Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader (12 page)

• WINDOW TAX.
Pitt the Younger also tried a chimney tax, but found that windows were easier to count. People paid the tax based on the number of windows in their home. Result: a lot of boarded-up windows.

• LONG-DISTANCE TAX.
On June 30, 2006, the U.S. Treasury Department stopped collecting a 3% federal excise tax on long-distance calls—familiar to billpayers as one of a list of taxes tacked onto every phone bill. The purpose of the tax? To help pay for the Spanish-American war…in 1898. Phone service was so rare at the time that the tax was intended to impact only the wealthiest Americans. But the tax persisted long after the war ended, and virtually every American household ended up paying it. “It’s not often you get to kill a tax,” Treasury Secretary John Snow said after the tax was repealed, “particularly one that goes back so far in history.” Taxpayers can file for a refund for the last three years the tax existed…but not for the previous 105. (Note: There’s still a 3% excise tax on
local
phone calls.)

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Eyes are of little use if the mind is blind. —
Arab proverb

Cheaper than a babysitter? 56% of American kids ages 8–16 have a TV in their bedroom.

IF ELECTED, I PROMISE TO…

Sometimes politicians come up with strange campaign promises. It rarely gets them elected, but it does make for good bathroom reading
.

P
OLITICIAN:
Andrew Uitvlugt, running for mayor of Kelowna, British Columbia, in 2005
PROMISE:
Free crack cocaine for anyone who volunteers to pick up trash

BACKGROUND:
Uitvlugt’s reasoning: the town had too many crack addicts and too few garbage collectors. So why not let the crack addicts pick up the trash? The work, said Uitvlugt, would be so satisfying that they wouldn’t even want the crack anymore. (He also proposed moving all of the city’s homeless people to the local landfill, where they could learn to manufacture products out of the trash.)

RESULT:
Uitvlugt lost (he finished fourth out of five candidates).

POLITICIAN:
Silvio Berlusconi, Italian prime minister, running for reelection in 2006

PROMISE:
To abstain from sex until after the election

BACKGROUND:
At a campaign rally in February, Berlusconi was blessed by Massimiliano Pusceddu, a famous Italian televangelist, who congratulated the conservative prime minister for his strong stance on “family values.” To show his appreciation for the blessing, the 70-year-old Berlusconi, who is married to actress Veronica Lario, proclaimed, “Thank you, dear Father Massimiliano, I will try not to let you down and I promise you two and a half months of complete sexual abstinence until the election.”

RESULT:
No word on whether Berlusconi kept his promise, but he lost the election.

POLITICIAN:
Jackie Wagstaff, who calls herself “J-Dub,” running for mayor of Durham, North Carolina, in 2005

PROMISE:
To form a “hip-hop cabinet” full of “streetwise teens”

Napoleon’s favorite horse was named Marengo; George Washington’s was named Lexington.

BACKGROUND:
Running on the “Gangsta” platform, the 46-year-old former city councilwoman acknowledged that because most of her support came from young African-Americans, that was the demographic she was targeting. To prove her street cred, J-Dub bragged about her checkered past of run-ins with the law (although she wasn’t alone in this: 8 of the other 17 mayoral candidates also had criminal records). J-Dub said she wanted to get drug dealers off the street and into her cabinet because “they already have some business skills.”

RESULT:
J-Dub lost (she received less than 5% of the vote).

POLITICIAN:
Percy, running for U.S. Congress in 2002

PROMISE:
“Ruff ruff. Bark bark. Bow wow.”

BACKGROUND:
Percy, a dog, challenged Katherine Harris in Florida’s Republican congressional primary. “No one has a realistic expectation that a dog can get elected,” said Wayne Genthner, Percy’s owner and campaign manager. “But plenty of people will be willing to vote for a dog to represent their discontent with the political system.” He then added that, if elected, Percy promised to be obedient. “Don’t you wish your representative in Washington could do that?”

RESULT:
Percy never got the chance to run: The Florida election board ruled that he was ineligible (because he’s a dog), so Genthner ran in his place…and lost.

POLITICIAN:
Jacob Haugaard, running for Parliament in Denmark in 1994

PROMISE:
Better weather, and tail winds for Danish bicyclists

BACKGROUND:
Haugaard is the founding member of the “Party of Conscientiously Work-Shy Elements.” He’s also a stand-up comedian and admitted that he was only joking when he announced his candidacy (and then spent all his campaign money on beer).

RESULT:
Haugaard won, becoming Denmark’s first independent legislator in 50 years. “I don’t know anything about politics,” he said, “but now I get an education…with full salary!”

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“I never vote for anybody. I only vote against.” —
W. C. Fields

How do they know? Scientists say butterflies see in shades of green, red, and yellow.

Z-
Z-Z-
Z-Z-
Z-
Z-Z

We don’t really mind if this page puts you to sleep. (Nighty night.)

• If it takes you less than five minutes to fall asleep, it probably means you’re sleep-deprived. Healthy sleepers need between 10 and 15 minutes to doze off.

• Researchers at Oxford University concluded that counting sheep may actually keep you awake. Why? Counting sheep is so boring that the mind brings other, more interesting thoughts to the surface just to keep itself occupied.

• Elephants sleep standing up when they’re not dreaming, but lie down when they enter REM sleep.

• Every year, more than 100,000 U.S. drivers crash their cars because they fall asleep at the wheel.

• Cramming for a test? You’ll recall the information better if you review it once and get a good night’s sleep than if you stay up all night studying.

• Your brain is more active when you’re dreaming than it is when you’re awake.

