Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader®

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  World’s largest college campus: Georgia’s Berry College. It sits on 26,000 acres.

  1) ARNOLD M. PICKER. Picker was a former executive with United Artists, a Hollywood film production studio. In 1971 he signed on as the finance director for Democratic Sen. Edwin Muskie’s presidential campaign. The memo expresses the hope that a scandal involving Picker would “debilitate and embarrass the Muskie machine.”

  2) ALEXANDER E. BARKAN. Barkan was a union organizer who became the national director of the powerful AFL-CIO labor union Committee on Political Education (COPE) in 1963. COPE was the union’s political wing, which lobbied on behalf of unionized labor and educated its members about which candidates were the most pro-union. Nixon and the Republican party were opponents of unionized labor, which is what landed Barkan on the Enemies List. The memo identified Barkan’s COPE as “the most powerful political force” against Nixon in 1968, as it raised $10 million for Democratic candidates and influenced the votes of more than 4.6 million people. Nixon wanted COPE shut down, fearing that its anti-Nixon efforts would be ramped up in the 1972 election. Ironically, it turned out that Nixon had nothing to worry about: Barkan denounced the ’72 Democratic presidential candidate, George McGovern, for succumbing to the tide of 1960s counterculture influence and turning the party into one of “acid, amnesty, and abortion.”

  3) EDWIN O. GUTHMAN. Politicians and political activists who opposed Nixon were on his Enemies List, and so were investigative reporters. Guthman won a Pulitzer Prize in 1950 when, as a reporter with the Seattle Times, he proved that the Washington State Un-American Activities Committee doctored evidence to accuse a college professor of Communist ties. (Around the same time, Nixon had worked on the House Un-American Activities Committee, which rooted out Communists at the national level.) In 1961 Guthman became Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s press secretary, and in 1965 national editor of the Los Angeles Times, where Nixon’s aides were convinced (with little proof) that Guthman was “the prime mover behind the current Key Biscayne effort”—a scandal that linked Nixon’s purchase of cheap real estate in Florida with known Mafiosi.

  First state to select an official state insect, California (the dogface butterfly, 1929).

  4) MAXWELL DANE. An advertising executive at Doyle Dane Bernbach, the advertising agency that handled most of the Democratic party’s national presidential advertising in 1964. In that campaign, Dane’s agency produced a frightening political ad for President Johnson called “Daisy,” in which a little girl holds a flower in a field, counting down, until a nuclear bomb wipes out everything. That year, Democrat Lyndon Johnson beat Republican Barry Goldwater in a landslide...and Nixon wasn’t about to let that happen to him. According to the memo, Dane was a test target for the Nixon enemies project—if he was successfully discredited, his partners, Doyle and Bernbach, would be next.

  5) CHARLES DYSON. A major financier through his Dyson-Kissner Corporation, a major philanthropist through his Dyson Foundation, and a major contributor to Democratic candidates and causes. He funded the Businessmen’s Educational Fund, which in turn sponsored a series of five-minute anti-Nixon radio ads in the run-up to the 1972 election. Dyson was also a close associate of Democrat strategist and Democratic National Committee chairman Larry O’Brien (whose office was the main target in the Watergate burglary).

  6) HOWARD STEIN. One of the nation’s leading investment bankers, Stein was chairman of the Dreyfus Corporation. There, he invented the mutual fund and made billions for his company and for himself. He was also the largest individual donor to Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 presidential campaign. Nixon feared he’d donate as much or more to the opposition again in 1972, especially if the opposition were either John Lindsay or George McGovern, the memo notes.

  According to scientists, Saturn’s rings will eventually disappear.

  7) ALLARD LOWENSTEIN. A civil rights activist, an anti-Vietnam War activist, a high-level Democratic party strategist, a one-term congressman from New York...and founder of a liberal voter information group called “Dump Nixon.”

  8) MORTON HALPERIN. Halperin was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under Lyndon Johnson, and was one of the few officials in the Johnson administration who had opposed the Vietnam War from the very beginning. Nevertheless, Halperin was appointed to the National Security Council by Nixon’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. When the New York Times reported in May 1969 that Kissinger had directed the secret bombing of Cambodia, Kissinger and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover believed Halperin was responsible for leaking the news and began tapping his phones. He left the NSC later that year and went on to be a leader of Common Cause, a nonprofit group dedicated to openness and accountability in government. The tapping of his phone continued until early 1971.

