Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader)

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  During the 1890s temperance movement, marijuana was a recommended substitute for alcohol.

  SILVER MEDAL SHOCKER, PART III

  We forget, when we’re watching the Olympics in our living room with a bowl of cereal in our laps, that it’s more than the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. It’s politics, too. Here’s Part III of the story—some background and postscripts to the ’72 Munich Olympics. (Part II is on page 303.)

  MUNICH AND BEYOND

  Every Olympics has its share of stories: goals reached, hopes dashed, medals won and lost. But the 1972 Munich games went far beyond athletics. What happened there became part of world history. Here are a few significant facts:

  • The 1972 Summer Olympics took place under a terrible pall. On September 5, members of a Palestinian terrorist organization calling itself Black September scaled the walls of the Olympic Village, where the athletes were housed. They took 11 Israelis hostage—five athletes, four coaches, one judge, and one referee—and demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange. By the time the siege ended, all 11 Israelis and one German policeman had been killed. “Each time that I feel sorry for myself that we don’t have that gold medal,” said U.S. basketball team captain Kenny Davis, “I think about those Israeli kids that they took out of there in caskets.”

  • After the massacre, the Americans and most of the other athletes attended a memorial service for the Israelis. Russian athletes did not. “Russia didn’t recognize Israel and did not attend the services,” said U.S. basketball forward Mike Bantom. “They practiced. It did not affect their concentration.”

  • Every year since 1976, Ankie Spitzer, widow of slain Israeli fencing coach Andre Spitzer, has asked the International Olympic Committee for a moment of silence at the opening ceremonies to honor the murdered Israelis. Every year since 1976, the IOC has refused her request.

  • The 2012 Summer Olympics in London seemed to many to be the perfect time to remember the Israeli athletes who had fallen 40 years before. More than 150,000 people from over 100 countries signed a petition asking for a moment of silence at the opening ceremonies. U.S. President Barack Obama endorsed the petition, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged the IOC to grant the petition. It was denied.

  The world’s heaviest turkey weighed 86 lb. and was about the size of a German Shepherd.

  • Scoring in a number of events at the Munich Olympics seemed to show bias from Communist judges. Results in gymnastics, wrestling, boxing, shooting, and diving had already been disputed before the final men’s basketball match.

  • The Soviet sports program peaked with the Munich Olympics. The USSR won 50 gold medals, compared with 29 in Mexico City in 1968.

  • The foreman of the jury that gave the basketball win to the Soviet team was Ferenc Hepp, a Hungarian who was said to have “loathed” the Soviet Union because of their 1956 invasion of his country. The great suffering of the Hungarian people and murder of family members made it unlikely that he showed favoritism to the Soviet team.

  • Aleksandr Belov, the Soviet player who scored the winning basket, died from a rare disease—cardiac sarcoma—just six years after the 1972 games. The 26-year-old basketball hero was buried with his gold medal around his neck.

  • The 12 players from the 1972 USA Men’s Basketball Team Olympic squad had not been together as a group since the Munich games. In August 2012, the squad held a reunion at Kentucky’s Georgetown College to mark their game’s 40th anniversary.

  * * *

  BONK!

  From the “News That Sounds Like Satire” Department: “Britain’s first ‘Safe Text’ street has been created in London complete with padded lampposts to protect mobile phone users from getting hurt in street accidents while walking and texting.”

  —Daily Mail, 2008

  It is possible to sneeze hard enough to fracture a rib.

  WORDS TO LIVE BY

  Some quotations about living life so it matters.

  “There is only one quality worse than hardness of heart, and that is softness of head.”

  —Theodore Roosevelt

  “You can’t get spoiled if you do your own ironing.”

  —Meryl Streep

  “All glory comes from daring to begin.”

  —Eugene Ware

  “The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.”

  —Robert Frost

  “Live so you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.”

  —Will Rogers

  “Humility does not mean you think less of yourself. It means you think of yourself less.”

  —Kenneth Blanchard

  “Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.”

  —Bob Marley

  “The man who is brutally honest generally enjoys the brutality almost as much as the honesty.”

  —Richard J. Needham

  “The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”

  —Samuel Johnson

  “You never really learn much from hearing yourself talk.”

  —George Clooney

  “Never mistake motion for action.”

  —Ernest Hemingway

  “Don’t say that you want to give, but go ahead and give. You’ll never catch up with a mere hope.”

  —Johann von Goethe

  “Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.”

  —Babe Ruth

  “It is better to wear out than to rust out.”

  —Richard Cumberland

  “The truth is, you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed.”

  —Eminem

  “If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it.”

  —Jonathan Winters

  Something about the letter Z? Zookeepers are bitten more by zebras than by any other animal.

  TOTALLY 21ST CENTURY

  New words don’t automatically make it into a dictionary. First a word has to catch on with the public, then experts have to agree that it has “lasting potential” and “cultural significance.” Here are some words that have been added to dictionaries since the year 2000. Lasting potential? You decide.

