Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader (32 page)
Read Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
• Next, the U.S. Army would attack across the border along three fronts: Troops would attack from either Vermont or New York to occupy Montreal and Quebec City; from Michigan into Ontario; and from North Dakota into Manitoba. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy would take control of the Great Lakes. The effects of these attacks would be to seize Canada’s industrial heartland while preventing similar attacks on America, and to further disrupt the movement of Canadian troops from one part of the country to another.
• Troops would cross from Washington into British Columbia and seize Vancouver, Canada’s largest Pacific port. The U.S. Navy would blockade the port of Prince Rupert, 460 miles to the north.
Once the crisis passed and relations between America, Canada, and Great Britain returned to normal, the U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Canadian territory, right? No—“Blue intentions are to hold in perpetuity all Crimson and Red territory gained,” the military planners wrote. “The policy will be to prepare the provinces and territories of Crimson and Red to become states and territories of the Blue union upon the declaration of peace.”
…they are actually allergic to
sebum
, a fatty substance secreted by the cat’s sebaceous glands.
THE FOG OF WAR(S)
So how seriously was the United States considering invading Canada? In all probability, not very. War Plan Red doesn’t go into nearly as much detail as War Plan Black (Germany) or War Plan Orange (Japan), which military planners correctly assumed were much more significant threats. The intent of the other color-coded plans may have been to make war plans involving Germany and Japan seem less controversial. Why the subterfuge? After the horrors of World War I, in which nearly 10 million soldiers died, many people concluded that planning for wars only made them more likely.
The U.S. military didn’t feel this way, of course, and one way they may have gotten around public opinion was to come up with all kinds of improbable war plans to make the
real
plans more palatable. A public that would not have tolerated the idea of the preparing for war with Germany and Japan would be less alarmed by the idea of the United States preparing for war with Germany, Japan, Canada, Iceland, Jamaica, Monaco, and Andorra.
WHAT’S GOOD FOR THE GOOSE…
Any sting Canadians may have felt when War Plan Red was declassified in 1974 was offset by the knowledge that Canada had drafted its own plans for invading the United States, and had done so several years before War Plan Red was approved in 1930. “Defense Scheme No. 1,” as it was called, was created in 1921 by James Sutherland “Buster” Brown, Canada’s director of military operations and intelligence. In many respects it was the opposite of War Plan Red: In the event that an American attack was imminent, Canadian forces would strike first, attacking and occupying key cities such as Albany, Minneapolis, and Seattle.
Unlike with War Plan Red, these cities wouldn’t be annexed or even occupied for any longer than was absolutely necessary. The idea was to knock the U.S. off balance, then retreat back into Canada, blowing up bridges and destroying roads and railroads along the way in the hope of delaying the inevitable American counterattack until British reinforcements arrived. The plan received mixed reviews from the Canadian military: One general called it a “fantastic desperate plan that just might have worked”; other officers thought Brown was nuts. It remained on the books until 1928, when it was scrapped as impractical.
What’d they use before that? The English alphabet is about 700 years old.
College isn’t only about really rigorous science classes, thick textbooks, and late-night studying. As one of Uncle John’s teachers put it, “College is hard—there should be some classes where you can get an easy A.” That could be why most schools have “cream-puff” classes like these
.
E
lvis as Anthology.
“
Redefining the music of other performers through listening to Elvis, and watching video and movie clips.” (University of Iowa)
Art and Science of Beer
.
“We will explore the place of beer in ancient as well as modern life, and the role beer has played in important achievements in microbiology, biotechnology and physics.” (Indiana University)
Sports for the Spectator
.
“A study of the great American spectator sports including football, basketball, baseball, ice hockey, golf, tennis, and any others which meet the interests of the class.” (Ohio State University)
Witchcraft and Politics
.
“Explores witchcraft, spirit possession, and cults of the dead as idioms of power and as vehicles for protest, resistance, and violent social change.” (Bucknell University)
Shopping: Desire, Compulsion, and Consumption
.
“First we will explore the manufacturing of desire. We will then turn to historical analysis, contrasting the experience of shopping in traditional bazaars and contemporary malls. Finally, we will explore the place of shopping in our collective imaginations.” (Williams College)
How to Be Gay
.
“Examines the notion that homosexuality is not just a desire, but a set of specific tastes in music, movies, and other cultural forms.” (University of Michigan)
Star Trek
and Religion
.
“This popular science-fiction series is set in the future, but the ideas and conflicts come from past and present debates.” (Indiana University)
Campus Culture and Drinking
.
“The cultural understandings that motivate and shape undergraduate drinking.” (Duke University)
Just add water! May 16th is International Sea Monkey Day.
Awareness
.
“Students will begin their work by designing independent learning projects, which can be anything (community service, sailing, midwifery, gardening, reading, etc.). We will answer these questions: What do you want to learn? How are you going to learn it? How are you going to know when you have learned it?” (Evergreen State College)
International Beverage Education
.
“The history of beverages such as wines, distilled spirits, and beers. Prerequisite: must be 21 years of age.” (Oklahoma State University)
Daytime Serials: Family and Social Roles
.
“Analysis of the themes and characters that populate daytime serials and investigation of what impact these portrayals have on gender roles in the family and workplace.” (University of Wisconsin)
The Cheerleader in American Culture
.
“Cheerleading is an ambiguous cultural icon. In this course we challenge the stereotypes of cheerleaders and provoke both supporters and critics to view cheerleading in a more multi-faceted light.” (University of Alabama)
A FEW MORE:
•
American Golf: Aristocratic Pastime or the People’s Game?