  9) LEONARD WOODCOCK. Woodcock appeared on the List with the caption “no comments necessary.” He headed the United Auto Workers union, one of the largest and most powerful trade unions in the United States, with a large, Democrat-supporting voting bloc. Woodcock also used his position to publicly support two causes Nixon avoided: civil rights and women’s rights.

  10) S. STERLING MUNRO JR. Munro was a top aide for liberal Washington senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, a possible 1972 presidential candidate. “Positive results” for digging up dirt on Munro, the memo notes, “would stick a pin in Jackson’s white hat.”

  11) BERNARD T. FELD. Feld was an MIT physicist who had helped develop the atomic bomb. Feelings of remorse later led him to denounce nuclear weaponry and serve with both the Albert Einstein Peace Committee and the Council for a Livable World, both nuclear disarmament action groups dedicated to banning nuclear weapons worldwide. Feld was a major voice for and donor to left-wing and pacifist causes, and as such, he was targeted by Nixon’s cronies. The memo suggests that Feld will “program an all-court press against us [Nixon] in ’72.”

  Boo goo: When frightened, ladybugs squirt a smelly liquid from their knees.

  12) SIDNEY DAVIDOFF. In 1971 popular, young New York City mayor John Lindsay switched from the Republican party to the Democratic party, citing “the failure of 20 years in progressive Republican politics.” He then announced his candidacy for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination. He was an early front-runner, doing well in caucuses and fundraising. Davidoff was Lindsay’s top aide, in charge of Lindsay’s drive to capture the youth and counterculture vote. The Enemies memo called Davidoff “a first-class SOB wheeler-dealer.”

  13) JOHN CONYERS. Conyers was (and still is) a Michigan congressman representing Detroit. First elected in 1964, Conyers founded the Congressional Black Caucus in 1969 to address the specific needs of African-Americans, hired Rosa Parks as his secretary in 1965, and in 1968 advocated to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday. Nixon did not strongly support the Civil Rights Movement, largely because it was a liberal cause. As Conyers was a leading institutional force for civil rights, he was targeted by Nixon. (The memo crudely suggests that Conyers “has a known weakness for white females.”)

  14) SAMUEL M. LAMBERT. The president of the National Education Association, Lambert spoke out against Nixon’s reelection promise to give federal aid to private and parochial schools, which threatened to be a contentious issue in 1972. If Lambert and the NEA were discredited, then Nixon would be able to push his legislation through more easily. (Ultimately, that legislation did not pass.)

  15) STEWART RAWLINGS MOTT. Mott inherited millions from his father, Charles Stewart Mott, a member of the General Motors board of directors and mayor of Flint, Michigan. The younger Mott became a philanthropist, creating Mott Associates and pouring his money into causes considered liberal or even radical at the time, including the legalization of abortion, gay rights, birth control, and feminism. He was targeted for his donations of “big money for radic-lib candidates.”

  Basalt, the most common rock on Earth, is also found on the moon, Mars, and Venus.

  16) RONALD DELLUMS. A 36-year-old African-American U.S. congressman from Oakland, C
alifornia, Dellums was a protégé of liberal senators John Tunney and Edward Kennedy, as well as an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War.

  17) DANIEL SCHORR. The memo labels the CBS News reporter “a real media enemy.” Schorr started at the network in 1953, recruited by Edward R. Murrow, the newsman who challenged Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s drive to root out Communists in government in the early 1950s (a drive in which California congressman Richard Nixon had assisted). Schorr made several reports over the years that Nixon loathed, including a sympathetic interview with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1957 and an examination of life in East Germany in 1962. The FBI opened a file on Schorr in 1971.

  18) S. HARRISON DOGOLE. One of the leading contributors to Hubert Humphrey’s 1968 presidential campaign was Globe Security Systems—one of the largest private detective and security agencies in the United States. Globe president S. Harrison Dogole authorized the contributions to Humphrey, who lost to Nixon in the ’68 election. Nixon’s team was convinced that Dogole would be out for revenge in 1972, stating in the memo that Dogole had to be deflected because he could contribute millions to the 1972 Democratic candidate, or possibly even use Globe agents to spy on Nixon.

