Uncle John’s Unstoppable Bathroom Reader (31 page)

IT LOOKS LIKE:
A belt buckle

BUT IT’S REALLY:
A hacksaw

DESCRIPTION:
Fitted inside a hollow belt buckle is a miniature hacksaw. When the buckle is opened, a small amount of pressure is released from the saw’s frame, exerting tension on the blade. This makes the saw a more efficient cutting machine, keeping the blade taut when sawing through, for example, handcuffs. The belt buckle saw will cut through anything from steel to concrete in about 15 minutes and will tear through rope and nylon. Don’t wear belts? Buckles can be put on coats and luggage, too.

IT LOOKS LIKE:
Eyeglasses

BUT IT’S REALLY:
A dagger

DESCRIPTION:
Concealed in the temple arms of these CIA glasses are two sharp blades. Disguised as the reinforcing wire found in most eyeglass frames, the daggers are designed to be used once and broken off at the hilt, inside the victim. The lenses are cutting tools, too. The lower edges are ground to razor sharpness and can be removed by heating or breaking the frames.

“Q” stands for
quartermaster
, a military name for the officer in charge of supplies.

IT LOOKS LIKE:
A felt-tip marker

BUT IT’S REALLY:
A blister-causing weapon

DESCRIPTION:
Don’t mistake this pen for your Sharpie, and be careful: you wouldn’t want it leaking in your pocket. A little over three inches long, the marker distributes an ointment that creates blisters on the skin. In order to activate the applicator, press the tip down on a surface for one minute—then simply apply a thin coating of the colorless oil over any area, such as a keyboard or door handle. The ointment will penetrate clothing and even shoes, and will cause temporary blindness if it comes in contact with the eyes. Blisters will cover the skin wherever contact is made within 24 hours and will last for about a week.

IT LOOKS LIKE:
Dentures

BUT IT’S REALLY:
A concealment device (and much more)

DESCRIPTION:
What could possibly fit inside a dental plate? A lot more than you’d think. Items such as a cutting wire or a compass can be placed in a small concealment tube and hidden under a false tooth. A rubber-coated poison pill can be carried in the same manner. The poison can either be ingested to avoid capture or poured into an enemy’s food and utilized as a weapon. Radio transceivers can be placed in dental plates, with audio being transmitted through bone conduction. The CIA has even created a dental plate that alters the sound of one’s voice. If all of these gadgets prove ineffective, then the dental plate itself can be removed and its sharp scalloped edge used for digging, cutting, or engaging in hand-to-hand combat.

*        *        *

James Bond:
“They always said, ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’”

Q:
“Thanks to me, they were right.”

—
Goldeneye

A one-day weather forecast requires about 10 billion mathematical calculations.

LIFE IMITATES ART

Everyone loves the movies. They’re entertaining—usually a good escape from reality. No one expects the story to come true…but sometimes it does. Here are a few examples.

T
HE BIRTH OF A NATION
(1915)

THE MOVIE:
The Birth of a Nation
is considered one of the greatest American movies ever made—and one of the most racist. Director D. W. Griffith’s classic tells the triumphs and travails of a white southern family before and after the Civil War. The film also uses cinematic techniques that were revolutionary for the time, such as tracking shots, extreme close-ups, fade-outs, extensive cross-cutting, and panoramic long shots.

Yet unfortunately,
The Birth of a Nation
offers an incredibly demeaning portrayal of African Americans. It depicts black northern soldiers (actually white actors in blackface) as sex-crazed rapists and glorifies the Ku Klux Klan for keeping former slaves “in their place” (i.e., away from the ballot box).

REAL LIFE:
The original Klan was a secret society founded after the Civil War to enforce white supremacy in the South. And it only lasted a few short years before dying out in the 1870s.

But in the fall of 1915, following the release of
The Birth of a Nation,
a Methodist preacher named William Simmons decided to revive the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia. By the mid-1920s, the revitalized Klan boasted of three million members across the United States, thanks in large part to the popularity of the groundbreaking silent film.

