COMPLETELY USELESS!

Hello again, all!
     Most of the time, I try to make these Sunday Funnies useful
in some way.  But not this week.  This is stuff that you could
easily live without.  Silly and amusing, but not the kind of
thing that will change your life.  Unless you really needed to
know that the first meal consumed on the moon was roast turkey.
     One of the things about doing Funnies every week is that it
keeps me pretty busy reading.  You wouldn't believe just how much
material I scan through for an average Funnies.  The web is
wonderful for research, and contains all kind of curious raw
data.  Except that some of it is wrong.  There are dozens of web
lists that claim that the Great Wall of China is the "only
man-made object that can be seen from space" (or from the moon). 
That's baloney.  From space - close space, that is, you can see
all kinds of man-made objects, like roads, fields and large
construction sites.  From the moon, the planet Earth is a tiny
blue green marble.  A person with really good eyes can just about
make out continents.  Then there's the nonsense about a duck's
quack not echoing (it does.).  You have to be careful with some
of this stuff.
     Another example is the "pornography" quote attributed to Ken
Starr that was in last week's Funnies, which turned out to be an
urban legend.  I got it from a usually reliable source, but it
was just a little too good to be true.  Even the San Francisco
Examiner and Washington Post had to look carefully at that one. 
Thanks to Gary White (A.K.A whitegl@ncat.edu ) for pointing out
the error.  Despite this being stuff that is basically silly, we
do try to have some kind of journalistic standards.
     It's certainly no trivial matter to thank all of the kind
folks who contributed to Funnies this week, including: Jerry
Taff, Timothy McChain, Junji Taniguchi, Peter Adler, Harry
Cherkinian, John Adler, Naomi Ogawa, Laura (Hong) Li, Gail
(A.K.A. psybelle@hooked.net ), Sylvia Libin He (A.K.A. Ah Hong),
Tomoko Naito (A.K.A Mrs. Michael Fagan), Caterina Sukup (A.K.A.
Lee Yuen Yu / Mrs. James S.), Beth Butler (Mrs. James B.), and
Carol Becwar (A.K.A. Mrs. Me).  Hmm... I'm beginning to think I
should run this thing under an alias. 
     Have a Non-Trival Week!

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     It is better, of course, to know useless things than to
     know nothing.
                            - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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   - The famous Vulcan salute from TV's "Star Trek" is really a
     blessing given by rabbis.  The split fingers represent the
     Hebrew letter ("shin," pronounced "sheen"), the first letter
     of the word "shalom."  Actor Leonard Nimoy remembered seeing
     his rabbi use this blessing when he was a boy and eventually
     added it to "Star Trek" lore.

   - The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.  

   - When the bottom fell out of the German economy in 1923, one
     U.S. dollar was worth 100 million German marks.

   - Though it's the most widely known story from Arabic, in the
     original story of "Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights" the first
     line is, "Aladdin was a little Chinese boy."

   - There will be four consecutive full moons making two blue
     moons (one month with two full moons) in 1999.  (On January
     2 and 31 AND March 2 and 31.) The only other time this
     happened this century was in 1915 (January 1 and 31, March 1
     and 31).  February, 1965 was the only month in recorded
     history not to have a full moon.

   - The earliest Latin document in a woman's handwriting (from
     the first century A.D.) is an invitation to a birthday party.

   - McDonald's in New Zealand serve apricot pies instead of
     cherry.

   - The slogan on New Hampshire license plates is the state
     motto: "Live Free or Die."  Those license plates are
     manufactured by prisoners in the state prison in Concord.

   - Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.

   - When tossing a U.S. penny, there is about a 0.5% greater
     chance that it will fall "tails" than "heads."  The reason
     is that the Lincoln head portrait weighs slightly more than
     the back design.

   - The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
          [ You might say it has the rabbi's stamp of
          approval. ]

   - Nauru is the only country in the world with no official
     capital.  The government offices are all in Yaren District,
     but there's no official capital city.

   - Tigers have striped fur, of course, but not many people
     realize that they also have striped skin underneath.

   - The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in
     the English language.

   - Police dogs are usually trained only to respond to commands
     in a foreign language; until recently, this was usually
     German, but Slavic languages and Hungarian are used more
     these days.

   - Except for an accident of history, the U.S. Presidential
     Mansion - the White House - might have been called the "Gray
     House."  During the War of 1812, the British burned
     Washington, D.C., leaving the president's house as a burned-
     out shell of gray stone.  It was painted white during
     rebuilding to hide the smoke damage.

   - The two lines that connect your top lip to the bottom of
     your nose are called the philtrum.

   - The only common domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible
     is the cat.

   - In the dome on Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, there is
     a hidden billiards room.  Jefferson loved to play billiards,
     but the game was illegal in Virginia during his lifetime.
          [ Would that have been a "high crime or
          misdemeanor?" ]

   - The Muppet Kermit the Frog is left handed.

   - Old firehouses in the U.S. had circular stairways because
     horses would often climb straight stairs and get stuck on
     the second floor.

   - The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen
     seconds.

   - The law that established the interstate highway system in
     the U.S. requires that one mile in every five be straight. 
     This allows the highway to be used as a landing strip in the
     event of war or other emergency.

   - Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for
     dating are already married.

