• “A Mountain View Drive man brought in a cucumber that someone had given to him the day before. He said he didn’t trust the person, so he threw it into the woods. During the night he heard a coyote crying in the woods. In the morning, he found the cucumber half-eaten, but no sign of the coyote. He was concerned that the cucumber might have been poisoned.”
• “A resident reported that four males unloaded goats from a van and took them into the basement of a Wanda Ave. residence. She said she believed the goats would be slaughtered, because she’s seen goats brought into the residence before, and ‘they never leave.’”
• “A Transit Road resident reported a break-in and told police the suspect was the complainant’s ‘crack-head grandson.’”
• “After giving himself an enema, a Fallston man reportedly became extremely confused and argumentative.”
• “2:05 p.m., 7500 Block of State Highway 7. Someone entered a home and left presents inside.”
Technically speaking, Henry VIII had only two wives. Four of his marriages were annulled.
MEET THE MUCKRAKERS, PART II
On page 131, we told you about the era of “muckraking” journalism at the turn of the 20th century. Here are a few more muckraking stories that shook the world.
SUBJECT: Child prostitution, London, England
MUCKRAKER: In the decades leading up to the 1880s, British feminist groups tried again and again to get Parliament to pass laws protecting women—and especially girls—from London’s prostitution rings. Parliament kept stalling, and by 1885, W.T. Stead, managing editor of London’s leading newspaper, the Pall Mall Gazette, had had enough.
In May 1885, with the help of a few friends, Stead actually arranged to “buy” a 13-year-old girl named Eliza Armstrong from her severely alcoholic mother, have her set up in a London brothel (where Stead posed as her only customer), and then had the girl spirited away, across the English Channel and into France.
EXPOSED! Over three days in July 1885, the Gazette ran a story titled “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,” telling, in lurid detail, the true story a of young girl named “Lily,” who was sold into prostitution by her mother.
RAMIFICATIONS: The story caused an enormous uproar. Huge crowds fought on London’s streets over copies of the papers, and anti-prostitution groups quickly formed. Fearing riots would overrun the city, the British government pleaded with Stead to cease publication. Stead replied by saying he would stop when Parliament did its part to protect women and children. Result: Within a month, the British parliament had passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act, a law designed to protect women and girls caught in lives of prostitution.
UNEXPECTED RAMIFICATIONS: Despite his good intentions, Stead and two women who had helped with the ruse were convicted of crimes involving the buying of Eliza Armstrong. Stead spent three months in prison; the two women spent six months. Upon his release, Stead said, “Never had I a pleasanter holiday!” and continued editing the Gazette for several more years.
Only apple native to North America: the crab apple.
Final Note: President William Howard Taft invited Stead to attend a peace congress at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1912. Stead set off for the event…on the Titanic. He did not survive.
SUBJECT: Standard Oil Company
MUCKRAKER: In 1890 the U.S. Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, meant to combat the corrupt practices used by huge corporations—such as John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, the largest corporation in the world at the time—to destroy their competition. In the years that followed the act’s passage, Standard Oil remained as large and aggressive as ever—and in 1900 McClure’s Magazine sent Ida Tarbell to discover why.
EXPOSED! Tarbell spent nearly two years studying Standard Oil, traveling the country, digging up mountains of documents, interviewing the company’s current and former employees—all the way up to the executive level—and investigating the company’s competitors. She produced a work of reporting so comprehensive that historians credit it with changing the craft of journalism forever. Her story was finally published—it ran in installments over 19 issues of McClures from 1902 until 1904.
RAMIFICATIONS: Tarbell’s story documented, with plenty of backup and in terms easily understandable to readers, how Standard Oil regularly employed unethical and illegal methods to squash competition. (A favored method was to simply flood a competitor’s region with cheap oil—even at a loss—which Standard could easily recoup after driving the other companies out of business.) The story fueled the public’s hunger for the hides of the era’s ruthless tycoons, and is credited with spurring the U.S. Justice Department to take legal action against Standard Oil, which it did in 1906, leading to the company’s dissolution in 1911.
