Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader@ Read online

  INSIDER TRADING

  In 2008 longtime Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote a piece for the online magazine Slate entitled “How Did I Get Iraq Wrong?” The article was about Cohen’s early support for the war in Iraq and how he eventually came to oppose it. But the piece was especially notable for one paragraph concerning the anthrax attacks of September 2001:

  The attacks were not entirely unexpected. I had been told soon after Sept. 11 to secure Cipro, the antidote to anthrax. The tip had come in a roundabout way from a high government official, and I immediately acted on it. I was carrying Cipro way before most people had ever heard of it.

  Cipro, short for ciprofloxacin, is a powerful antibiotic made specifically to fight bacterial infections. Its name became a household word after the anthrax attacks because it is the drug most often prescribed to treat the disease.

  OH NO, I SAID TOO MUCH…

  Cohen’s seemingly offhand comment raised eyebrows among those who had been following the story of the attacks for seven years. Among their questions: How did a “high government official” know there was a chance of an anthrax attack? Very few people in the U.S. were talking about it before the attacks actually occurred. Was that official questioned by the FBI after the attacks? And, most importantly, if Cohen really had been advised to secure Cipro, why on Earth hadn’t he warned his readers about it? Five people died in the ensuing attacks. Could Cohen or his government connection have helped prevent one or more of them?

  End game: 15% of eBay auctions are won in the last minute of bidding.

  Cohen’s comment is just one of several mysteries surrounding the anthrax attacks of 2001. And because the FBI has officially closed the investigation, most of those mysteries may never be solved.

  THE FIFTH PLAGUE

  The word “anthrax” comes from anthrakis—the Greek word for “coal”—because one form of the disease causes coal-black lesions on the skin. And anthrax itself is nothing new or unnatural—it’s been around for thousands of years. Descriptions of the disease have been found in ancient Greek, Roman, and Indian texts. Some biblical scholars even suggest that the fifth of the “Ten Plagues of Egypt” in the Old Testament—the Plague of Livestock Death—may have been describing an anthrax outbreak.

  Anthrax is caused by Bacillus anthracis, a rod-shaped bacterium found in most parts of the world in the soil, where it feeds on dead and decaying organic matter. When the bacteria use up all the matter and environmental signals tell them that conditions are becoming unfavorable, they have the ability to go into a dormant spore state—forming hard, almost seedlike shells. The bacteria can survive in this state without food and in extremely harsh environments, such as blazing-hot droughts or freezing cold, for decades (possibly even centuries).

  In nature these spores cause periodic anthrax outbreaks among grazing mammals such as deer, cattle, and sheep that ingest them as they eat off the ground. These outbreaks are often weather-related: Wind storms or floods can expose long-buried spores that are then eaten by animals.

  MICRO-TERRORIST

  Most of the bacteria in the Bacillis genus are harmless, but B. anthracis is different: It’s not only deadly to many mammal species (including humans), it uses their own bodies against them in devious fashion.

  To learn how anthrax bacteria trick their victims’

  bodies into helping them multiply and spread—

  and a whole lot more—go to page 267.

  Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig homered in the same game 72 times.

  MEET OMAR

  SHAMSHOON

  If you’ve ever visited the Middle East, you know that when American TV programs are shown on Arab TV, culturally sensitive content is often altered or removed. Turns out some shows aren’t so easy to “Arabize.”

  MUST-SEE TV

  In late 1991, the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) went on the air for the first time. It was the Arab world’s first privately owned, independent satellite TV network, and the first to offer 24 hours of Arabic language television programming free of charge to anyone with a satellite dish.

  Other networks soon sprang up, creating a huge demand for content to fill the airwaves. In the years that followed, countless American TV shows—everything from Friends to The Late Show with David Letterman to Two and a Half Men to MacGyver to Dr. Phil and Oprah—found their way onto these channels, either dubbed into Arabic or broadcast with Arabic subtitles, and with culturally offensive subject matter toned down or removed entirely.

  Shows that appealed to younger audiences were especially popular. In some countries as much as 60 percent of the population was under 20 years of age, and the numbers remain high today. So it was probably inevitable that sooner or later, one of the Arab networks would set its sights on The Simpsons, one of most successful shows in American TV history, and try to bring it to the Middle East. In 2005 MBC did just that.