(
Carnegie Mellon University)
•
Quarterstaff, Broadsword, Rapier, and Dagger Combat
(Northern Kentucky University)
•
Introduction to Leisure
(Kent State University)
•
Black Hair: The History of African-American Hairstyles
(Stanford University)
•
Underwater Fire Prevention
(University of Louisiana-Monroe)
•
Pranks: Culture Jamming as Social Activism
(St. Mary’s College)
•
Relaxation Techniques
(University of Iowa)
•
History of Tupac Shakur
(University of California, Berkeley)
•
Juggling (I and II)
(University of Oregon)
•
Frisbee
(Western Connecticut State University)
•
The Social Significance of
The Dukes of Hazzard
(University of Alabama)
Humans are responsible for the deaths of 30 to 70 million sharks every year.
In this eBay world, where it seems like everything is for sale, it’s nice see that there’s more to life than money
.
B
EER FOR A PITCHER:
Pitcher Nigel Thatch of the Schaumburg Flyers of the Northern League, a professional baseball league in the northern United States and Canada, was traded in May 2006. The Flyers, according to the official league announcement, “assigned the contract of RHP Nigel Thatch (Rookie) to Fullerton of the Golden Baseball League in exchange for one pallet (60 cases) of Budweiser beer.”
Not to be confused with…
BEER FOR A HORSE:
A pub in Dunedin, New Zealand, caused an uproar in 2003 when it ran a “Beer for Beasts” promotion in which participants could trade animals for beer. Bringing a horse to the pub earned traders 20 pints, four cats brought four pints, and a live duck from the local botanical gardens earned one pint. After protests from animal-rights groups, the promotion was quickly cancelled.
ANNOUNCER FOR A CARTOON CHARACTER:
In 2006 NBC took over the Sunday night TV broadcasts of NFL games. They wanted Al Michaels, who had been with ABC for 26 years and the announcer for Monday Night Football for 10, to host the show. Who owns ABC? The Walt Disney Company. What did they want in return for Michaels? Something unusual: 26
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
cartoons that Walt Disney made in 1927. He’d done them for Universal Studios, so he never owned the rights to them, which is why he created Mickey Mouse (the two characters look very similar). Disney had always wanted the rights back, and NBC now owns Universal, so they agreed to trade the rights to Michaels…for the rights to Oswald.
HOUSE FOR A PAPER CLIP:
In July 2005, aspiring author Kyle MacDonald, 26, of Montreal set out to get a house…for a paper clip. He posted a notice on the Craigslist Web site offering to trade a large red paper clip for something bigger or better. He got a fish-shaped pen. He traded that for a ceramic door knob. And then traded that for a camping stove. This went on for a year, and included trading up to a beer keg, a snowmobile, a trip to British Columbia, and a recording contract. In the meantime he’d become a celebrity, doing talk shows all over the world, which led to him trading for a movie role (he got it for a KISS snow globe from a movie producer/snow globe collector). In July 2006 he made his last trade: He gave the movie role to the mayor of the town of Kipling, Saskatchewan, who presented him with the keys to a 1,100-square-foot, 3-bedroom house. (The tiny town wanted the publicity to increase tourist trade, and announced that they’d be holding an
American Idol
–like contest to give away the movie part.) MacDonald is now living in the house and writing a book about the adventure.
Seeing is believing: The bubbles in Guinness beer sink to the bottom rather than float to the top.
CATCHER FOR HIMSELF:
Harry Chiti was a journeyman catcher who played for the Chicago Cubs, Kansas City Athletics, Detroit Tigers, and New York Mets in the 1950s and 1960s. His career statistics are unimpressive, but he does hold claim to one fascinating piece of baseball history. In 1962 the New York Mets bought the rights to Chiti from the Cleveland Indians. The Mets then traded him back to Cleveland for a “player to be named later in the season.” The player the Mets ended up getting later in the season: Harry Chiti.
BALLS FOR A BALLPLAYER:
In 1989 pitcher Tim Fortugno was traded by the minor-league Reno Silver Sox to the Milwaukee Brewers organization for $2,500…and 144 baseballs.
LOVE FOR PEACE:
In April 2006, Italian porn star Cicciolina offered to have “a private encounter” with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in exchange for his halting all terrorist attacks. “I am ready to make a deal,” she announced at a festival in Budapest, Hungary. “He can have me in exchange for an end to his tyranny.” Cicciolina, whose real name is Anna Ilona Staller, reminded the crowd that she had made the same offer to Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, saying “who knows what might have happened” if he had taken her up on the offer.
Scientists have discovered that dogs can “smell” the presence of autism in children.
Lots of movies have inspired their own fan conventions. Let’s see, there’s
Star Trek
and
Star Wars
and…
The Big Lebowski
?
B
IG FLOPSKI
When
The Big Lebowski
hit theaters in 1998, it didn’t make much of a splash. Though it met with critical acclaim and was well received by loyal fans of Joel and Ethan Coen, the film’s director, producer, and co-writers, it barely broke even at the box office. Following on the heels of
Fargo
, the Coens’ most successful film to that point,
Lebowski
’s modest earnings came as a disappointment. But then in 1999 it went to video and became a cult classic.
As
Lebowski
fans will tell you, this is a movie that gets better with repeat viewings. There are so many threads woven into the complicated plot, and so much dry humor and memorable dialogue, that the film simply can’t be taken in at a single glance.
The Big Lebowski
is one of those movies where you catch something new every time you watch it.