it to him—and he didn’t even know it was a gun! Judge Anthony Gee didn’t believe him, and made a good point about the gun. “Weapons such as this can only be designed to be fired,” he said. “Just showing it would be unlikely to produce alarm and terror, because anyone looking at it wouldn’t know it was a firearm.” Collins was sentenced to six years in prison.
(LIP)STICK ‘EM UP
In 2008 Defense Devices of Jackson, Tennessee, introduced a new type of lipstick...that’s actually a stun gun. Its glossy metal case makes it look very much like a real lipstick cylinder, except that you can use one to send 350,000 volts of electricity into an assailant, an intruder, or just one of your friends. Cost: $26.95. Also available from Defense Devices: stun guns disguised as cell phones and fountain pens, and a ring (for your finger) that shoots pepper spray.
GUN BELT
Police in Queensbury, New York, pulled a man over for speeding in March 2010. When the driver rolled down his window, police noticed that the passenger, Jeremy Stead, 32, of Quinlan, Texas, had a very large and very odd belt buckle, with what appeared to be a tiny gun worked into the buckle’s design. It turned out the tiny gun could be removed from the buckle—and it was real. Stead told officers he wore the buckle because it was “part of my persona.” His persona was charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm.
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
—Thomas Edison
On hot days, a baseball travels farther than on cold days. (The air is thinner.)
MYTH-CONCEPTIONS
“Common knowledge” is frequently wrong. Here are some more examples of things that many people believe...but that, according to our sources, just aren’t true.
Myth: Camels can go long periods without drinking water because they store extra water in their humps.
Truth: The hump is a reservoir for fat, not water. In fact, a camel stores most of its body fat in its hump, unlike humans, who store it throughout their bodies. The lack of heat-trapping fat allows the camel to lose heat from the rest of its body without having to perspire, thus conserving water.
Myth: The Statue of Liberty is in New York.
Truth: It’s actually in New Jersey. The structure sits on Liberty Island, which is in New York Harbor, but technically within the territorial waters of Jersey City, New Jersey. An agreement between the two states gives New York control over—but not ownership of—Liberty Island. New York maintains the statue; New Jersey provides utility services.
Myth: Panthers are a particular kind of wild cat.
Truth: There is no species of cat called a panther. Leopards and jaguars that happen to have black coats are all labeled as “panthers.”
Myth: Your ears sit on the outside of your head.
Truth: Those things on the sides of your head are called pinnae, and they’re primarily made up of cartilage. Your ears are organs consisting of the inner ear, middle ear, and outer ear, some of which are inside your head. The pinnae enhance the hearing process by funneling sound to the inner ear. They also serve to protect the internal ear parts.
Myth: Dixie, the nickname for the South, is derived from the Mason-Dixon Line, commonly thought to be the boundary between the North and the South.
The Olympic torch was carried to the top of Mt. Everest in 2008.
Truth: There’s no evidence that Dixie is derived from Dixon (Mason and Dixon were two surveyors hired in the 1700s to settle a border dispute; their findings determined state lines later on). The t
erm probably came from $10 bills issued in New Orleans in the mid-1800s that had the word dix printed on them. (Dix is French for “ten.”) The bills were nicknamed “dixies,” and the term caught on as shorthand for the whole of the South.
Myth: White wine is made from green grapes, and red wine is made from red grapes.
Truth: The color of wine doesn’t have much to do with the color of the grapes from which it was made—it has to do with how the skins are used. Both color grapes are used in winemaking, but if the skins are removed in the fermentation process, the wine turns out light-colored. If the skins are left on to ferment, the wine is redder.
Myth: Legally speaking, murder is a premeditated act, while manslaughter is a crime committed in the heat of the moment.
Truth: Murder isn’t always premeditated. Murder charges can be filed for a planned act of killing, but they can also be levied for a killing in the heat of the moment if it happened during the commission of another felony—shooting a guard during a bank robbery, for example. Manslaughter, on the other hand, is killing without malice (without intent to kill). Voluntary manslaughter is a heat-of-the-moment killing, such as self-defense or a crime of passion; it’s involuntary manslaughter if someone is killed while another, non-felony crime is being committed, such as misdemeanor reckless driving.
Myth: Before you exercise or play a sport, you should stretch in order to prevent soreness and injuries.
Fact: We’ve been told this ever since grade school, but recent findings have revealed that static stretching—in which you bend down and hold your toes for a length of time—will have little or no effect on how you perform or how you feel afterward. (If you stretch for too long, more than a minute, you could pull a muscle.) What your muscles need in order to warm up is movement—so wave your arms and run in place to get your blood flow going.
Pickles for the pickled? Polish hangover cure: dill pickle juice. German: pickled herring.
FAMILIAR PHRASES