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
(1962)

THE MOVIE:
This Cold War classic features Laurence Harvey as a brainwashed U.S. soldier who finds himself at the center of an elaborate conspiracy involving Communists and conservatives. The goal of this conspiracy: to kill a presidential candidate. To achieve this end, Harvey smuggles a rifle with a telescopic sight into a political rally where the man will be speaking.

REAL LIFE:
A year after the film was released, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, allegedly by former Marine Lee Harvey Oswald using a rifle with a telescopic scope. And in the decades that followed, speculation abounded that more than one person was involved in the shooting, that Oswald was a mere dupe, and that just like the movie, the president’s murder was actually engineered by a shadowy cabal of extremists. To make things even weirder,
The Manchurian Candidate
co-starred Kennedy’s buddy, Frank Sinatra, as a fellow soldier who unravels the assassination conspiracy.

Antarctica is the only continent without reptiles.

Following the film’s release, a contractual dispute between Sinatra and the filmmakers forced
The Manchurian Candidate
to be withdrawn from theaters and not shown to the public for decades. The suppression of the film only enhanced its reputation as an eerily prophetic political thriller.

DEATH WISH
(1974)

THE MOVIE:
This film stars Charles Bronson as a mild-mannered guy who turns into a pistol-wielding vigilante after his family is brutally assaulted by thugs. In one pivotal scene, Bronson is sitting by himself on a New York City subway car and is accosted by a mugger. Instead of handing over his cash, Bronson shoots the mugger and then casually walks out of the car.

REAL LIFE:
On December 22, 1984, Bernhard Goetz, a meek, self-employed electrical engineer, smuggled a five-shot .38-caliber revolver onto the New York subway. Goetz took a seat near a group of four young men. When one of the youths approached him and demanded money, Goetz stood up, drew his gun, and shot all four of them. Goetz then pocketed his gun and walked off the subway. He later surrendered to police.

While Goetz appears to have been motivated by fear (he had been mugged previously), his actions eerily paralleled those of Bronson’s character. Like Bronson in
Death Wish
, Goetz was seen by many as a hero, an “ordinary Joe” who lashed out in justifiable rage against deserving creeps.

The outcome of the two men’s actions, however, couldn’t have been more different: at the end of
Death Wish
, Bronson is free and eager to impose lethal justice on a fresh batch of miscreants. Goetz stood trial for his crimes and although acquitted of attempted murder, he served eight months in jail for illegal gun possession.

Shoeless Joe Jackson’s shoes are in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“LET US BEGIN ANEW”

A
Bathroom Reader
is mostly light reading, but every once in a while we like to throw in a few serious things. Here’s a piece of history for you: It was January 20, 1961. The United States was about to enter one of the most exciting and tumultuous eras in its history. When newly elected President John F. Kennedy made this now-famous inaugural speech, he had no idea what was in store for the nation. But he conveyed the hope for the future that many Americans felt.

W
E OBSERVE TODAY
not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom—symbolizing an end as well as a beginning, signifying renewal as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three-quarters ago.

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe: the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.

We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

LET EVERY NATION KNOW
, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge—and more.

To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do—for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.

Some female turtles may wait as long as 5 years to lay their eggs after mating.

To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom—and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.

TO THOSE PEOPLE
in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required—not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

To our sister republics south of the border, we offer a special pledge: to convert our good words into good deeds—in a new alliance for progress—to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers.

Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house.

To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support—to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective, to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak, and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.

FINALLY, TO THOSE NATIONS
who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.

We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.

Q: What is it called when your eyes go different directions? A:
Strabismus
.

But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course—both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind’s final war.

SO LET US BEGIN ANEW
, remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.

Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms—and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations.

Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah—to “undo the heavy burdens… [and] let the oppressed go free.”

And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.