  HOMER OF ARABIA

  No expense was spared to prepare The Simpsons for the Arab market. The Arab world’s best TV writers were hired to translate episodes into Arabic, and A-list actors and actresses were hired to provide new voices for the characters. To make the show seem less “foreign,” Homer Simpson was renamed Omar Shamshoon, and the show itself was renamed Al Shamshoon—“The Shamshoons.” ( Marge Simpson became Mona Shamshoon, Bart became Badr, and Lisa became Beesa.) Each episode that was selected for translation into Arabic was carefully reviewed to remove anything that might be offensive to Muslims. For example, where Homer Simpson drinks Duff beer (Islam forbids the consumption of alcohol), Omar Shamshoon drinks Duff fruit juice. Homer eats hot dogs (which commonly contain pork, also forbidden) and donuts (which are unfamiliar to most Arabs), but Omar eats Egyptian beef sausage links and khak cookies, which, like donuts, are often made with a hole in the middle.

  A well-trained Gap employee can fold a shirt in 2 seconds flat.

  Not every episode made the cut: Those with strong religious themes were out, as were the ones where the characters spent lots of time drinking beer in Moe’s Tavern. In episodes featuring shorter church and tavern scenes, they’re referred to as a “mosque” and a “coffeehouse.” And Ned Flanders? He became just an annoyingly perfect neighbor, not an annoyingly perfect Christian neighbor.

  As for all that Simpsons-centric dialog like “Don’t have a cow, man!” and “Hi-diddly-ho, neighbors!”…well, the writers just translated as best they could. (“D’oh!” was translated as “D’oh!”)

  NEITHER HERE NOR THERE

  The final product was a confusing mishmash of cultural references, something not really American, not really Arab (Marge Simpson and the other female characters don’t wear veils, for example)…and definitely not The Simpsons. It wasn’t very funny, either, and with all the translations, revisions, and deletions, the storylines could be maddeningly difficult to follow.

  The premiere episode of Al Shamshoon aired in October 2005, on the first night of the holy month of Ramadan—the biggest TV-viewing night of the year. Muslims fast from sunup to sundown during Ramadan, and after the fast is broken with an evening meal, millions of the faithful settle in for a night of watching TV. Though 52 episodes were scheduled to air that month—with MBC looking forward to “Arabizing” all 17 seasons of The Simpsons in the years to come—the series was pulled after only 34 shows. Why? Because not many people tuned in to watch it. Al Shamshoon turned out to be just too strange a show for many viewers, especially in a part of the world where cartoons were still seen as entertainment for children.

  But what really killed Al Shamshoon may have been the very thing that brought it into being in the first place: Satellite TV channels. Arabs with satellite TV dishes can pull in non-Arab stations, and some of these broadcast The Simpsons in all its original, unadulterated glory. (The show is also available on DVD.) Many of the people who tuned in to watch Al Shamshoon were fans of The Simpsons who just wanted to see how badly MBC would botch the job, and after having a few laughs at the network’s expense, they went back to
watching the real thing.

  Out of the 205 bones that make up a horse’s entire body, 80 are in its legs.

  HOME GROWN

  For Arab critics of Al Shamshoon, one of the most frustrating things about the show was knowing that if MBC had just taken a fraction of the money it spent on Al Shamshoon and hired Arab animators to create an entirely new, entirely Arab show from scratch, they might have come up with something funny and engaging that Arabs could understand and call their own.

  Even as Al Shamshoon was falling flat on its face in 2005, work had already begun on just such a show. Freej (“Neighborhood”), a comedy about four grandmothers living in a quiet neighborhood of Dubai, a booming metropolis in the United Arab Emirates, was already in production. Freej was the brainchild of a twenty-something UAE national named Mohammed Saeed Harib, whose first exposure to animated shows came in the late 1990s when he was a student at Boston’s Northeastern University and his dormmates downloaded bootleg episodes of South Park and other shows to watch on their computers. Hareb came up with Um Saeed, the first of his four grandmother characters, while he was still living in the dorm. By 2003 he’d developed a concept for an entire show, which he sold to the satellite channel Sama Dubai.

  FULL CIRCLE

  One year after Al Shamshoon bit the dust, the first episode of Freej aired in the same coveted time slot—the first night of Ramadan. Unlike Al Shamshoon, Freej, the Arab world’s first 3-D animated series, was a hit from the very start. By the time the second season of Freej aired the following year, half of all television viewers in the UAE were tuning in to watch the show. Stay tuned: You may be watching one of these days, too: In 2009 Hareb entered into talks with American media companies to bring his show to the United States. (Until then, you can look for clips on YouTube.)

