Uncle John's Great Big Bathroom Reader (49 page)

More irony to put the problems of your day-to-day life in proper perspective.

D
ELICIOUS IRONY

“A 1978 newsletter edited at a branch of Mensa, an organization for high-IQ people, had numerous misspellings—including the word, ‘intelligense.’” —
The Literary Life and Other Curiosities

• “The U.S. Postal Service suffered a courtroom setback in 1992. USPS needed to get an expert-witness list to a Dayton, Ohio, judge by the next day in an unemployment discrimination case in order to be able to use the witnesses at trial. The list was sent from Washington, D.C., by the Postal Service’s overnight Express Mail but did not arrive for ten days.” —
The Concrete Enema

• “In 1993 near Alvin, Texas, Andrea Guerrero, 18, and her brother came across a man who was slumped over his truck and not breathing. Andrea saved his life by administering CPR until an ambulance arrived. At the time, Guerrero was on her way home from a CPR certification exam, which she had flunked.” —
The Concrete Enema

• “[In 1986,] our
For What It’s Worth Department
concludes that Orlando, Florida has one prejudiced jury! In the Orange County Courthouse, a jury of twelve...was stuck for twenty minutes in a courthouse elevator...On their way to the courtroom to hear a case against the Otis Elevator Company!” —
Paul Harvey’s For What It’s Worth

• “In 1978 Ray Wright of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was promoting his burglar alarm business, leaving flyers on autos. They read, ‘If you didn’t see me put this on your windshield, I could just as easily have stolen your car.’ While he busy advertising, someone stole his truck.”
—Encyclopedia Brown’s Book of Facts

EMBARRASSING IRONY

• “[In 1994,] author James Herriot, whose gentle accounts of the life
of a British country veterinarian (such as
All Creatures Great and Small
) are sold throughout the world and have inspired a television series, was in the hospital yesterday after being attacked by a flock of sheep.”
—News Report

• “The always-so-correct British Broadcasting Corporation was severely embarrassed when news leaked out that they had paid white film extras up to five times as much as black extras during African location shooting of a documentary film series. Its title:
The Fight Against Slavery
.” —
The World’s Greatest Mistakes

• “Human Kindness Day took place in Washington, D.C. on May 10, 1975. At a press conference afterwards, police said there had been 600 arrests, 150 smashed windows, and 42 looted refreshment stands.” —
The Book of Heroic Failures

IRONY FROM ABOVE

• “In 1979 the Allied Roofing and Siding Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan was engaged in cleaning snow from roofs in the area to prevent damage or collapse from the weight of heavy snow. But guess what roof did collapse from the weight of snow? The roof over the Allied Roofing and Siding Company.” —
The Book of Blunders

• “In Jacksonville, the Riverside Chevrolet Company launched a sales campaign featuring the slogan, ‘Look for it! Something BIG is going to happen!’ A few hours later, the showroom ceiling collapsed on six new cars.” —
Not a Good Word About Anybody

• “The American Institute of Architects held their 1979 annual conference in Kansas City, to be near the Kemper Arena, to which they had awarded their prize as ‘One of the finest buildings in the nation.’ On the first day of the conference, hordes of architects toured the inspired structure, with its wide spanning roof trusses, which
The Architectural Record
described as having ‘an almost awesome muscularity.’ On the second day, the roof of the $12 million building fell down. Twenty-six architects were hospitalized.” —
The Book of Heroic Failures

Here’s another installment of BRI’s Top Ten of the Year list.

1988

(1) Faith —
George Michael

(2) Need You Tonight
—INXS

(3) Got My Mind Set On You
—George Harrison

(4) Never Gonna Give Up
—Rick Astley

(5) Sweet Child O’ Mine
—Guns N’ Roses

(6) Heaven Is A Place On Earth
—Belinda Carlisle

(7) So Emotional
—Whitney Houston

(8) Hands To Heaven —
Breathe

(9) Could’ve Been —
Tiffany

(10) Roll With It
—Steve Winwood

1989

(1) Look Away —
Chicago

(2) My Prerogative —
Bobby Brown

(3) Every Rose Has Its Thorn
—Poison

(4) Miss You Much —
Janet Jackson

(5) Straight Up
—Paula Abdul

(6) Wind Beneath My Wings (from
Beaches) —Bette Midler

(7) Cold Hearted
—Paula Abdul

(8) Girl You Know It’s True
—Milli Vanili

(9) Baby, I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley —
Will To Power

(10) Giving You The Best That I Got —
Anita Baker

1990

(1) Hold On —
Wilson Phillips

(2) Nothing Compares 2 U
—Sinead O’Connor

(3) It Must Have Been Love (from
Pretty Woman) —Roxette

(4) Poison —
Bell Biv Devoe

(5) Vogue —
Madonna

(6) Another Day In Paradise
—Phil Collins

(7) Vision Of Love —
Mariah Carey

(8) Hold On
—En Vogue

(9) Cradle Of Love (from
Ford Fairlane) —Billy Idol

(10) Blaze Of Glory (from
Young Guns II) —Jon Bon Jovi

1991

(1) (Everything I Do) I Do It For You (from
Robin Hood) —Bryan Adams

(2) I Wanna Sex You Up (from
New Jack City) —Color Me Badd

(3) Gonna Make You Sweat
—C&C Music Factory

(4) One More Try —
Timmy T.

