Uncle John's Bathroom Reader The World's Gone Crazy (79 page)

Per capita, the U.S. has 66 times more prosecutions than France
.

ZOO ATTACKS

If you think about it, it’s kind of crazy that we make animals live in cages so we can gawk at them. Even if you don’t think it’s crazy, the animals do
.

D
O NOT FEED (YOURSELF TO) THE BEARS
In 2009 a man in Switzerland decided he wanted to have a close encounter with some bears. So the 25-year-old scaled a 20-foot fence at the Bern Park bear enclosure, where Finn, a four-year-old brown bear, pounced on him. In order to free the man, police shot Finn with fragmentation bullets. Zoo officials said there was an outpouring of sympathy…for Finn. (Both man and bear fully recovered.)

OUT OF THE FRYING PAN

One day in January 2008, a Golden Retriever got off its leash and darted in through the main gate at the Memphis Zoo. Workers chased the dog, but it jumped a barrier…and landed in the tiger enclosure. A 225-pound female Sumatran tiger pounced on the 50-pound dog and held it in her jaws for several minutes while keepers blasted airhorns and shot off fireworks to distract her. Finally, the tiger let go, and the dog made a full recovery. A zoo spokesmen explained that the tiger enclosure was built to keep the animals from getting out, not to keep animals from getting in: “You can jump
off
a cliff, but you can’t jump
up
a cliff.”

BUT THEY’RE SO CUTE AND CUDDLY

Zhang Jiao, 28, was tossing a stuffed panda back and forth with his young son at the Beijing Zoo when the toy went over a barrier and landed in the enclosure of Gu Gu the (real) giant panda—who was famous for having bitten two people—a curious teenager and a drunk man. In spite of Gu Gu’s reputation, Zhang jumped the barrier to retrieve the toy. Gu Gu, who weighs 240 pounds, wasted little time attacking the intruder. “The panda didn’t let go until it chewed up my leg and its mouth was dripping with my blood,” said Zhang after zookeepers used tools to pry apart the animal’s jaws. “The panda is a national treasure,” Zhang added, “and I love and respect him, so I didn’t fight back.”

Trakr, a 9/11 rescue dog, was cloned 5 times after he won a “most cloneworthy dog” contest
.

CELEBRITY DIETS

Oh, those crazy celebs. They don’t even eat food like the rest of us
.

M
ARTHA’S VINEYARD DETOX
The Diet:
For 21 days, you ingest nothing but “live juices and enzymes” contained in fruit drinks, herbal teas, vegetable broth, and supplements. Bonus: You also get a colonic and a coffee enema each week.
Celebs Who’ve Tried It:
Madonna and supermodel Gisele Bündchen

JOSHI’S HOLISTIC DETOX

The Diet:
This non-dairy, wheat-free, gluten-free diet bans all alcohol, sugar, tea, milk, coffee, red meat, potatoes, tomatoes, and most fruit (except bananas), in an effort to avoid acidic and “toxic” foods. What’s left? Mostly grains, raw and steamed vegetables, eggs, chicken, and fish. You also get herbal supplements, colonic irrigations, acupuncture to curb sugar cravings, and weekly sessions of reflexology from Hollywood’s self-described Health Guru, Nishi Joshi.
Celebs Who’ve Tried It:
Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Moss, Cate Blanchett, and Ralph Fiennes

MASTER CLEANSE

The Diet:
Invented in the 1940s and popular in the 1970s, the Master Cleanse (also called the Lemonade Diet) is back. You drink a mixture of maple syrup, water, cayenne pepper, and fresh lemon juice for 10 days—no solid food allowed. Result: You’re free of harmful cravings for alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, and drugs.

Celebs Who’ve Tried It:
Mariah Carey, Beyoncé, Vince Vaughn, Angelina Jolie, Jared Leto, Anne Hathaway, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashley Judd, and Jay-Z

FACIAL ANALYSIS

The Diet:
Kate Winslet promotes this naturopathic plan that analyzes your skin, hair, and eyes to determine your food and mineral deficiencies. There are six “face archetypes.” One example: “Ruled by the thyroid gland,” the symptoms of which are dry skin, fluffy hair, and bulging eyes. Foods to avoid? Chocolate, mangoes, and red wine. Foods to eat? Asparagus, cucumbers, oats, and potatoes.

Drug lord Joaquin Guzman was
Forbes
magazine’s 41st-most-powerful person in the world in 2009
.

21-DAY CLEANSE

The Diet:
Oprah Winfrey underwent this 21-day “Jump-Start” cleanse in which you cut out all animal products, gluten, caffeine, sugar, and alcohol. You also practice “conscious eating,” which means that in choosing your food, you must first consider its environmental impact, and whether or not any animals were harmed at any point in its cultivation (such as the use of pesticides). Ultimate goal: to achieve “spiritual integrity.”