  Mississippi’s largest “crop”: catfish—the state produces 150,000 tons a year.

  PRODUCT FLOPS

  Don’t try to make your product too new or too improved…or nobody will know what to do with it.

  NOT-SO-INSTANT COFFEE

  Since the 1960s, there have been two ways that most Americans make coffee at home: 1) a standard Mr. Coffee-style coffee maker, and 2) adding hot water to “instant coffee” in a cup. The first way takes about five minutes, and the second takes about three. In 1990 Maxwell House came up with a third option: Maxwell House Brewed Coffee—ready-to-drink coffee in a refrigerated carton. But it had to be heated up, and the foil-lined carton wasn’t microwave-safe, so the coffee had to be poured into another cup and then microwaved, making it no more convenient than coffee-pot coffee or instant coffee. Maxwell House Brewed Coffee lasted less than a year in stores.

  FLAKING OUT

  In 1998 Kellogg’s noticed increased sales for fast-food breakfast items and wanted to get in on it the action. So they introduced Cereal Mates: a package that contained a single-serving box of cereal, a small carton of milk, and a spoon—perfect for a break-fast-on-the-go. Only problem: Grocers didn’t know know where to place it in the store. The milk didn’t need refrigeration, but if they put it in the cereal aisle, consumers might be repulsed by the idea of nonrefrigerated milk. And the dairy case seemed wrong because shoppers wouldn’t look for cereal there. Ultimately, Kellogg’s put Cereal Mates in dairy cases and then spent $30 million on advertising to tell people to “look in the milk section” for the product. It didn’t work; Cereal Mates didn’t last a year. But what ultimately did in this “convenience food” wasn’t its placement. It wasn’t really convenient: You can’t eat a bowl of cereal while you’re driving to work, like you can a Pop Tart or an energy bar.

  SUNDAE WORST

  In 1986 the Johnston Company, a Milwaukee ice-cream topping maker, introduced the Hot Scoop—a hot fudge sundae that was designed to be microwaved for 30 seconds. The ice cream was supposed to stay cold while the fudge heated up, thanks to a strategically placed heat-reflecting lining in the package. It didn’t quite work—microwaves of the ’80s were still full of kinks and their power and quality varied greatly by brand. The end result was that the fudge and ice cream both ended up tepid, instead of hot and cold. The product disappeared from stores by the end of the year. Amazingly, another company, Steve’s Ice Cream, licensed the technology in 1987. Its microwaveable ice-cream sundaes were no more successful than Johnston’s.

  It’s a rat race (guess which rats are winning): If the minimum wage had risen as fast as the salaries of CEOs, the lowest-paid worker would make $23 per hour.

  INTERNUTS

  When General Magic launched WebTV in 1995, it was predicted to be the technology that would launch the “Information Superhighway,” combining TV and the burgeoning World Wide Web into an entertainment juggernaut. Consumers wouldn’t have to buy a $1,500 computer to surf the Internet—they’d just plug the WebTV console into a television. Microsoft execs thought it was such a sure thing that they bought WebTV for $425 million in 1997, when the service had only 58,000 customers. (That’s more than $7,300 per customer.) Subscribers did use WebTV (rebranded as MSN TV) to surf the Internet and send e-mail, but did not, as Microsoft had hoped, create any revenue beyond their monthly $20 service fee. Microsoft incorrectly assumed that WebTV users would click on online ads or shop online (from which Microsoft would get a cut). Not only that, they actually cost Microsoft money in tech support. WebTV had so effectively courted technology-phobes that those customers became its bane, with more than 10,000 calls daily to tech support. WebTV peaked in 1998 with around 500,000 customers, but then began a slow and steady decline. The service and boxes still exist, but there are only a few thousand WebTV/MSN TV subscribers left. And Microsoft has stopped selling boxes to new subscribers.

  “Kickboxing is my favorite sport. It combines the grace and elegance of boxing…with kicking.”

  —Norm MacDonald

  WELCOME TO DRUK YUL

  Isn’t it odd that we call Germany “Germany,” while people who live there call it “Deutschland”? Here’s what we should be calling some other countries.

