Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Most commonly used languages on the Internet: English, Japanese, and Spanish.

  WOODEN YOU KNOW

  Uncle John may never see...a thing as splendid as a tree—except for this article full of tree facts.

  •In 2002 Luis H. Carrasco of Santiago, Chile, produced the world’s only five-fruited tree after grafting different species onto a single tree. The fruits: apricots, cherries, nectarines, plums, and peaches.

  •In memory of his wife Rachel, President Andrew Jackson planted a sapling on the White House lawn, grown from a seed from her favorite magnolia tree. Look on the back of an old $20 bill: It’s the tree covering the left side of the White House.

  •The slowest-growing tree in the world: a white cedar in the Canadian Great Lakes region. It grew to a height of four inches and weighed only 17 grams (0.6 oz.) after 155 years.

  •Studies have shown that viewing scenery of trees can speed up the recovery time of hospital patients, reduce stress levels in the workplace, and increase employee productivity.

  •More than a million acres of land worldwide (and 100,000 people) are used for growing Christmas trees.

  •Native to Malaysia, the cauliflorous jackfruit yields the largest fruit grown on a tree—almost three feet long and 75 pounds (and it’s edible).

  •In a single day a tree can transpire 100 gallons of water through its leaves, creating a cooling process equivalent to five window air conditioners running 20 hours a day.

  •The desert baobab tree can store up to 35,000 gallons of water in its trunk.

  •Have you ever come across an old pecan tree that bends down to the ground and then turns upward? The Comanche were nomadic Plains Indians who marked their campsites by bending a pecan sapling and tying it to the ground. The last known specimen died in 2003, but there may be more, undiscovered.

  •Because they constantly produce new wood to thwart decay, yew trees can live to be 4,000 years old. With such an amazing regenerative ability, scientists theorize that there is no reason for yew to die.

  A large tree can have as many as 400,000 leaves.

  THE CIA’S FIRST COUP, PART III

  Here’s the third and final installment of the story of the 1953 coup in Iran. (Part II is on page 303.)

  IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED...

  Where was CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt when all of this was happening? When the coup fell apart, he met with General Zahedi at his hiding place north of Tehran. Comparing notes, they realized that they still might have a chance to pull it off. They still had the shah’s signed decrees firing Mossadegh and appointing Zahedi prime minister. If they could go public with the document and get the shah to broadcast an address to the country, they could paint Mossadegh as the usurper and possibly drive him from power.

  Roosevelt returned to the CIA station in Tehran and arranged for Iranian newspapers to publish the details of the decree. CIA headquarters cabled Roosevelt and told him to get out of the country, but Roosevelt cabled back, telling them that he wanted to stay a little longer, because there was “a slight remaining chance of success.”

  Roosevelt staged a mob drama on the streets of Tehran over the next few days. While his contacts in the Iranian military went from barracks to barracks recruiting pro-shah officers to participate in a second coup attempt, other Iranian agents worked the slums of Tehran, hiring thugs to form the nucleus of a pro-Mossadegh mob that would take to the streets on Monday, August 17, and again on Tuesday. This mob was instructed to riot—Roosevelt wanted them to smash storefronts, overturn cars, topple statues of the shah and his father, and even attack innocent bystanders. They were to do all of this, Roosevelt instructed, while shouting slogans praising Mossadegh and Communism.

  ACT 1

  The pro-Mossadegh mob hit the streets on Monday. As they marched through Tehran, many sincere Mossadegh supporters joined the crowd to show their support, swelling the ranks until tens of thousands of people were on the march. After two days of rioting, the American ambassador, who was in on the plot, paid a visit to Mossadegh to complain (falsely) that the protesters were targeting Americans—especially embassy staff—with violence, threats, and abuse. Mossadegh, who believed in freedom of assembly and had been inclined to let the demonstrations continue, fell for the ruse and ordered the police to start cracking down. He also issued a decree banning any further public demonstrations, and phoned his political allies and told them to keep their people home.

  The name originally considered for the TV show Friends was Insomnia Café.

