Uncle John's Bathroom Reader The World's Gone Crazy (54 page)

SINKER BALL

Security guards at New York’s Citi Field were called to a restroom during a May 2009 baseball game between the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves…because a woman had gotten her arm stuck in a toilet. One of her gold teeth had fallen in, she said, and she’d tried to retrieve it. It took several hours to get the woman unstuck—and she never found her gold tooth. (The Mets also lost, 8–7.)

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

Elizabeth Smith of Florence, South Carolina, went to a dental clinic in 2006 to have a single cracked tooth repaired—but when she came out of the anesthesia, she found that
all sixteen
of her upper teeth had been removed. The clinic then tried to cover up their error by changing Smith’s medical records, according to the ensuing lawsuit. In 2009 a jury finally ruled in Smith’s favor and awarded her $2 million in damages. She plans to use the money on restorative surgery as soon as possible, her lawyer said.

Q: What is
digital emunction?
A: It's a fancy way of saying “picking your nose.”

HELP WANTED: IN HELL

Think the Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery? Think again
.

P
OSITION:
Tomato picker, in the town of Immokalee, Florida, regarded as the “tomato capital of America.”
Perks:
Room and board (sort of).

Job Description:
Working 10 to 12 hours a day picking tomatoes. Work very fast for 10 hours and you can make about $50 a day.

Meals:
You get two meals a day—eggs, beans, rice, tortillas, and sometimes some meat. That’ll cost you $50 a week.

Lodging:
Home is the back of a box truck in a garbage-strewn backyard. You have to share it with a couple of other people. There’s no toilet, so you’ll do your business in a bucket in the corner of the truck. The room costs you $20 a week. The “shower” is a hose in the yard. (Cold water only.) Each shower you take costs $5.

Days Off:
You don’t get days off. If you don’t go to work, even if you’re sick, you’ll be beaten. If you try to run away, you’ll be beaten and locked in the truck, or chained to a pole in the yard.

Getting Paid:
Some weeks you’ll receive some of your pay, sometimes you won’t get anything. And remember, everything costs money—the room, the showers, the meals, and more—so within a few months you may actually
owe the boss money
. Seriously. If you work for years, you may end up owing
tens of thousands of dollars
. You will actually be worse off than a slave.

TRUE STORY:
The conditions described above were the actual conditions endured by 12 Mexican and Guatemalan men for two and a half years. They were all offered work by the Navarettes, a family in Immokalee, with promises of room and board and riches, and ended up living in squalor and earning nothing but debts. In 2007 they finally escaped, and six members of the Navarette family were arrested. Brothers Geovanni and Cesar Navarette received the stiffest sentences, each getting 12 years in prison. The worst part of the story: Authorities believe that there may be thousands of people living in similar conditions in south Florida. (And they may have picked the tomatoes that are sitting in your refrigerator right now.)

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” —Hemingway

SHOW ME THE STUPID

Okay, then. Read the stuff below
.

S
ubject:
Two unidentified thieves in Melbourne, Australia
Background:
In October 2008, the thieves looked in through the window of an empty model home and saw a large plasma-screen television.

Show Me the Stupid:
The thieves smashed through the home’s front door—and discovered that the television was made of cardboard. Like the home, it was a model, only for display. Police said the intruders took out their frustration…by messing up a bed (which was real).

Subject:
Jorge Espinal, 44, of Ft. Worth, Texas

Background:
Espinal got an itch on his back late one night in May 2008.

Show Me the Stupid:
He grabbed the first thing handy to scratch it with—a revolver—and shot himself in the back. Espinal was treated at a hospital and released.

Subject:
Michael Sampson, 41, of Salina, Kansas
Background:
Sampson was on trial in a Salina courtroom in November 2009.

Show Me the Stupid:
During the trial, the judge saw Sampson sitting at the defense table holding his thumb and fingers in the shape of a gun—and “firing” the imaginary gun at witnesses for the prosecution. He also made throat-slashing gestures. Sampson was charged with four counts of making a criminal threat and one count of aggravated intimidation of a witness.
Bonus Stupid:
Sampson was in court on charges of driving on a suspended driver’s license and littering. He was found guilty of the suspended-license charge, but his sentence worked out to only 10 days in jail, and he was acquitted of littering. His courtroom threats, however, mean that he now faces several years in prison.