  HUNGARY: Magyarorszag (my-uh-YORR-sag)

  SWEDEN: Sverige (SVERR-ee-uh)

  POLAND: Polska (POLE-skuh)

  JAPAN: Nippon (nee-PON)

  IRELAND: Éire (AIR-uh)

  GREENLAND: Kalaallit Nunaat (kuh-LAH-leet noo-NAHT)

  WALES: Cymru (CUMM-ree)

  ESTONIA: Eesti (ESS-tee)

  CROATIA: Hrvatska (kurr-VOT-skuh)

  FINLAND: Suomi (soo-OH-mee)

  GREECE: Ellas (ELL-us)

  NEW ZEALAND, in Maori: Aotearoa (AH-tee-air-oh-ah)

  CAMBODIA: Kampuchea (kam-poo-CHEE-uh)

  SOUTH KOREA: Hanguk (hahn-GUHK)

  NORTH KOREA: Choson (cho-SAHN)

  BHUTAN: Druk Yul (druk yool)

  THAILAND: Ratcha Anachak Thai (RAW-tcha ah-NAH-chak tai)

  ALBANIA: Shqiperia (shkee-PAH-ree-uh)

  GEORGIA: Sakartvelo (sak-ART-vuh-low)

  ARMENIA: Hayastan (HI-uh-stahn)

  MALDIVES: Dhivehi Raajje (duh-VEH-ehh rah-JEE)

  MOROCCO: Al-Maghrib (all-muh-GRIB)

  BELGIUM, in Dutch: Belgie (bell-GEH)

  …in French: Belgique (bell-JEEK)

  …in German: Belgien (bell-GEE-in)

  (Belgium has three official languages.)

  Fat chance: If you’re 5'6" and weigh over 165 lbs., you can become a Sumo wrestler.

  THE LOST EXPLORERS:

  MUNGO PARK

  Veni, vidi…evanui! (I came, I saw…I vanished!) Here’s the first article in a series on bold, intrepid explorers…who never returned.

  THE WILD ROVER

  Mungo Park was barely 22 years old when he left England for Sumatra in 1792 and discovered seven new species of fish. Three years later, Park ventured from the west coast of Africa into the unknown Saharan interior to become the first European to reach the Niger River and trace its course for more than 300 miles. Imprisoned by a Senegalese chieftain for four months, he escaped with only a horse and compass and somehow found his way back to the safety
of the coast. Upon returning to England, he chronicled his adventures in Travels in the Interior of Africa, which secured his reputation as the boldest explorer of his time. Any other man might have rested on his laurels, spent his royalties (his book was a bestseller), and enjoyed life as a country squire with his wife and children. Not Mungo Park. He had the “itch”—a compulsion to wander. So when the British crown asked him to lead another expedition into the Sahara, he jumped at the chance.

  RIVER OF NO RETURN

  On January 31, 1805, Mungo Park and a company of 40 men sailed from Portsmouth, England, disembarked in Gambia in western Africa, and set off overland. By the time they reached the Niger River months later, only 11 men remained; fever and dysentery had killed the rest. Undaunted, they began building a 40-foot boat in which to sail down the unexplored stretch of the river to its mouth. Park dubbed the ship the HMS Joliba, after the native name for the river. On November 19, more than 10 months after leaving England, Park’s party, now reduced to two officers, three enlisted men, three slaves, and a local guide named Isaaco, pushed off and headed downstream. Before leaving, Park sent Isaaco back to Gambia with a pack of letters to be taken home by ship. To his superiors at the Colonial Office, he wrote: “I shall discover the termination of the Niger or perish in the attempt.” It was the last anyone ever heard from him.

  England has banned bagpipes twice: in 1560 and 1746. (They were considered tools of war.)

  WHERE’D HE GO?

  When enough time passed to convince British officials that something had gone amiss with the expedition, they made sporadic attempts to find Mungo Park, even hiring Park’s guide, Isaaco, to go back to the Niger to look for him. But aside from various rumors—Park had been killed by bandits, he’d been kidnapped by slave traders, he’d gone mad and run off to live in the desert like a monk—nothing conclusive was uncovered. Then in 1810, Isaaco returned with a dramatic report of the explorer’s death. Park and his companions, he said, had run the course of the Niger for more than 1,000 miles, fighting off hostile tribal attacks the entire way. Their luck ran out at the Bussa Rapids near the Guinea coast. The tribute Park intended for the local king was stolen by a go-between, and when the Joliba ran aground on a rock, the angry monarch sent his warriors to collect his toll. Unable to free the boat, and under a constant hail of arrows and spears, the desperate Englishmen (only Park and three others were left) jumped into the raging rapids and drowned. When pressed for proof, Isaaco admitted he had nothing to back up his story except hearsay.