  Meanwhile, the CIA’s Iranian agents were out on the streets of Tehran passing out thousands of copies of the shah’s decrees. The CIA also planted fake stories in Iranian newspapers claiming that Mossadegh was behind the first coup, and had attempted to kick the shah off the throne and seize it for himself. This, combined with two days of rioting by supposed Mossadegh supporters, cast doubt on Mossadegh’s legitimacy and made him, in the eyes of many, a symbol of chaos.

  ACT 2

  On Wednesday, Roosevelt called out his second group of paid demonstrators. This time he instructed the crowd to support the shah and to behave peaceably. Instead of engaging in random violence, they were only supposed to vandalize the newspapers and offices that supported Mossadegh. The ban on public demonstrations was still in place, but because this crowd was seen as being the public’s nonviolent response to two days of rioting by an angry mob, the police did not disperse it.

  Just as the first mob had, this one attracted many thousands of sincere Iranians who either supported the shah or were just outraged by the anarchy of the previous two days. Mossadegh’s supporters honored his request to stay home, so few were in the streets to support him. No one, probably not even the paid demonstrators, realized they were being manipulated by the CIA.

  ACT 3

  As these demonstrators were marching in Tehran, Roosevelt sent his pro-shah Army officers and troops into action. They seized the main squares and other key points in the city, including the radio station, which began announcing that Mossadegh had already been deposed and arrested, even as troops were still marching on his house to do just that.

  Most successful year ever at U.S. movie theaters: 1947.

  The battle at Mossadegh’s house lasted for more than nine hours, ending only when his forces ran out of ammunition and Mossadegh himself escaped over the back wall of his garden. He surrendered the next evening and was taken into custody.

  FINALE

  •Mossadegh spent 10 weeks in a military prison and then was hauled before a military tribunal and tried for treason. He was found guilty and served three years in prison. He lived the rest of his life under house arrest, with only family and close friends allowed to visit him. He died from throat cancer in March 1967.

  •Even though the goal of the coup was to restore Anglo-Iranian’s concession, the company was so despised that after the shah regained the throne he could not risk it. Instead, an international consortium of foreign oil companies was set up to administer the concession together. Anglo-Iranian was reduced to a 40% stake, and the remaining 60% of the consortium’s shares were split between five American oil companies, one French oil company, and Royal Dutch/Shell.

  In a final slap at Mossadegh, the foreign-owned, foreign-controlled consortium took the name of the company that he had created when Anglo-Iranian’s assets were nationalized in 1951: the National Iranian Oil Company.

  So how Iranian was the new National Iranian Oil Company? Not very—from now on profits would be split with Iran on a 50/50 basis, but just like before, Iranians were not allowed on the board of directors and were not allowed to audit company books.

  Mohammed Reza Shah returned to the throne determined never to let anyone threaten his power again. He abolished opposition parties and set up a one-party state, and reinforced his rule by beefing up the military and police. With the help of the CIA, he also established his own secret police force, SAVAK. As the years passed, his rule became more autocratic and corrupt, causing oppositi
on to grow steadily in the 1960s and 1970s. In January 1979, he was swept from power by Islamic fundamentalists.

  On average, it would take 18 hummingbirds to weigh in at an ounce.

  WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

  How would Iran be different today, had Mossadegh not been overthrown in 1953? Well, the country might have gradually evolved into a full-fledged democracy, perhaps even becoming a model of freedom for other nations in the Middle East. Then again, Iran was an unstable, oil-rich nation that bordered the USSR. It had an active, growing Communist party with strong ties to the Soviet Union, which had a history of setting up puppet governments in other countries around the world. Joseph Stalin died in March 1953 and was replaced by Nikita Khrushchev, the man who triggered the Cuban missile crisis with the United States in 1962. Would he have been content to leave a weak, unstable oil-rich neighbor alone?

  By overthrowing Mossadegh, the United States may have prevented Iran from developing into a democracy...or it may only have set up a U.S.-sponsored dictatorship in place of a Soviet-sponsored dictatorship, which might have turned out to be even worse. We’ll never know.