  19) PAUL NEWMAN. Yes, the Paul Newman. One of the biggest stars in Hollywood, he was also aligned with “radical and liberal causes,” including the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Democrat Eugene McCarthy in 1968. Newman had personally endorsed the candidate in campaign commercials, and Nixon’s folks feared he might be used again in such a way in 1972.

  Studies have shown that listening to slow music while you eat can make you eat more slowly.

  20) MARY McGRORY. A columnist for the Washington Post, McGrory was a liberal editorial writer who penned “daily hate Nixon articles,” as the memo put it, and anti-Vietnam War pieces. (McGrory went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for her reporting on the Watergate scandal.)

  AFTERMATH

  In conjunction with the ongoing Watergate investigation, the Congressional Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation looked into whether or not the people on Nixon’s Enemies List had, in fact, been subjected to any unfair treatment, specifically unfair taxation or unnecessary tax audits. The committee announced in December 1973 that it had found no evidence that any of the people listed had been treated unfairly. But who knows what would have happened if those five men who broke into the Watergate hadn’t been captured.

  SMART ALECKS

  “When you say, ‘Bedtime!’ that’s not what the child hears. What the child hears is, ‘Lie down in the dark...for hours...and don’t move...I’m locking the door now.’”

  —Dylan Moran

  “A dog goes into a hardware store and says: ‘I’d like a job please.’ The hardware store owner says. ‘We don’t hire dogs, why don’t you go join the circus?’ The dog replies, ‘What would the circus want with a plumber?’”

  —Steven Alan Green

  “Sometimes, when I’m feeling down, I like to take a home pregnancy test. Then I can say, ‘Hey, at least I’m not pregnant.’”

  —Daniel Tosh

  “The only time it’s OK to say ‘I have diarrhea’ is when you’re playing Scrabble... because it’s worth a s***load of points.”

  —Zach Galifianakis

  “Toughest job I ever had: selling doors, door to door.”

  —Bill Bailey

  World’s tallest statue: China’s Spring Temple Buddha, 3 times as tall as the Statue of Liberty.

  TOILET TECH

  Better living through bathroom technology.

  HEAVY DUTY

  Product: The Great John

  What It Is: The first toilet, says the manufacturer, made

  specifically for “modern Americans.” Translation: It’s extra-large. How It Works: Invented by the Great John Toilet Company (no relation to Uncle John), the Great John can reportedly accommodate any person up to the weight of 2,000 pounds. The base is wider than a conventional toilet’s to provide extra support, and it connects to the bathroom floor with four anchors instead of the standard two. The seat provides 150 percent more “contact area” than a normal toilet (as well as offering side wings to prevent pinching if flesh still hangs over the larger seat).

  SNAKE EYES

  Product: FlexiSnake

  What It Is: A plumbing snake to remove hair clogs from drains

  How It Works: A traditional snake is tough to use—you have to unspool the metal coil, secure it with a screw, stick it down the drain, and hope that it doesn’t snap into your face and blind you. The FlexiSnake is much simpler: A two-inch Velcro pad mounted on the end a short, bendy wire—it looks like the power cord on a lamp—grabs the hair that’s blocking your drain, and you pull it out. Yucky, but easy.

  STICK TO IT

  Product: Bottom Buddy

  What It Is: A long-armed TP holder

  How It Works: One of the biggest challenges of being a large person is, um, cleaning up after using the toilet. That’s why there’s this $10 device. It’s pretty simple, actually: It’s a curved plastic wand with a gripper where a wad of toilet paper is inserted. After reaching around and using it, just press a button, and the wand neatly releases theTP into the bowl for hands-free disposal.

  American pioneers had recipes for locust stew.

  PAPER MOON

  Product: Hemo Roll

  What It Is: “Medicated” toilet paper

  How It Works: Bad news: You’ve got hemorrhoids. Good news: You can get rid of them with Hemo Roll, a hemorrhoid-fighting toilet paper infused with herbs and tinctures that help reduce inflammation. At least that’s what the Slovakian paper company that manufactures it claims. Among the ingredients in Hemo Roll, which is said to be gentler on the backside than non-infused, regular toilet paper: extracts of oak bark, marigold, and yarrow.