  Mankini: A brief one-piece bathing garment for men, with a T-back

  Breatharian: A person who believes that it’s possible, through meditation, to reach a level of consciousness where one can obtain all the nutrients one needs from the air

  LARPing: Live-action role-playing games during which participants portray characters through physical action, often in costume and with props

  Sheeple: People who, like sheep, are docile, foolish, or easily led

  Middlebrow: Books, movies, music, and art that are good but don’t require a lot of thinking to understand

  Terminator gene: A gene in a genetically modified crop plant that stops the plant from setting fertile seed, thus preventing the farmer from saving seed for the next season

  Slactivism: Using the Internet to support a political or social cause, which requires no time or involvement other than signing an online petition, joining a campaign group, or clicking “like” on Facebook

  Upcycling: To reuse discarded objects or material in such a way as to create a product of higher quality or value than the original

  Blamestorming: A method of collectively finding someone to blame for a mistake no one is willing to confess to. Often occurs in the form of a meeting of colleagues at work, gathered to decide who is to blame for a screw up.

  Robin Hood tax: Any tax aimed toward redistribution of resources in order to achieve greater social equality, such as taxes on transactions made by financial institutions

  Chillax: To calm down and relax

  Then it’s all downhill: Your brain stops growing at about age 18.

  Bridezilla: A woman whose behavior in planning her wedding is regarded as obsessive or intolerably demanding

  Gazillionai
re: An extremely rich person

  Precycling: The practice of seeking to reduce consumer waste by avoiding prepackaged goods, buying only reusable or recyclable products, using one’s own shopping bags, etc.

  Meatspace: The physical world (as opposed to cyberspace)

  Twitterati: Avid or frequent users of the social networking site Twitter

  Cyberslacking: Using your employer’s Internet and email facilities for personal activities during working hours

  Ego-surfing: Searching the Internet for mentions of your own name or links to your own website

  Globesity: The worldwide epidemic of obesity, a term coined by the World Health Organization in 2001

  Sandwich generation: A generation of people, typically in their 30s or 40s, responsible for both bringing up their own children and caring for their aging parents

  Brain candy: Broadly appealing, undemanding entertainment which is not intellectually stimulating.

  Crowdsourcing: To canvass suggestions from the general public before adopting a course of action

  * * *

  TOY STORY STORY

  • The working title of the 1995 movie was You Are a Toy.

  • The first draft of the script was about a tin toy named Tinny getting lost and trying to find his way home, eventually ending up at a preschool. (That became the plot of Toy Story 3.)

  • Buzz Lightyear was initially going to be named Lunar Larry.

  • A rough, early cut had to be entirely scrapped when studio executives thought Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) was too mean and sarcastic. The script was completely rewritten.

  • Jim Carrey was the first choice to voice Buzz Lightyear. Billy Crystal was the second choice. (Tim Allen got the job.)

  Richard Strauss’s 1905 opera Salome was banned by the Metropolitan Opera (too naughty).

  THE WORLD’S GREAT MARKETS AND BAZAARS

  After world traveler and BR writer Thom Little sent us these descriptions of the morst colorful marketplaces on Earth, Uncle John went to his local supermarket…and sighed.

  DJEMA el-FNA (Marrakech, Morocco)

  Details: Djemaa el-Fna is the name of an area in the walled section of this ancient North African desert city and it’s been the home of an outdoor market for more than 1,000 years. Today, it’s actually several souks—Arabic for “market”—overlapping and extending into the mazelike alleys around the city center. Food stands that sell fresh-squeezed orange juice, fresh olives, kebabs, and other local delicacies line the alleyways, mixed with jugglers, musicians, storytellers, and merchants hawking rugs, spices, brass-work, and more. (Djemaa el-Fna roughly translates to “the Mosque at the End of the World.”)

  Highlight: The snake charmers. Every morning there are dozens of them performing with live cobras at Djema el-Fna.

  PLAKA MARKET (Athens, Greece)

  Details: Plaka is a neighborhood located in the shadow of the city’s famed Acropolis. In the 1970s, the nightclubs it was known for began to close and merchants began to move in. Today it’s jam-packed with cafes, restaurants, museums, and thousands of shops and streetside stalls. The market is especially known for embroidered fabrics, amber jewelry, and musical instruments. Bonus: No cars allowed. It’s all foot traffic.

  Highlight: Every Sunday (for the last 110 years) the Monastariki Flea Market takes place just a few streets away—a great place to find antiques, backgammon sets, religious icons, etc.

  MARCHÉ BASTILLE (Paris, France)

  Details: If you want to see if you can enjoy slowly eating yourself to death over the course of one day, this is the place for you. It’s all food, laid out in the most brightly-colored, eye- nose- and mouth-watering way imaginable over two city blocks in Paris’s historic 11th Arrondissement (near the former Bastille prison). On display: fresh breads, pastries, pies, cakes, crepes, cheeses; fish mongers with tables full of iced fresh fish; rotisserie chickens; huge slabs of lamb and pork; sausages and patés; jams, pastes, fruits, and vegetables; ethnic sections with Mediterranean, African, and Arab dishes; and wine after wine after wine.