(5) Rush Rush
—Paula Abdul

(6) Unbelievable —
EMF

(7) I Like The Way (The Kissing Game) —
Hi-Five

(8) More Than Words —
Extreme

(9) The First Time —
Surface

(10) Baby Baby —
Amy Grant

We found this in
It’s a Conspiracy
by the National Insecurity Council. Apparently, no one has a monopoly on lying in government.

“The charge has been made that the United States has shipped weapons to Iran as ransom payment for the release of American hostages in Lebanon, that the United States undercut its allies and secretly violated American policy against trafficking with terrorists. Those charges are utterly false.”

—Ronald Reagan, 1986

“The agency does not violate U.S. law.”

—CIA spokesperson

“There is no truth, no truth whatever, to the widely circulated suspicions of immoral conduct.”

—Ted Kennedy
, referring to the incident at Chappaquiddick

“There was no blacklist....That was a lot of horseshit...The only thing our side did that was anywhere near blacklisting was just running a lot of people out of the business...”

—John Wayne, unclear on the concept

“We are not telling lies or doing any of these disinformation things.”

—Ronald Reagan, discussing Iran-Contra

“The CIA had nothing to do with the [Chilean] coup, to the best of my knowledge and belief, and I only put in that qualification in case some madman appears down there who, without instructions, talked to somebody.”

—Henry Kissinger, denying U.S. involvement in the overthrow of Chile’s President Allende

“80 percent of air pollution comes not from chimneys and auto exhaust pipes, but from plants and trees.”

—Ronald Reagan, 1979

“I didn’t say air pollution. I said oxides of nitrogen.”

—Ronald Reagan, 1980

“Your President is not a crook.”

—Richard Nixon

Everyone has heard the term “kosher.” In American slang, that means “on the up-and-up.” Most people also know it’s actually a religious term—a part of Judaism. But what does it really mean? Even many less-observant Jews aren’t 100% sure.

K
OSHER BASICS

Kosher means “fit” or “acceptable” in Hebrew. According to the Torah, or Old Testament (Leviticus, chapter 11), only certain types of animals are considered kosher and can be eaten. In addition, three verses (Exodus 23:19, 24:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21) forbid the cooking of a baby goat in its own mother’s milk.

From these origins, the rabbis in the Talmud (the book of ancient writings that are the basis of religious authority for Orthodox Jews) developed a detailed set of requirements for raising, slaughtering, preparing, storing, cooking, and eating animals.

For Jews who “keep kosher” (many do not), everything from the animal’s birth to its consumption at mealtime must be done in accordance with these rules. And for a processed food to be labelled kosher, it must be certified by a rabbi who has overseen all of the ingredients...as well as the manufacturing process and equipment.

WHAT FOOD IS KOSHER?

It’s detailed, but here are some general rules:

Meat:
Animals must be raised without hormones and growth stimulants, and must be slaughtered quickly to minimize pain. Within three days of slaughter, kosher butchers are required to de-vein meat, salt it, and rinse it three times in fresh, flowing water to remove blood—which people are forbidden to eat.

Kosher:
Any animal that chews its cud
and
has split hooves (e.g., cows); fish with both fins and scales; all birds except scavengers and birds of prey.

Non-kosher:
Pigs, rabbits, shellfish, reptiles, invertebrates, amphibians and underwater mammals.

Milk:
Meat and dairy products must be kept completely separate from one another. They not only have to be stored apart, but cooked and eaten with separate dishes, utensils, pots and pans. (Glass dishes, which are non-porous, can be used for anything.) Especially devout Jews wait six hours after eating meat before eating a milk product, so that the foods don’t mix even in their stomachs.

Pareve Foods:
Pareve
is Yiddish for “neutral.” Eggs, fish, tofu, and fruits and vegetables are neither dairy nor meat and can be eaten with either milk or meat (if prepared with neutral utensils).

KOSHER COMPLICATIONS

Some rules governing how kosher foods must be manufactured and prepared make it hard to tell if a food really
is
kosher. For example: kosher foods can’t be produced on the same assembly lines as non-kosher foods. So if a “kosher” spaghetti sauce is manufactured on the same assembly line as spaghetti sauce containing non-kosher meat, it’s not kosher. And nondairy creamers that contain sodium caseinate, a milk derivative, are considered a dairy product; they can’t be used in drinks served at meals where meat is served.

It’s almost impossible for consumers to tell on their own whether a food is truly kosher. That’s why more than 400 Rabbinical Supervision agencies have sprung up to evaluate foods, by overseeing the manufacturing process and certifying it to be kosher. The oldest and largest of these is the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. Foods they certify have a letter U in a circle on the package. Another organization, The Committee for the Furtherance of Torah Observations, uses a K in a circle.

KOSHER FACTS

• As of 1997, there were 20,000 kosher products on U.S. store shelves, representing 30% of all packaged foods in supermarkets and 40% of packaged foods in health food stores.

• Roughly 7,000,000 consumers spend $3 billion a year on kosher foods, and the market is growing at a rate of 11% a year.

• Ironically, a majority of certified kosher foods (about 76% of them) are sold to non-Jews who are concerned about food safety, or whose religions have similar food restrictions.