Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Golden Plunger Awards (4 page)

The Nigerian Scam

You know the con—here’s how it goes: Someone is in trouble, usually in Nigeria, hence the name, but other countries are also used. The person, allegedly a wealthy refugee, is blindly contacting someone outside the country to ask for help. The subject line of his e-mail usually reads something like “Urgent Business Transaction.” The writer is very polite, but he sounds desperate. He has a lot of money, though it’s tied up in a bank. The authorities are after him—sometimes because of a political uprising in his home country; other times because of the actions of a dictator—so he must be discreet. If you will only help, through a kind donation, you will receive a large sum of money for your trouble as soon as he’s free. Just send a few thousand dollars, and later, you’ll be rewarded with much more.

For many, the Nigerian scam sounds too good to pass up. Some people lose a few hundred dollars, but some fall hard. Victims have been lured to Nigeria or elsewhere to collect their imaginary winnings and have wound up in lots of trouble. The U.S. State Department has issued warnings about people who travel to meet the people behind the e-mails and end up “beaten, subjected to threats and extortion, and in some cases murdered.” This crime is serious business.

The Nigerian scam has been around for decades—before e-mail, it was perpetrated through letters. But it seems to be based on an even older con: the Spanish Prisoner. This scheme involves a poor soul who’s been imprisoned in Spain. But, as luck would have it, the prisoner is wealthy. He just can’t access his money to extricate himself from his dilemma. If you could help out by loaning him some of your money, once he gets out of prison, you’ll be rewarded for your efforts.

The Spanish Prisoner typically targeted wealthy businessmen who were conned into paying for one expensive escape attempt after another until they ran out of money or started asking too many questions.

According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), the average amount of money lost in 2006 by someone falling for the Nigerian scam was $5,100. The number of people who actually respond to the Nigerian scam e-mail is estimated to be about 1 percent—about half the response rate for the average direct-mail piece. Although 1 percent sounds small, if you multiply that by the millions of e-mails sent out, it comes to a lot of money.

If you report a Nigerian scam to the FBI, you’ll be referred to the Secret Service. Established in 1865 to deal with counterfeiting, the Secret Service protects a lot of America’s financial interests, in addition to protecting the president.

According to
scambusters.org
, the Secret Service fields about 100 calls and from 300 to 500 letters daily from victims or potential victims of the Nigerian e-mail con, which is also called a “419” plan (because that’s the number of the Nigerian penal code that covers such fraud).

One of the provisions of the Patriot Act, passed in 2001, ordered the Secret Service to create “a nationwide network of Electronic Crimes Task Forces.” A local Secret Service office will handle the case, but these crimes are notoriously difficult to solve. First, the authorities have to find the perpetrator and then transport him to the victim’s country for prosecution. (The U.S. government can’t prosecute people that are out of its jurisdiction.)

In an effort to help, Nigeria established the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2003 to combat the problem and to improve its country’s image in the global community. In 2006, the EFCC announced that it would start punishing Internet service providers in Nigeria if they helped the scammers complete their cons. The penalty for not taking proper security measures: up to 20 years in prison.

Still, some scammers find a way to circumspect the laws. Con artists have been able to target people who have contacted the EFCC to report being scammed. Posing as EFCC representatives, they have been able to get personal information out of past victims and use that to access bank accounts. So the scamming continues.

Nigerians would love to put this scandal and its name behind them. But until then, beware the e-mail that begs for help and promises huge rewards in return.

Superman

Superman is probably the world’s most famous superhero. He’s endeared himself to fans and become an important part of the American culture. He’s classically “good,” choosing to help people, even though he could do or have anything he wants. He’s not influenced by money or corruption and he intervenes only to right wrongs. Superman also maintains a strict code of conduct: no killing, no matter what. He puts the world’s needs ahead of his own, and he never lies.

Superman’s costume is not his cape and uniform—those are actually his “real” clothes, sewn from the blankets he was wrapped in inside the rocket ship that brought him to Earth. He disguises himself as the mild-mannered Clark Kent. Even though most superheroes put on a mask to disguise their identities, Superman puts on a business suit and glasses and becomes human.