  Women’s magazines have 10 times more weight-loss ads and articles than men’s magazines do.

  Highlights: The market is open two days a week (Thursday and Sunday), so you have a few days to recover before your next visit.

  IZMAILOVSKY SOUVENIR MARKET (Moscow, Russia)

  Details: Only in existence since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1994, this market is already world-famous, located amid the architecture of Moscow’s Izmailovsky district. Some standout items include handmade Persian rugs, chess sets, mammoth tusk carvings, handmade samovars, Soviet memorabilia—and stalls full of those famous nesting Matreshka dolls (where one fits into another into another and so on).

  Highlight: The market is right next to the Izmailovo Kremlin, a fantastically gaudy structure full of shops and museums. Among them: The History of Vodka Museum. (Samples available!)

  STONE TOWN MARKET (Zanzibar City, Tanzania)

  Details: Located on Unguja, an island off the East African coast, the city is divided into two parts: the new section and Stone Town (or Mji Mkongwe—Swahili for “old town”). Step into Stone Town, a mix of Swahili, Arab, Portuguese, and Indian influences, and you’re immediately in a dense maze of streets (most too narrow for cars) full of bikes, scooters, donkeys, and people. This is the Stone Town Market. There are thousands of stalls lining these ancient streets, and it’s not just for tourists: Locals come to the market to buy household goods, used clothes, tools, and food, including fruits, grains, vegetables, spices, and lots of seafood, fresh-caught from the Indian Ocean.

  Lowlight: The Anglican Cathedral. It’s right in the heart of Stone Town, built at the site of the Zanzibar Slave Market, the last legal slave market in history. (Slaves were sold there until the 1890s.) The site includes the windowlesss stone cellars where captives were held before being brought above ground to be sold.

  Pres. James Monroe once chased his Secretary of State from the White House with fire tongs.

  CHATUCHAK WEEKEND MARKET (Bangkok, Thailand)

  Details: This is one of the world’s largest outdoor markets. It covers more than 30 acres, has more than 5,000 stalls, and sees more than 200,000 visitors every weekend. Located in central Bangkok, it’s crowded, fast-paced, loud, chaotic, hot, and full of exotic people, sights, scents, sounds, and stuff. New sneakers? They’ve got ‘em. Electronics? They’ve got ’em. Baby squirrels? They’ve got ’em. (We don’t know why, but they do.)

  Highlight: Look for a restaurant run by a former Thai Airways stewardess, known for its yellow curries, sweet and sour soups, and “pork & egg in five spice and coconut juice.”

  BRIMFIELD FLEA MARKET (Brimfield, Massachusetts)

  Details: An auctioneer named Gordon Reid decided he wanted to start an antiques market, so he invited dealers to set up tables in his back yard. That was in 1959. The Brimfield Flea Market now consists of 22 separate flea markets ranging in size from 15 dealers to more than 1,000, sprawling on either side of Brimfield’s Main Street. It’s one of America’s largest flea markets, with more than a million buyers rummaging for treasure every year.

  Highlights: Antiques—all kinds of antiques, and lots of them, especially furniture. And Gordon Reid’s daughters Jill and Judy still run the market their father started in 1959. And the food court has lobster. (It’s New England!)

  TSUKIJI FISH MARKET (Tokyo, Japan)

  Details: Prepare yourself—this place has a distinct odor: It’s the largest wholesale seafood market on the planet. Want to see buyers yelling and arguing and bidding on a single tuna that may end up selling for several hundred thousand dollars? This is the place. Located both indoors and out, the Tsukiji market sells $15.5 million worth of seafood every day. But don’t worry—it’s not just for wholesalers. There’s an entire section for average consumers, with an enormous variety of fresh seafood, fruits, and veggies. Maximum number of bidders allowed at the tuna auctions: 120 per day. So get to the “Fish Information Center” by 5:00 a.m
.

  Highlight: Sushi breakfast. There are sushi restaurants both inside and outside at Tsukiji market. Afficianados claim they have the best sushi you can get anywhere in the world.

  Food for thought: 41% of Americans say farming as a career has “very great prestige.”

  THE SOUND OF MOVIES

  Here are some fun things to listen for next time you see these films.

  JURASSIC PARK (1993)

  We Hear: The T-rex roaring and huffing as it chases a Jeep

  Actual Sound: The vocalizations of a whale, lion, alligator, elephant, and koala

  THE MATRIX (1999)

  We Hear: The “Matrix Code” scrolling rapidly across the screen

  Actual Sound: Raindrops hitting a window, sped up and digitized

  APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)

  We Hear: The film’s star, Martin Sheen, narrating his lines

  Actual Sound: Sheen’s younger brother, Joe Estevez—whose voice sounds nearly identical—was brought in a year later to record additional narration because Sheen was too busy on his next film.