Subject:
Joseph Whittenton, of Jacksonville, Florida

The AlterG antigravity treadmill lets you run while being lifted by air pressure. Price: $25,000
.

Background:
In May 2008, someone broke into a Hungry Howie’s pizza shop and stole an undisclosed amount of cash. Police watched surveillance video, and arrested Jacksonville resident Joseph Whittenton a short time later.

Show Me the Stupid:
How were police able to identify and arrest Whittenton so quickly? Because he worked at Hungry Howie’s Pizza…and was still wearing his uniform when he carried out the robbery. He was jailed on burglary charges.

Subject:
A man in Northern Territory, Australia
Background:
Constable Wayne Burnett of the Northern Territory Police pulled over a vehicle on a highway south of the town of Alice Springs in 2008.

Show Me the Stupid:
The driver had a case of beer sitting in one of the car’s seats—with a seat belt around it—and a small child sitting on the floor, unrestrained. “This is the first time I’ve seen beer take priority over a child,” said the constable. The driver was fined $750 ($710 U.S.).

HE MUST REALLY
HATE
PANDAS

There are fewer than 2,000 endangered giant pandas left in the wild. In 2009 Chris Packham, an English naturalist and author, came up with a controversial plan to deal with them: “It’s time to give up on the cute and cuddly panda and let them go, because we just can’t afford it.” Packham argued that precious conservation dollars could be used more effectively to save other, more resilient endangered species. He pointed out that pandas, which used to be carnivores, have adapted poorly to a bamboo diet ever since they were pushed from their lowland forest homes due to development. Plus, pandas are slow to reproduce and…aren’t really the most intelligent of the large mammals.

Not surprisingly, the backlash from Packham’s fellow conservationists was harsh (people called him all sorts of names that we can’t reprint here). “Boy, I really upturned the apple cart,” he said. “I’m sorry I upset people. I don’t hate pandas, I love cuddly animals. I love
all
animals!”

Tickets to President Obama’s “free” inauguration sold online for as much as $20,000 apiece
.

THE WORMS
CRAWL IN

Patient: “Doctor! Doctor! I’ve got an autoimmune disease!” Doctor: “Take 2,500 parasites and call me in a month.”

T
HE PROBLEM
Humans are too clean. That’s the theory that some scientists have come up with to explain why autoimmune conditions such as Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, multiple sclerosis, and asthma have reached epidemic proportions in the modern world. When bacteria were linked in the 19th century to devastating infectious diseases such as cholera and diphtheria, better hygiene and improved sanitation helped keep them in check. But over the last 60 years, a strange new trend toward chronic inflammatory diseases has cropped up in industrialized nations. And it’s getting worse.

THE SOLUTION

The “hygiene hypothesis,” formulated in 1989 by British doctor David P. Strachan, claims that lack of exposure to infectious agents in our childhood years has made modern humans susceptible to allergies and a whole host of other ailments later in life. Strachan’s theory focuses on the need to expose humans to “good bugs” to strengthen the immune system. Since then, several scientists who have built upon the theory have suggested it be renamed the “old friends hypothesis.” Just who are these “old friends”? They’re certain parasitic worms and other helpful organisms that have co-existed with humans throughout our history.

Recent studies show that people in third-world countries—who are constantly exposed to dirty water, decaying vegetation, and unsanitary living conditions—rarely develop the autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases that plague more-developed countries. In effect, our obsessively hygienic life may have eliminated the “old friends” that once regulated our immune system, leaving us vulnerable to a host of diseases. It took millions of years for this synergistic relationship to develop, and less than a century to break it apart.

The “Cry Translator” iPhone app identifies 5 baby cries: hungry, sleepy, annoyed, stressed & bored
.

WIGGLE ROOM

Some researchers are now testing patients with
helminthic therapy
, which reintroduces these old friends to the immune system. In one study, doctors have their patients deliberately infest themselves with parasitic worms. Once inside, the tiny worms wriggle around and kick the immune system into high gear, supposedly strengthening its ability to fight disease. So far, say researchers, the results have been remarkable, leading some doctors to believe that worm therapy may benefit sufferers of arthritis, fibromyalgia, heart disease, atherosclerosis, eczema, irritable bowel syndrome, lupus, autism, migraine, and even psychiatric disorders.