His disguise is just one way Superman doesn’t match his super-peers. His powers also set him apart. Most superheroes gained their powers through accidents, struggles, or medical experiments:

But not Superman. He got his powers by doing absolutely nothing. And that’s a “gift” not appreciated by some of his fellow superheroes—who have been known to mock him by calling him the “big blue Boy Scout.”

Superman was the brainchild of Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster, who were both living in Ohio during the Great Depression. Seigel, the writer, and Shuster, the artist, spent years creating the character and several more trying to convince someone to publish their story. They contacted several publishers as early as 1932, but it wasn’t until Detective Comics, Inc., saw potential in the story and published it in June 1938 that Superman found a home. (A pristine copy of that comic book would sell today for more than $1 million.)

Seigel and Shuster played off various religious motifs in their creation of Superman. His birth name was Kal-El—“El” in Yiddish means “God.” Like Moses, little Kal-El was sent off to be raised by others to fulfill a destiny. The concept of the “super man” was also inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s “übermensch” from his book
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
. Early on, Seigel and Shuster’s superhero had tremendous mental abilities like the übermensch, who transcended the laws of humanity to achieve a higher mental state. Later, they settled on a muscle-bound, colorful hero who ultimately didn’t share many characteristics with Nietzsche’s superman, who didn’t follow society’s definition of morality but set it for himself. Superman, on the other hand, follows society’s (specifically, American society’s) definitions almost universally.

Seigel and Shuster developed Superman’s powers slowly. First, he merely leaped tall buildings. Later, he flew over them. Super speed, X-ray and heat vision, super breath, super ventriloquism, and the ability to travel through time were added over the years. As his legend grew, so did Superman’s abilities.

Few heroes, real or fictional, embody the American dream the way Superman does. Like the immigrants of old, Superman arrived in the United States with nothing but was able to succeed both as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent and as the Man of Steel. His abilities come naturally to him, but Superman does have three vulnerabilities: kryptonite, magic, and a red sun. When exposed to one of his vulnerabilities, Superman loses his superpowers and becomes just a mortal man.

Most of the time, though, Superman has few fears and he always approaches problems with a determination to do what’s right. The essence of Superman is not in his bravery—which he has, to be sure—but in his altruism. The ability to look good in tights doesn’t hurt either.

Kryptonite first appeared in
Superman #61
, dated December 1949, more than a decade after the hero’s debut. The kryptonite was red, not green. Superman, with no idea what the substance was, took a quick trip through time and space to learn of its origins—and his own. After this, normal kryptonite was colored the traditional green.

But other kinds of kryptonite, with various effects on Superman and other beings, were introduced in almost every color of the rainbow. Red kryptonite had unpredictable effects on Superman, often turning him into a monster; gold kryptonite permanently removed any Kryptonian superpowers; blue kryptonite was harmful only to the Bizarro version of Superman; and white kryptonite killed plant life. Other forms of kryptonite came in silver, yellow, black, purple, jewel, and even pink. (With the power to turn Kryptonians gay, pink kryptonite appeared once in a 2003 issue of
Supergirl
as a joke and was never mentioned again.)

Then there were the synthetic kinds and assorted others: anti-kryptonite (deadly to humans), X-kryptonite, kryptonite X (yes, those last two are different), mango-kryptonite, and slow kryptonite.

Cheez Whiz

In
Clean Your Clothes with Cheez Whiz
, Joey Green revealed alternative uses for a variety of household products, like toothpaste and shaving cream. One of the oddest discoveries was that Cheez Whiz was great at getting out grease stains in clothes.

Cheez Whiz’s laundry power comes from its enzymes, which can’t gobble up enough grease. Dab some of the spread on a grease-based stain and let it sit for 10 minutes. Then throw the laundry in the washing machine. Enjoy some crackers and Cheez Whiz while you wait for the wash to be done.