• Most primates sleep an average of 10 hours per night; humans average only 7. But that’s a recent development. Until the turn of the 20th century, humans slept for 10 hours, too. Who’s to blame? Thomas Edison. The invention of the lightbulb turned us into a society of night owls.

• Having trouble falling sleep? Turn off all the lights or get some eyeshades. You need melatonin to feel drowsy, and melatonin production slows down when ambient light passes through the eyelids.

• Certain scents can help you fall asleep. According to a recent study, the most effective aroma is jasmine.

• If you want to remember your dreams, write them down as soon as you wake up. After five minutes, 50% of the dream fades from memory; after 10 minutes, 90% is gone.

• If you’re average, you’ll spend more than six years of your life dreaming.

Zzzzzz… Grrrrr… Zzzzzz… Grrrr… One in 8 men snores in his sleep. One in 10 grinds his teeth.

• Your body is most ready for sleep during predawn hours and right after lunch, during the afternoon “siesta” time. Consequently, these are the two most dangerous times to operate heavy machinery.

• New parents will lose 400 to 750 hours of sleep in their baby’s first year.

• Want the best night’s sleep possible? To sleep like a baby, literally? Try the fetal position. It provides the body with optimum blood circulation for a healthy sleeping session.

• Everyone experiences “microsleep.” It occurs when you are straining to stay awake at a meeting or on a long trip. Your eyes may remain open, but all outside stimuli will go unnoticed for anywhere from one second to a few minutes.

• We are programmed to sleep at night, thanks to our
circadian rhythms
—physiological cycles that follow a daily pattern. No matter how long someone works the night shift, their body will never fully adapt.

*        *        *

REAL CANADIAN PLACE NAMES

Goobies

Blow Me Down

Cupids

Jerry’s Nose

Lawn

Mosquito

Nameless Cove

Witless Bay

Lower Economy

Malignant Cove

Meat Cove

Mushaboom

Burnt Church

Mechanic

Asbestos

Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!

Cheapside

Ethel

Bigger

Porcupine

Swastika

John D

Swords

Tiny

Finger

Wawa

Elbow

Eyebrow

Uranium City

Head-Smashed-In
Buffalo Jump

Mirror

Vulcan

Clo-oose

Hydraulic

Spuzzum

Stoner

Mayo

Was he experienced? No—Jimi Hendrix never took a formal music lesson.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF RADIO, PART I

Long before videos or DVDs, even before television, families used to gather nightly for their favorite programs. They’d sit around the family radio and listen to popular comedies, dramas, and variety shows. Here’s how it all started
.

L
ISTEN TO THIS

Have you ever heard this joke about Alexander Graham Bell? “When he invented the phone, who did he talk to? He was the only guy with a phone.” It was the same with radio when it started out. The only people who owned radios were hobbyists who built their sets themselves. There were no radio stations, as we now know them—these radio amateurs, or “hams,” built their own transmitters and receivers so they could talk to each other. They were enthusiastic about their hobby and spent a lot of time talking about their radios: what kind of equipment they had, how much power they were using, and how well they were receiving each other’s signals. But even dedicated hams got a little tired of the conversation after a while.

One day in October 1919, Frank Conrad, a ham in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, got so bored with talking that he pushed a phonograph up to his microphone and played a record of the Stephen Foster song “Old Black Joe.” In the past, Conrad’s transmissions had always been directed toward one particular person. This time, he sent “Old Black Joe” out over the air waves to no one in particular…and made radio history. He called this new form of communication “broadcasting.”

AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

Conrad continued to play records over the air and was soon deluged with letters from other radio operators thanking him and requesting specific songs. He couldn’t honor them all, so instead he announced that he would play records on Wednesday and Saturday nights, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. After he’d gone through his own record collection a few times, a local record store offered to lend him more. Conrad returned the favor (and made history again) by telling his listeners that the records were for sale at the store. It was the first commercial ever aired.

First female national news anchor: Barbara Walters (1976).

AN INDUSTRY IS BORN

Over time Conrad’s regular broadcasts became so popular that the local Joseph Horne department store began selling $10 ready-made crystal radio receivers to people who wanted to listen to Conrad’s broadcasts but didn’t want to build their own radios. The store advertised its radios in local newspapers.

Taking out newspaper ads may not sound like a very big deal, but it made all the difference. Although a few other people had played music over the air even earlier than Conrad (Reginald Fessenden, the man credited with inventing AM radio, played Christmas music and read Bible verses to ships at sea on Christmas Eve, 1906), nothing had come of those early broadcasts. Conrad worked as an engineer at Westinghouse, a company that manufactured electrical equipment for power plants, and he had been urging his company to get into the radio broadcasting business. But it wasn’t until Harry P. Davis, a Westinghouse vice president, saw the crystal radios advertised in the paper that someone in a position to do something about it finally realized that radio had potential far beyond the small pool of hams who built their own sets.

ON THE AIR

Davis figured the big money in radio would come from manufacturing and selling receivers, but he also knew that people had to have more to listen to than Conrad’s records two nights a week. He decided that Westinghouse should build its own radio station, one that would broadcast every night.

The 1920 presidential election was less than a month away—why not start the new service with a bang, by broadcasting the results of the race between Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox? Davis put Conrad to work building a radio station on the roof of the Westinghouse plant in East Pittsburgh; he finished with time to spare. The station received its license—with its call letters, KDKA—on October 27, 1920, and began broadcasting election returns at 6 p.m. on election day, November 2. Listening audience: between 500 and 1,000 people. During the broadcast Conrad stayed home and manned his own station, ready to take over in case KDKA went off the air. But it didn’t—the broadcast continued without a hitch until noon the following day (Harding won in a landslide). The station is still on the air today.