Other Celebs Who’ve Tried It:
Pamela Anderson, Casey Affleck, Andre 3000, Alicia Silverstone, and Natalie Portman

BABY FOOD DIET

The Diet:
How do you eat only 600 calories a day? Replace one or more meals with baby food. According to super-skinny fashion designer Hedi Slimane, who created the diet: “The less I chew, the better.”

Celebs Who’ve Tried It:
Jennifer Aniston, Lily Allen, Reese Witherspoon, and
Desperate Housewives’s
Marcia Cross

MORE STRANGE CELEBRITY DIETS

• Victoria Beckham’s daily intake is edamame (baby soybeans in the pod), strawberries, a few prawns, and lettuce, along with two pints of algae or a seaweed shake.

• Mariah Carey believes that purple foods keep her from getting wrinkles. Three days a week, she eats only foods such as grapes, plums, and beets.

• Christina Aguilera follows a 7-Day Color Diet regimen in which she eats one type of food per day, based on color or texture. The colors: white, red, green, orange, purple, yellow, and rainbow!

ThinkGeek.com
offers an “Air Guitar” T-shirt that lets you play music by strumming the T-shirt
.

THE HAUNTING, PART II

When we left Jackie Hernandez in Part I of this ghost story (
page 297
), she had finally escaped the terror of that San Pedro house…or so she thought
.

Y
OU CAN RUN…BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE
Not long after Jackie arrived in Weldon, her husband left her. Once again, she found herself alone in a new town. But she wasn’t really alone. It started with a familiar pounding noise coming from the shed behind her trailer at night. Jackie recognized that sound. Then two of her neighbors got the scare of their lives when they were carrying a TV into her house and a face appeared on the screen. When they described its “evil eyes,” Jackie knew whose face it was. Then one evening when she was in her baby daughter’s room—Jackie turned around and the bedspread caught fire for no apparent reason. Had she not been there…

On April 13, 1990, the investigators got a phone call. Jackie was hysterical. Barry Conrad and Jeff Wheatcraft immediately jumped in their car and drove to Weldon. They arrived around midnight, but of course the house was quiet. Conrad turned on his camera and conducted some interviews. Nothing happened. So Jackie had an idea: “Let’s use a Ouija board and see if we can get it to talk to us.” The investigators weren’t too keen on the idea. It wasn’t that they believed the stories that a Ouija board could somehow “open the door” for evil spirits; they thought it was just a toy. Still, they agreed to give it a try.

THE CONVERSATION

Conrad trained his camera on the Ouija board while Jackie and a neighbor looked on. Wheatcraft and Conrad sat at the table with the board placed between them. Then the camera shut off. Conrad got up and turned it back on. And it shut off again. Just like that first night in the attic, he couldn’t get it to work. So although there were four witnesses, there was no camera to record what happened next. Here’s what they reported.

Shortly into the séance, the room grew very cold. As the two men asked questions, the pointer moved from letter to letter, sometimes with their hands upon it, other times by itself. It spelled out its answers while Jackie wrote everything down.

Ivy League economists say gentle, text-based nagging can persuade people to save more of their money
.

                
Q:
Are you really a ghost?

                
A:
YES

                
Q:
How many ghosts reside among the living?

                
A:
PHANTOMS FILL THE SKIES ABOVE YOU

While Wheatcraft and Conrad tried to make sense of the response, the table began to shake. Then a candle went out. Then another one went out. They resumed the session.

                
Q:
Where did you die?

                
A:
SAN PEDRO BAY

                
Q:
Did you drown?

                
A:
NO, I WAS HELD UNDER WATER

                
Q:
Did you live in the San Pedro house?

                
A:
MY MURDERER

                
Q:
Why do you follow Jackie?

                
A:
ENERGY

As the night went on and dawn approached, the spirit revealed even more: He died in 1930, and he hanged Jeff Wheatcraft because “YOU HAVE THE LIKENESS OF MY KILLER.” Then Conrad asked, “Is there anyone in this room that you hate?” The letters spelled out: “J-E-F-F”.

And then, wrote Conrad: “For in a furious few seconds, Jeff and chair were levitated off the floor and hurled backwards into the trailer wall. The impact was so great that the entire trailer shook as Jeff toppled to the floor, unconscious.” Petrified, Jackie quickly took her two kids out of the house. Conrad was able to rouse Wheatcraft and get him to safety as well. Knowing that she couldn’t escape the spirit and that there was nothing left for her in Weldon, Jackie and her two children went back to San Pedro to stay at a friend’s house.

NAMES TO THE FACES

“The majority of paranormal cases aren’t worth pursuing,” explains Barry Taff. “There’s a lot of invention, a lot of embellishment, and a lot of outright fraud.” But Jackie Hernandez’s ordeal was different. “This is is the first case, out of more than 3,000 that I’ve been on, where the phenomenon went after the researchers.” It even followed Wheatcraft and Conrad back to their L.A. apartment, taunting them by—among other things—turning on the stove burners and placing scissors under their pillows. Wheatcraft said he was even pushed again.