Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader (63 page)

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Economically speaking, it’s the most important bean in the world. U.S. Treasury Secretary George Shultz once joked that America might have to switch from the gold standard to the soybean standard.

VIRTUAL FOLDING

Conventional wisdom says that it’s physically impossible to fold a piece of paper in half more than seven times. However, according to
The Economist
magazine, if you
were
able to keep folding it (and doubling its thickness), math principles theorize that the concentrated piece of paper would grow to astronomic heights:

According to one study, a toilet has 49 germs per square inch. A desktop has 20,961.

Pundits are an odd breed. They’re part journalist, part politician, and part town crier. And they’re paid very well to spout their opinions
.

“The American political system is like fast food: mushy, insipid, made out of disgusting parts of things—and everybody wants some.”

—P. J. O’Rourke

“Anybody who wants the presidency so much that he’ll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office.”

—David Broder

“America is the only country in the world that’s still in the business of making bombs that can end the world and TV shows that make it seem like a good idea.”

—Bill Maher

“Instead of just being dazzled by these corporate mega-mergers, there should be a nagging voice in all of us asking: Is democracy going to be bought up too?”

—Thomas Friedman

“If Thomas Jefferson thought taxation without representation was bad, he should see how it is with representation.”

—Rush Limbaugh

“Having the right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.”

—William Safire

“Any nation that can survive what we have lately in the way of government is on the high road to permanent glory.”

—Molly Ivins

“A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.”

—G. Gordon Liddy

“The harder you try to suppress the truth, the more inevitable it is that it will find a way to come out.”

—Arianna Huffington

“Creative semantics is the key to contemporary government; it consists of talking in strange tongues lest the public learn the inevitable inconveniently early.”

—George Will

“Put a federal agency in charge of the Sahara Desert and it would run out of sand.”

—Peggy Noonan

The only reptile capable of making loud vocalizations is the alligator.

In his book
Operation Hollywood,
David Robb writes about dozens of films and TV shows that have been through the government screening process. Here’s a behind-the-scenes peek at how the Pentagon shapes Hollywood
.

S
EAL OF APPROVAL

If you’re trying to make a military-themed movie on a budget, you’ll probably want to enlist the aid of the military, which can supply ships, planes, tanks, and even soldiers for little or no cost. But Pentagon support comes with strings attached. The U.S. military actually has a “film liaison office” that reads scripts and decides whether or not they want to participate. Often, support is conditional—they’ll support the film if the script is changed to put the military in a positive light. Filmmakers are highly motivated to cooperate: they can save tens of millions of dollars if they do. Here are a few examples of movies that did—or didn’t—go along with the Pentagon.

Tomorrow Never Dies
(1997)
, starring Pierce Brosnan

Story Line:
James Bond battles a media mogul who wants to drive up ratings by starting World War III.

Status:
Cooperation approved—but only after producers agreed to remove a line from a scene where Brosnan is about to parachute into the waters off the coast of Vietnam: A CIA agent (played by Joe Don Baker) warns Bond not to get caught: “You know what will happen. It’ll be war, and maybe this time we’ll win.”

Crimson Tide
(1995)
, starring Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington

Story Line:
When rebels take over a Russian nuclear missile installation, the submarine commanded by Hackman receives an order to launch a nuclear missile against them before the rebels can launch one against the United States. As the submarine is preparing to launch, it’s attacked by a Russian submarine, which prevents the sub from receiving a second message that may (or may not) rescind the launch order. Hackman decides to launch anyway, prompting Washington’s character to lead the mutiny.

Q: What do Alaska, Washington, California, and Hawaii have in common? A: Active volcanoes.

Status:
Cooperation denied. The Navy objected to both the mutiny and the idea that a submarine could launch a missile in error (even though it actually can).

Black Hawk Down
(2001)
, starring Ewan McGregor

Story Line:
A Black Hawk helicopter is shot down over Mogadishu, Somalia, and the crew has to fight to survive.

Status:
Cooperation approved. But the Pentagon did insist on one important change: the name of McGregor’s character, a real-life Army Ranger named John Stebbins, couldn’t be used in the film. Stebbins
was
one of the heroes of the battle of Mogadishu and won a Silver Star, but by the time the script was submitted for approval, he had been court-martialed for molesting a 12-year-old boy. The military didn’t want anything to do with him, so McGregor’s character was renamed Danny Grimes.

Stripes
(1981)
, starring Bill Murray and Harold Ramis

Story Line:
Two screwballs join the army and eventually become heroes.