Final Note: Tarbell’s story about Standard Oil was voted #5 on a 1999 New York Times list of “The Top 100 Works of Journalism in the United States in the 20th Century.”
* * *
“Clean your finger before you point at my spots” —Ben Franklin
In 1642 Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sailed all the way around Australia and never saw it.
HIGH-TECH UNDERWEAR
Who says underwear should only be clean and comfortable? Here’s a look at some skivvies with extra built-in features.
MIA BRA COLLECTION
What It Does: Uses NASA technology to regulate excess body heat
Details: “The movement of a fuller bust causes friction between the breast and the abdomen, and it is this friction that causes heat to build up,” says bra manufacturer Amoena Mia. The company’s bras, made with temperature-regulating fabric similar to the material used in NASA space suits, absorb this extra heat. “Intelligent micro-capsules” in the fabric trap the heat, then gently release it again when body temperature decreases.
INVISIBLE SHAPING BUM BOOSTERS
What They Do: Make your butt look more like Pippa Middleton’s
Details: Kate wasn’t the only Middleton who wowed the more than one billion television viewers who watched her wedding to England’s Prince William in 2011. Her 27-year-old sister Pippa made quite an impression of her own in a curve-hugging white bridesmaid dress. Invisible Shaping Bum Boosters, invented soon afterward, were designed to address the “bum envy” that many woman felt after they got a look at Pippa’s behind. The padded panties contain “discreet, cheek-enhancing structures built into the back of the lining to give extra bulk and curvature, turning a flat bottom into rear of the year.” By November 2011, they were outselling ordinary panties in some British stores by 148 percent.
CALORIE SHAPER UNDERPANTS
What They Do: Help you lose weight
Details: An extension of Japan’s MXP brand (which makes underwear designed to “absorb the body odor of middle-aged and elderly men”), Calorie Shapers take MXP into the weight-loss category: The shorts incorporate a nonelastic honeycomb resin that stiffens the shorts, making them harder to move around in. That, in turn, increases the number of calories burned. The manufacturer claims that if a 140-pound man walks an average of 90 minutes a day wearing the underpants, in a week he’ll burn as many extra calories as there are in a pint of beer.
What are knismesis and gargalesis? The scientific terms for soft and hard tickling.
GO FREE PANTS
What They Do: They make panties optional—because an underwear panel is built in
Details: Inventor Tina Ketchie Stearns didn’t like unsightly panty lines, and hated “thong” underwear, which some women wear to avoid panty lines, even more. When she went “commando” in ordinary pants, the cross seam that runs from the front of the pants to the back was uncomfortable. Why not incorporate underwear into the pants? “That’s when the patent-pending design for Go Free pants came to me,” Stearns writes on her website. “I have replaced that uncomfortable cross seam with a smooth cotton panel sewn directly into the pants. That means undergarments are optional….no more panty or thong lines!”
THUNDERWEAR
What it Does: A
llows you to carry a concealed gun in your underpants
Details: This holster, held in place with a strap worn around the waist, centers your handgun in front of your crotch and below the belt line, so that you can conceal your weapon beneath pants, shorts, or a bathing suit, even when you’re not wearing a shirt. When you sit down, “the weapon fits down comfortably between your legs,” says the manufacturer. When trouble strikes, just “take the thumb of your weak hand and pull away your belt, then with your strong hand reach in and draw your weapon.”
Safety First: Because Thunderwear allows you to wear your handgun in front of your private parts, instead of being pointed at them (as it would if you stuck a gun in your waistband like the bad guys do in the movies), the most you risk is a gunshot to your leg or foot if the weapon misfires, not a life-altering “junk shot.” Bonus: “Your weapon will act as a CUP to protect the sensitive area of your body if under physical attack!” says the manufacturer.
