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[Rich Kulawiec: GSP Digest #295]

If you still need to get someone a Christmas gift, either of the
Straight Dope books is funny, informative, and makes a compact
package that looks good with a bow.

PS. If you already saw these, check out the typo near the...end.

------- Forwarded Message

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Item 4:
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From: malcolm@apple.com
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 17:49:39 PST
Subject: Cecil Adams in the Wall Street Journal

This Know-It-All Answers Questions Nobody Asks Abby
Columnist Cecil Adams Is Of a More Scientific Bent;  Why Scotch Tape Sticks
[From the front page of the Wall Street Journal December 10, 1990.]

By Suein L. Hwang
Staff Reporter of the Wall Street Journal

Every morning, as Americans gaze sleepily into their breakfast cereal, one
modern mystery surely lingers in the collective subconscious: Just what is a 
Grape Nut anyway?

Fortunately, when inquiring minds want to know, there is someone to turn to
for an answer.  Cecil Adams, for 17 years the author of the unorthodox
weekly syndicated newspaper column "Straight Dope," has authoritatively
answered such questions, no matter how challenging, obscure or off the
wall.

(Grape Nuts, he dutifully reports, is a nonsensical, healthy sounding term
coined by Charles W. Post to apply to a product containing neither nuts nor
grapes.)

.. To the Sublime

In his career as an Answer Man, Mr. Adams has fielded nearly 2,000
questions ranging from one about the lyrics to "Louie Louie" (which are
hard to make out on the Kingsmen's recording and therefore in dispute) to
an earnest plea for an explanation of the theory of relativity.

In an unrelated matter, a Dallas reader wondered: "Where is Podunk?"  The
answer is in the dictionary, so that was a softball for Mr. Adams.  (There
are towns of that name in Massachusetts and Connecticut.)  Another reader
asked: "What does .. the dollar sign represent?"  That gave Mr. Adams the
opportunity to bring up and debunk four theories on the subject.

"Straight Dope" shuns "how to" or "why me?" questions that elicit "Dear
Abby" or "Hints from Heloise" sorts of answers.  Annoying in-laws and mildew
in the bath aren't his cup of tea.  He leans, rather, to more essential,
universal concerns, such as "What makes Scotch tape stick?"  That tacky
query came from "Robert W." of Baltimore, who claims to "yearn for
practical scientific knowledge" that scientists aren't quick to volunteer.
"So I turn to you, Cece," he said plaintively.

Mr. Adams was ready with a layman's explanation to the "theory of
adsorption," according to which stuff placed close together tends to stick
together.

Born Pregnant
Few subjects escape "Straight Dope's" scrutiny.  "I heard aphids are born
pregnant.  Is this true?"  asks a Maryland reader.  Mr. Adam's response:
"Not only are they born pregnant, they're pregnant without benefit of sex.
Not that sex with an aphid sounds like much of a treat."  He goes to
explain that the tiny bugs can give birth within 10 days of their own
birth.  (They are born, he says, not laid.)  "The baby showers must be
murder," Mr. Adams observes.

Since its 1973 inception in the Chicago Reader, which still syndicates it,
"Straight Dope" has come to reach an estimated 1.5 million readers in 25
alternative papers around the country, publications of the sort that used
to be called underground newspapers.  Two books, "Straight Dope" and "More
Straight Dope" are in print.  The author plans a new volume for children,
tentatively titled "How Do Astronauts Go to the Bathroom in Space?"

To his many fans, Cecil Adams is the patron saint of the hopelessly
inquisitive.  "You are my last resort," says a Chicago Reader.  "In the ...
Flintstones,' what was Barney Rubble's job?  Please help!"

Cecil, as usual, comes to the rescue.  ("I love this job," he says.  "Where
else would I get the chance to be on the front lines of Journalism?")
Asked, Hanna-Barbera Productions Inc. informed Mr. Adams that Barney Rubble
knocked around a lot, occasionally repossessing TV sets, sometimes doing
geological engineering, but didn't really have a profession.

Hope for the Intellectuals
"Straight Dope" has quite a reputation in the trivia business.  Other
professional factoid freaks have come to the author hat in hand for help:
"As you can see from our Index page, we at Harper's [magazine] are
fascinated by facts.  But even our crack research team is occasionally
stumped.  And so, with our resources exhausted, we turn to you, hoping you
can rescue us from this dark night of our inquisitive souls."  Harper's
editors wanted to know if Mr. Greenjeans of 'Capt. Kangaroo' fame was Frank
Zappa's father.  The answer is no.

Even academics take an interest.  "Why does a teapot make progressively
louder noises as it heats up, then suddenly goes quiet just before the
water commences to boil?" asks Timothy Livengood, a doctoral candidate in
planetary astronomy at John Hopkins University in Baltimore.

"Jeez, can't you guys at Johns Hopkins figure out anything?" responds
Cecil, who proceeds to explain the principle of cavitation, wherein bubbles
in the kettle pop from a rapid change in temperature.

Mr. Livengood is in awe of Mr. Adams's abilities.  "I asked people this
question for quite a while.  All they could do is mutter something
meaningless about first order phase transition," he says.  "Cecil makes it
look easy.  it was a heck of a good answer."

But Mr. Livengood, while grateful, isn't credulous.  "I suspect Cecil Adams
is a pseuodonym for several people," he says.  "How can one man know so
much!"