   - There are an average of 178 sesame seeds on a McDonald's Big
     Mac bun.

   - Thomas Edison's least known invention is his suggestion that
     we answer a telephone by saying "Hello."  Telephone inventor
     Alexander Graham Bell had instructed people to say "Ahoy!"

   - The U.S. state with the longest coastline is Michigan.

   - It's possible to lead a cow upstairs, but it's not a good
     idea since it is extremely difficult for cows to walk
     downstairs.

   - Smells are actually composed of tiny amounts of matter. 
     Researchers in Japan have weighed smells, and determined
     that the average smell weighs about 760 nanograms.

   - The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is
     672.

   - Many Chinese films are subtitled - in Chinese.  Because of
     the tremendous differences in pronunciation between
     dialects, audiences there often can't understand what the
     actors are saying in Chinese without subtitles.

   - In one year, basketball superstar Michael Jordan makes more
     money from Nike than all of the Nike factory workers in
     Malaysia combined.

   - Jell-O flavors that were tried, but failed to sell: coffee,
     celery, cola, apple, and chocolate.

   - About half of Sunday Funnies' stories are from newspapers,
     television and wire services.  The rest are contributions
     from our loyal friends and supporters.  

   - The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."

   - According to the World Bank, in one third of developing
     countries you may wait as long as six years to have a phone
     installed.  In developed countries, it is rarely over one
     month.

   - More than 35,000 leeches were sold for medical use in the US
     in 1996 at a cost of about $6.00 per leech.

   - Al Capone's business card claimed he was a used furniture
     dealer.

   - The average human produces 25,000 quarts of spit in a
     lifetime, enough to fill two swimming pools.

   - The largest pumpkin on record weighed 755 pounds (343 kg).

   - Thomas Edison, inventor of the incandescent lamp, was afraid
     of the dark.

   - During your lifetime, you'll eat about 60,000 pounds (27,000
     kg) of food -- about the weight of 6 elephants.

   - Famous British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
     was a skilled bricklayer and carried a union card for many
     years.

   - More people use blue toothbrushes, than red ones.

   - American comedian Groucho Marx was under observation by the
     FBI from the 1930's until his death.  The file doesn't make
     clear the reason for the interest, but leaves you with the
     impression that someone had confused Groucho with Karl.

   - At one time in Holland, it took four years to train to be a
     hatmaker but only three years to train to be a surgeon.

   - Bats instinctively turn left when exiting a cave.

   - Julius Caesar knew how to write shorthand, and could
     transcribe speeches as he heard them.  (Not modern "Gregg"
     shorthand; Juli used a system perfected by Marcus Tullius
     Tiro in 63 BC.)

   - Studies show that 90 percent of women who enter a department
     store immediately turn to the right.
          [ Conclusive proof showing that women are not
          bats? ]

   - A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

   - Queen Victoria, the very model of the English queen, was
     raised in a German-speaking home, and spoke English with a
     pronounced German accent through her entire 64-year reign.

   - Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than
     left-handed people.

   - Farmers in the Midwestern U.S. often feed pill-shaped
     magnets to their cows in order to protect them from injury. 
     The magnets lodge in the cow's secondary stomach, and trap
     most of the scraps of metal that a cow might eat while
     grazing.

   - Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president born in a
     hospital.

   - Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la
     Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula."

   - A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

   - Glamorous Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr (real name: Hedwig
     Eva Maria Kiesler) was the inventor of the "spread spectrum"
     radio technique, currently used by the U.S. military for
     secure communications.  She took out the patent in 1942 at
     the height of her acting career.

   - The computer term "byte" is a contraction of "by eight".

   - The famous ocean liner "Queen Mary," now a hotel and
     convention center in Long Beach, California, was supposed to
     be called the "Queen Victoria."  The owners of the Cunard
     line had asked King George if they could name their new
     liner after "England's greatest queen."  The king took it as
     a fine compliment to his wife Mary, and the Cunard directors
     had no graceful way out.

   - The average ear of corn has eight hundred kernels arranged
     in sixteen rows.

   - Humans begin laughing at two to three months of age.  Six
     year olds laugh about 300 times per day, while adults laugh
     from 15 to 100 times per day.

   - Shaving the body hair can be expected to shave a second off
     a swimmer's 100 meters race.  
          [ In the case of Robin Williams, it could
          nearly double his time.  ]

   - The two main species of bats in Ireland seem to attend
     different churches.  Natterer's bats are found only in
     Protestant belfries while Long-eared bats take up residence
     only in Catholic churches.  Biologists attribute this to
     differences in roof construction.

   - All polar bears are left handed.

   - The word "nerd" was invented by children's author Dr. Seuss
     in his 1950 book, "If I Ran the Zoo."

   - According to a study in the British medical journal
     "Lancet," most married men sleep on the right hand side of
     the bed (facing from the headboard), regardless of race,
     creed or age.  Divorced men often switch to the left side.

   - America's third president, Thomas Jefferson (elected in
     1800), was a big fan of pasta and introduced the first pasta
     machine to the U.S.  His favorite dish was macaroni and
     cheese.

   - Internationally, the TV Show "Baywatch" is the most popular
     TV show in history.  According to the book "Planet
     Baywatch," in the African country of Kenya, "Baywatch" is
     known as "Beach of Talking Breasts."


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© 1998 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.