Pocket poopers: Marsupial babies go to the bathroom in their mother’s pouches.
MILITARY FIRSTS
Some unusual military firsts.
FIRST U.S. MOTHER & SON TO ENLIST TOGETHER
When Ethel Fleming, 34, brought her 17-year-old son, Mike, to the Army recruiting office in Merced, California, in 1975, she was so impressed with the sales pitch that she signed up too.
FIRST “WORLD” WAR
Fought between the Netherlands and Portugal in 1645, the Sugar War was the first in which battles were fought in the Northern, Southern, Western, and Eastern Hemispheres. The Dutch captured the Spice Islands (part of modern-day Indonesia), but Portugal retained its colonies in Brazil, Angola, and Goa (in western India).
FIRST MILITARY UNIT ISSUED A FULL UNIFORM
England’s Yeoman of the Guard, organized by King Henry VII in 1485 as his personal bodyguard, were issued special hats, tunics, and breeches to make them more presentable at court. The unit still exists, and still wears the same “beefeater” costumes.
FIRST AERIAL BOMBARDMENT OF A CITY
When Venice (then part of Austria) revolted in August 1849, Austria launched 200 unmanned bomb-carrying balloons against the city. The attack failed, but Austria won anyway. It didn’t cede Venice to Italy until after it lost the Austro-Prussian War in 1866.
FIRST U.S. GENERALS WHO WERE BROTHER & SISTER
West Point graduate Perry Hoisington probably never imagined his sister, Elizabeth, would join him in the officer corps, but that’s what she did. As he rose to the rank of major general in the U.S. Air Force after World War II, she made her mark in the Women’s Army Corps (WACs). By 1966 she was its director, with the rank of colonel. In 1967 Congress authorized women to hold the rank of general, and on May 15, 1970, promoted two women—Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth Hoisington—to the rank of brigadier general.
The Brady Bunch girls had a pet cat named Fluffy, but it only appeared in the pilot episode.
POLITICAL BRIEFS
Short tales from the wacky world of government.
RACE TO THE BOTTOM. In 2011 the Republican National Committee set up a Spanish-language web page designed to court the Latino vote. However, right after it was launched, several people informed the RNC that the “Latino” family in the stock photo at the top of the page was actually Asian.
LIVE FREE AND DIE. Giulio Cesare Fava, the mayor of Falciano del Massico, Italy, faced a crisis in 2012: The cemeteries in his small town were all full. Unable to raise the funds for a new graveyard, Fava issued this executive order: “It is forbidden for residents to go beyond the boundaries of earthly life, to go into to the afterlife.” So far, two residents have disobeyed his order.
TELL IT LIKE IT IS. A 65-year-old civil servant in Menden, Germany, was informed in 2012 that his position had been eliminated. So on his last day of work, he sent an e-mail to co-workers admitting that in his last 14 years of employment, he’d hardly done any work at all. He blamed it on redundant positions and poor management, writing, “I had nothing to do.”
THAT’S COLD. In the election for a seat on the Pentland Hills, Scotland, city council, the Liberal Democrat candidate, Stuart Bridges, received 370 votes, and the Green Party candidate, Phyl Stuart Meyer, received 322 votes. However, both got fewer than an independent candidate who called himself “Professor Pongoo” and campaigned wearing a penguin costume. He received 444 votes.
DINE-AND-DASH. In June 2012, President Barack Obama gave a speech on the economy in which he said, “The Republicans, they order a steak dinner and then, just as you’re sitting down, they leave, and accuse you of running up the tab.” The very next day, the president took two U.S. soldiers to Kenny’s BBQ on Capitol Hill. After the meal, Obama and his entourage left without paying the bill.
Fore, eh! Canada has more recreational golfers per capita than any other country.
THE PRESIDENT’S MEDAL
The President of the United States can award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to anyone who has made a significant contribution to what Superman might call “the never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way.” We thought you’d like to meet a few of the most notable—and controversial—recipients.