  AFTERMATH

  It may not have seemed like it at the time, but the United States was as profoundly affected by the 1953 coup as Iran:

  The CIA

  The CIA was only six years old in 1953, and the coup in Iran was its very first attempt to overthrow a foreign government from behind the scenes. The coup’s astonishing success inspired the CIA to attempt similar coups in other countries, including Guatemala in 1954, the Congo in 1960, Cuba (the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion) in 1961, and Chile in 1973.

  Foreign Policy

  In the early 1950s the United States was seen in many parts of the world as opposing colonialism and supporting the nationalist ambitions of developing countries. (The United States had fought for its independence from England, after all.) But the CIA coups, along with the Vietnam War, gradually turned world opinion against the United States. America came to be seen as a country that would support oppressive dictatorships over democracy whenever dictatorships suited its interests.

  The cornea is the only body part with no blood supply. It gets oxygen directly from the air.

  Middle East Conflicts

  •After 1953 the United States replaced Great Britain as the shah’s most important sponsor. Result: Opponents of the shah’s regime turned against the United States. The shah was deposed in January 1979, and when he traveled to the United States for cancer treatment the following October, Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, seized the Americans inside, and held them hostage for 444 days. Whatever hope there was for an improvement in relations between America and revolutionary Iran evaporated when Iran’s new leader, Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, refused to release the hostages until the shah returned to Iran.

  •Iran’s neighbor, Iraq, tried to capitalize on the chaos that followed the Iranian revolution by invading in 1980. The United States sided with Saddam Hussein, providing weapons, intelligence, and economic assistance.

  •The war raged for eight years, devastating the economies of both countries, before it finally ended in a stalemate. Hussein borrowed more than $14 billion from Kuwait to help finance the war, and a dispute over repayment was one of the major pretexts for his invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, in turn, led to the Gulf War between the United States and Iraq in 1991.

  9/11

  The Islamic fundamentalist state that was set up in Iran following the revolution of 1979 supported Islamic terrorist groups around the world. It also served as an inspiration to Muslim extremists all over the world, including Afghanistan, where Muslim fundamentalists known as the Taliban established a similar theocratic state in 1996.

  The Taliban, in turn, hosted Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden as he planned his attack on the United States that took place on September 11, 2001. “It is not far-fetched,” historian Stephen Kinzer writes in All the Shah’s Men, “to draw a line from Operation Ajax through the shah’s repressive regime and the Islamic Revolution to the fireballs that engulfed the World Trade Center in New York.”

  “There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.”

  —President Harry S Truman

  At last count, there are more than 100 known planets outside of our solar system.

  FAMOUS FOR 15 MINUTES

  Here it is—our feature based on Andy Warhol’s prophetic remark that “in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” Here’s how a few people have used up their allotted quarter hour.

  THE STARS: Tom Anderson, 24, a bartender and his fiancée, Sabrina Root, 33, a hair stylist

  THE HEADLINE: Here Comes the Bride...Inc.

  WHAT HAPPENED: Anderson and Root wanted a big wedding, but couldn’t afford to pay for it. At the time Anderson was trying to start an animation company. “It occurred to me that a startup company and a startup couple both need launch money,” he said. So Anderson devised a marketing plan and hit the bricks, asking 80 different companies to sponsor his wedding. In return, he offered to plug their businesses six times: 1) in the invitation, 2) in a newspaper ad, 3) at the buffet table, 4) at each dinner table, 5) in a speech after the toast, and 6) in the thank-you cards the couple would send to their guests. “I made them realize that for the few hundred dollars they were putting in, they were going to get a ton of exposure,” Anderson said.

  Of the 80 companies he approached, 24 said yes. In all, they chipped in $30,000 worth of goods and services, while Anderson and his fiancée only paid about $4,000 out of their own pockets.