Nobody's Perfect
Actually, Mr. Adams does make the occasional error (two a year, he says).
About 25% of his answers are disputed by somebody or other.  And he has
help (a friend used to write for the magazine Scientific American, for
example.)

Mr. Livengood is right about something else, too.  Cecil Adams is a nom de
plume, used by a succession of authors over the years.  The current Mr.
Adams is a 39-year-old Chicago editor named Ed Zotti, who works out of his
home.  "I don't do 'Straight Dope" for the money," he says.  "But it does
pay the bulk of the mortgage."

And it he does the work for the love of it, that still doesn't keep Mr.
Zotti from being cranky, at least in his Cecil Adams cloak.

He has little patience, for example, for ignorant questions.  "Of course
not, you moolusk," he snaps at a Los Angeles reader who wonders whether the
destruction of the Panama Canal would cause one ocean to pour into the
other.  "As I have patiently but futiley attempted to explain in the past,
the level of the sea is more or less uniform throughout the world.  In the
future try to pay more attention."

Despite some such signs of arrogance, Mr. Know-It-All still does find some
questions unanswerable.  "What is our purpose here on earth?" asked one
reader.  "My landlady says it is to pay the rent.  Is it true?"

Cecil's reply, Mr. Zotti admits, "wandered off the topic a bit - as
commonly happens."

Cecil Adams, finally, has at least one question of his own: "How come
old-fashioned water fountains have two streams that meet four inches from
the spout?  I've always been fascinated but don't know who to ask."

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Item 7:
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From: malcolm@apple.com
Date: Sat, 08 Dec 90 15:41:24 -0800
Subject: Cow Tipping!!! (More of The Straight Dope)

The Straight Dope
By Cecil Adams
Los Angelos Reader November 23, 1990

Is there such a thing as cow tipping?  I have two friends, both sons of
farmers.  One says it can be done and it is great sport.  The other says
no way.  Do cows sleep standing up?  Can they be tipped?  I suppose this
will take some late-night research.  --- Robert Schreur, Baltimore.

Not on your life, ace.  Fortunately for the cause of science, there are
many goofs eager to rush in where Cecil would just as soon not tread.
I'm told that there really is a rural pastime called cow tipping, which
is favored by likkered-up country kiddies with nothing better to do on a
Saturday night.  (One presumes all the sheep were busy.)  The cow is easy
prey for pranksters since it's one of a number of critters (the horse is
another) that sleeps standing up with its knees locked.

I recently discussed the fine points of cow tipping with a reformed
tipper named Robin, who had done it (once) as a student.  Robin attended
Albion College in Michigan, a school so snooty it's said the students
read "The Preppie Handbook" without realizing that it was satirical.
Despite their pretensions, however, Albionians were mad for cow tipping.

The usual modus operandi, Robin told me, was to get tanked at a frat
party and then drive out with a half dozen of your most brainless friends
to a nearby farmer's field.  While the rest of the group watched from a
safe distance, the two most daring lunatics took off their shoes, climbed
over the fence, snuck up on a dozing cow, pushed, and then ran like hell.

Watching a cow tip over apparently is the sort of Zen experience that
only those with higher consciousness or a couple six-packs under their
belts can properly appreciate.  Remember that film snippet from the TV
show "Laugh-In" where the guy riding the tiny tricycle suddenly falls
over?  Same deal.  Once down, the cow awakened, got pissed, scrambled up,
ran around, and usually rousted out the rest of the herd, resulting in
pandemonium.  Sounds like a hoot.

Farmers, of course, aren't crazy about the cow tipping because the cows
might get hurt.  On the bright side, there's also a chance one of the
idiot students might get killed, which has to be a comfort.  Happily for
the cows, tipping is the sort of thing even the most desperate only feel
compelled to do once, and most people never feel compelled to do at all.
Obviously the dairy industry's public education program (Please, No
Tipping) has finally paid off.

I saw a chemist's demonstration where a bowl of Total cereal was soaked
in hot water (to dissolve the cereal).  Then a white magnet was placed
in the solution.  Upon removal, the magnet was covered with tiny specks
of metal, apparently iron.  A white magnet placed into a packet of "iron
fortified" instant oatmeal and shaken around will also come out covered
with tiny iron filings.  Are these filings actually nutritious, or is this
some terrible joke so there products can claim to be "iron fortified"?
- --- William B. Stickton, Washington, DC.

You thought when they said "iron added" they were kidding?  Different
iron compounds may be used in different products and the particles may
be of different sizes, all of which affect how "biologically available"
the stuff is.  But, yes, when a product says "iron fortified", that means
they put iron fillings into it --- tiny ones, let me hasten to add, on
the order of a few dozen microns in diameter.  The particles can range
from straight powdered iron ("reduced iron") to compounds such as ferrous
sulfate and ferric phosphate. The stuff is "harmless and assimilable,"
it says here, and your body definitely needs it.  Iron deficiency is very
common in the United States, and at one time the Food and Drug
Administration considered asking that higher levels of iron be added to
more foods.  (The plan died because of fears that more iron might trigger
certain rear diseases.)  Just don't try walking through an airport metal
         ^^ [I assume that should be "rare" --spaf  :-) ]
detector after eating your cornflakes.  For more information on iron and
other food additives, read "The Complete Eater's Digest and Nutrition
Scoreboard" by Michael Jacobson (1985).

- -- Cecil Adams

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