  SPARKLY NUGGETS

  Product: Jemal Wright Bath Designs

  What It Is: Designer toilets

  How It Works: Wright is a high-end home designer who specializes in fancy toilets and matching bathroom fixtures. Among his works are diamond-encrusted toilets, a gold-plated toilet with a matching pedestal sink, and a relatively understated metallic orange chrome toilet...with a diamond-encrusted flush handle. Cost: $65,000...and up.

  BATHROOMS ARE FOR LOVERS

  Product: TwoDaLoo

  What It Is: A love-seat toilet

  How It Works: In 1991 Saturday Night Live aired a fake commercial for an imaginary product called “The Love Toilet”—a two-person toilet for people so in love that they never want to be apart, even when they have to use the facilities. Like a Victorian love seat, the side-by-side toilets faced opposite directions, so the lovers could stare into each others eyes. In a case of life imitating art, the TwoDaLoo is now a real item, available for purchase for only $1,400. The only difference between the real TwoDaLoo and the fictional Love Toilet: The TwoDaLoo has a “privacy” bar separating the two commodes (as if that’s an issue).

  Water floats a ship. Water sinks a ship. —Chinese proverb

  First country to use police dogs: Belgium (1859). They protected officers on the night shift.

  WHAT’S COOKING?

  If a recipe called for you to blanch some almonds, would you know how to do it? Cookbooks are full of techniques that are a mystery to most of us, even if their names sound familiar.

  HEAT AND SERVE

  There are many different ways to cook food, and each method affects food differently. Most techniques can be broken down into two categories: wet and dry—but it’s not quite as straightforward as you’d think.

  • Wet cooking involves the use of water or water-based liquid. This includes wine, broth, stock, milk, vinegar—whatever you like, as long as it’s water-based. Wet techniques (also called moist techniques) include boiling, blanching, poaching, steaming, and stewing. The temperatures involved in all of these techniques are actually pretty low—because boiling water doesn’t get any hotter than 212°F.

  • Dry-cooking techniques include baki
ng, broiling, frying, sautéing, and, you might be surprised to learn, deep-frying. Reason: Though oil is a liquid, it’s not water-based and its use is therefore considered a dry cooking technique. Dry cooking involves cooking at temperatures of 270° F and above. It is these hotter temperatures that allow dry cooking to brown food—which cannot be done with wet techniques.

  WET-COOKING TECHNIQUES

  Boiling is simply the cooking of food in water-based liquid at a full boil. It’s best for starchy or hard foods, such as pasta, potatoes, rice, beans, and hardier vegetables, but it can damage softer foods, such as fish. Boiling is also used to reduce—making foods like sauces or gravy thicker by steaming off water—and to decontaminate foods that may have come in contact with bacteria.

  Blanching involves plunging food into boiling water for just a moment, and then removing and plunging it into ice water to stop the cooking process. It’s commonly used to loosen vegetable or fruit skins for removal, to brighten the color of vegetables, and to remove bitterness. Tip: Use plenty of water—the more water you have, the less the temperature will drop when you add the food.

  Japan produces almost 50% more cars than its two closest competitors, Germany and the US.

  Parboiling is partially cooking something in boiling water, often to make a later cooking technique quicker. You might parboil hard vegetables such as carrots, for example, so they don’t come out too hard when being stir-fried with softer vegetables. Or you might want to parboil chicken to speed up grilling. Parboiling is also used before freezing vegetables, although some require only blanching.

  Poaching is cooking in water (or wine, milk, stock, etc.) below boiling temperature, at 160°F to 180°F. You should be able to see the water circulating but not bubbling. This is a gentle method that works well with delicate foods such as eggs, fish, or fruit. In submersion poaching, the food is completely covered with liquid; in shallow poaching, the water comes about halfway up the food, with the pan covered, thereby both poaching and steaming the food. Tip: When poaching eggs, add a touch of vinegar to the water to get the whites to form a nice, neat shape.