Status:
Cooperation approved. Believe it or not, the military thought
Stripes
would make a good recruiting film. They did, however insist that all references to drug use, sexism, and jokes about “raping and pillaging” be removed. The misfit platoon’s drill sergeant had to be “toned down” to make him less sadistic, too. The producers complied, and in return received permission to film at Fort Knox, Kentucky. And just as the Pentagon predicted, Army recruiting went up after
Stripes
hit theaters.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
(1986)
, starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy

Story Line:
Captain Kirk and company travel back in time to the 1980s to capture a pair of humpback whales and bring them to the future so that they can save the world. But their spaceship is severely weakened by traveling through time. So Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and Chekov (Walter Koenig) have to sneak onto the USS
Enterprise
, a nuclear aircraft carrier, to “siphon” off some nuclear power that they can use to recharge the spaceship.

The two largest military budgets in 2003: United States ($334 billion) and Russia ($60 billion).

Status:
Cooperation approved, but the USS
Enterprise
scene had to be changed. In the original script, the spaceship is so drained of energy that the transporters don’t work, and Uhura and Chekov must sneak past military security to board the ship. The Navy objected to the idea that intruders could outwit military security, so producers rewrote it: the transporters have enough power to beam the two
onto
the carrier, but not enough to get them off again.

Broken Arrow
(1996)
, starring John Travolta and Christian Slater

Story Line:
An Air Force pilot (Travolta) steals a nuclear weapon, and another pilot (Slater) has to stop him.

Status:
Cooperation denied. The military rejected the idea that one of its officers would or could steal a nuclear bomb, or that they could detonate one if they did steal it. Still, the military did manage to wrest one concession from filmmakers: Travolta, the villain, removes his military flight suit after he steals the bomb, visually lessening his ties to the military. Slater, the hero, leaves his on.

Mars Attacks
(1996)
, starring Jack Nicholson

Story Line:
Earth is invaded by aliens from Mars. The invasion fails when a grandmother and her grandson discover that the Martians’ heads explode when they listen to a recording of the Slim Whitman song “Indian Love Call.”

Status:
Cooperation denied. According to David Robb, the Pentagon didn’t like the idea that the military was “less effective at combating alien invaders than Slim Whitman.”

The Perfect Storm
(2000)
, starring George Clooney

Story Line:
A fishing boat gets caught in one of the biggest storms ever to hit the North Atlantic. The film is based on a true story.

Status:
Cooperation denied at first, then approved. In the script, as in real life, the Coast Guard is the branch of the service that rescues fishing boats. But the Coast Guard declined to participate because they thought the script was inaccurate. When the Air Force agreed to help, producers rewrote the scene so that the Air National Guard, not the Coast Guard, attempts the rescue.

In the original draft of
Star Trek
, the
Enterprise
was called the U.S.S.
Yorktown
.

Uncle John presents these true stories of extreme overreactions to serve as a reminder: Always keep your cool
.

T
HE ANNOYED:
George Furedi

SITUATION:
A local church’s public address system was keeping Furedi awake at night.

FREAK-OUT:
Furedi drove his SUV to the church and slammed into the front of it. He was arrested a short time later for malicious mischief, driving while intoxicated, and numerous hit-and-run charges (he rammed into several cars on his way to greet parishioners). How did the cops find Furedi? They ran a check on his license plate. (He left his truck wedged in the church doors.)

THE ANNOYED:
Chris Baugh

SITUATION:
Someone vandalized the building Baugh was renovating. He was convinced that local skateboarders were responsible.

FREAK-OUT:
There was a community skate park not far from Baugh’s building site. Seeking retribution, Baugh drove a bulldozer to the park and demolished ramps, rails and fences. Police charged Baugh with second-degree criminal mischief. (No charges were ever filed against the skateboarders—Baugh didn’t have any proof that they were responsible for vandalizing his building.)

THE ANNOYED:
Charles Booher

SITUATION:
An Internet company swamped Booher’s computer with e-mails and Internet pop-up ads for male enhancement.

FREAK-OUT:
Booher, who’d battled testicular cancer, contacted Doug Mackay, one of the people whose name appeared on one of the ads, and asked him to stop sending them. When they continued to arrive, Booher barraged Mackay’s company with e-mails and phone calls for the next three months, threatening to torture and kill him and his employees. Mackay called the FBI; they placed Booher under arrest. He faces five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. “I blew my cool,” he says.

The Masai people of Africa spit on their newborns to ensure good luck.

THE ANNOYED:
A 45-year-old German man

SITUATION:
In the apartment next door, the man heard the tell-tale signs of redecorating: furniture being moved across the floor and pictures being nailed to the walls.