BACKGROUND
President Harry S. Truman started the tradition of giving medals to civilians for extraordinary service in 1945. The first recipients were four women, each of whom had risked her life during World War II to aid American and British troops. In 1963 President John F. Kennedy re-established the award as the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Since then the medal has been awarded more than 300 times, sometimes generating controversy in the process. Why? Because the president can give the medal to anyone he pleases. Those awarded to popular figures such as Walt Disney, Mother Teresa, Fred Rogers, or Helen Keller seldom draw fire, but other choices have caused sparks to fly.
Recipient: Magazine editor Whittaker Chambers (1984)
Awarded by: Ronald Reagan
Contribution: “Standing alone against the brooding terrors of our age”—in other words, being rabidly anti-Communist during America’s post-WWII “Red Scare”
Controversy: The announcement that Chambers, a Time magazine editor during the 1940s and ’50s, would be posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom brought an outburst of protest from one of his former colleagues at Time. The problem: Chambers often rewrote reporters’ field dispatches to alter the news so that it would support his personal anti-Communist crusade. When researchers in Time’s New York office protested, Chambers replied, “Truth doesn’t matter.”
By his own admission, before adopting his anti-Communist stance, Chambers had been a paid agent of the Soviet secret police assigned to cultivate Marxists in the U.S. government. In 1938, Chambers claimed, he rejected Communism and began his crusade against it. He wasn’t alone in that crusade—1938 was also the year the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was created “to investigate disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens and organizations suspected of having Communist ties.” HUAC could subpoena any American to testify, and in 1948, it called in Chambers. The former Soviet spy accused Alger Hiss, a former State Department official, of also being a Soviet spy, and he produced evidence: a hollowed-out pumpkin stuffed with 35-mm film wrapped in waxed paper. Chambers’s claim that the film contained State Department documents delivered to him by Hiss helped to convict Hiss of perjury (though not of espionage) and launched HUAC on a Communist witch hunt that didn’t truly end until the committee was disbanded by Congress in 1975.
Tall tale: Since 1960 the average American male has gained 2 inches in height.
What was on the film? In 1975, through the Freedom of Information Act, Hiss got a look at the contents of the pumpkin: one roll of blank film and two other rolls “so innocuous” they would have been “useless for espionage purposes.” During the Hiss trial, Chambers repeatedly changed his testimony. “Lying comes easy to you,” said Hiss’s attorney. “I believe so,” Chambers replied.
Recipient: San Francisco Superv
isor Harvey Milk (awarded posthumously in 2009)
Awarded by: Barack Obama
Contribution: Being an advocate for gay civil rights as the first openly gay politician elected in a major American city. “Milk encouraged lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens to live their lives openly and believed coming out was the only way they could achieve social equality,” said the White House.
Controversy: The response was fast and furious, and it came largely from Randy Thomasson, president of conservative policy watchdog group Save California. He called Milk a “sexual predator” who was “undeserving of the medal.” On the other end of the spectrum, entertainment publicist Jim Strzalkowski thought Milk deserved the honor, but said it was “too little, too late.” Strzalkowski went on to point out that such honors might be more valuable to the living. (Milk was assassinated in November 1978.) “Harvey Milk is dead,” said Strzalkowski. “And there are plenty of gays suffering around the country today who need to be honored.”
Official color of the ribbon on the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom: “Freedom Blue.”
Recipient: CIA Director George Tenet (2004)
Awarded by: George W. Bush
Contribution: Playing a pivotal role in events that “made our country more secure and advanced the cause of human liberty”
Controversy: Tenet was head of the Central Intelligence Agency during the September 11, 2001, attacks and was also key in providing the intelligence that led to the United States sending troops to Iraq in 2003. In his 2004 book Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward reported on a meeting in which Tenet advised President Bush about the case for Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. “George, how confident are you?” asked the president. Tenet replied, “Don’t worry, it’s a slam dunk.”
Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader) Page 37