  AFTERMATH: The story was picked up by news wire services and even got them invited onto The Oprah Winfrey Show. The publicity inspired cash-strapped couples in Ohio, Florida, and other states to copy the idea, and at least one company has sprung up to advise engaged couples on corporate sponsorship. (Note: They don’t donate their services—you have to pay for it.)

  THE STAR: Ashley Revell, 32, a professional poker player

  THE HEADLINE: High-Stakes High Jinks: Batty Brit Bets It All

  WHAT HAPPENED: In early 2004, Revell decided to sell all of his possessions and bet all the money he made on a single spin of a Las Vegas roulette wheel. Over the next several weeks, Revell sold everything—his car, furniture, jewelry, and clothes—and raised more than $135,000. Then he flew to Las Vegas, went up to the roulette wheel at the Plaza Hotel and Casino, bet it all on red...and won! He walked out of the casino $135,000 richer. (Had he lost, he would have owned nothing, not even the clothes on his back—he was wearing a rented tuxedo.)

  Termite mounds can grow to up to 20 feet high.

  AFTERMATH: Revell became a celebrity in England when British TV made his story into a documentary called Double or Nothing. About the only thing he didn’t accomplish was winning his father’s respect. “He’s a naughty boy,” Revell’s dad told a London newspaper. “I tell my kids they shouldn’t gamble. I’ve got four others, and now they’re all going to want to go the same way.”

  THE STAR: Norman Hutchins, 53, of York, England

  THE HEADLINE: Masked Man Makes Hospital History

  WHAT HAPPENED: In January 2004, Hutchins walked into a hospital and explained to a staffer that he was going to a costume party dressed as a doctor. Could he borrow a surgical gown, a mask, and some rubber gloves? The staffer was cooperative at first, but when Hutchins asked her to accompany him into the restroom, she became suspicious and called police.

  The staffer’s suspicions were quickly confirmed. Hutchins was a fetishist with an obsession for surgical clothing. For 15 years, he’d been visiting various English and Welsh hospitals with invented excuses like costume parties, stage plays, animal experiments, and charity “fun runs,” hoping to con hospital staff into giving him masks, gloves, and other attire.

  AFTERMATH: Hutchins had managed to avoid the notice of the National Health Service...until they set up a new computer system and began compiling statistics nationwide. In the first five
months alone, Hutchins racked up 47 different incidents at hospitals all over England. That’s when he made British medical history: in June 2004, he became the first person ever to be banned from every public and private hospital, medical office, and dental office in the country. (He can still get treated for a genuine medical emergency, but if he fakes it, he faces five years in prison.)

  THE STAR: Kimberly Mays, 9, from Florida

  THE HEADLINE: Girl, Switched at Birth, Wants to Stay Switched

  Bestselling video games of all time: Super Mario Bros. (40 million) and Tetris (33 million).

  WHAT HAPPENED: In 1988 a 9-year-old girl named Arlena Twigg died from a heart defect. Tissue samples taken from Arlena revealed something astonishing: she wasn’t related to her biological parents, Ernest and Regina Twigg. How was that possible? The Twiggs began looking for an answer, and their search led them to Kimberly Mays, who’d been born at the same hospital as Arlena, within a few days of Arlena. Genetic test results proved the unthinkable—Arlena and Kimberly had been switched at birth.

  The story made headlines worldwide but probably would have died out quickly if the Mayses and the Twiggs could have come to an agreement on custody and visitation rights. Kimberly’s father, Bob Mays, agreed to give the Twiggs visitation rights at first, but when, after five visits, Kimberly became depressed and her grades started slipping, he reneged. The Twiggs sued and the fight for Kimberly dragged on for five years. Finally a judge ruled that although they were her biological parents, the Twiggs had no parental rights whatsoever.

  AFTERMATH: The long public tug of war between two sets of parents took its toll on Kimberly Mays. Six months after the court decision, she ran away from the Mayses and went to live with the Twiggs. Then she ran away from them. At 18 she got married and gave birth to a son. But she wasn’t taking a chance that what happened to her might happen to him. “I had him right beside me in the hospital,” she says. “All the time.”