Daily Dose - 010319 - donate one inch, Afro, Urban Legends Debunked, Wet Willy in a vise, DDL, Hey Martha

Speaking of new equipment reminds me of the poor fellow who lost his penis in an auto accident. The male members of his family were well endowed, and each volunteered to donate one inch.

One week after the operation, the doctor found him crying in his hospital room and asked if there was a problem with his handiwork.

The man tearfully answered,

"It's almost perfect, but why did you put Grandpa's inch in the middle?"

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Hard as this may be to believe, back in the 60's white activists often got their hair styled in an "Afro" (large bush-style hairdo) to show support for civil rights.

One such fellow did so, and came home smiling announcing that he'd also teased all his pubic hair into the same bushy style.

His wife who had had it with her spouse's endless posturing sneered,

"Great... Just great... Now during foreplay, I'll have to look for a needle in a haystack."

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Urban Legends Debunked

Cocaine-Cola

Claim: Coca-Cola used to contain cocaine.

Status: True.

Origins: Coca-Cola was named back in 1885 for its two "medicinal" ingredients: extract of coca leaves and kola nuts. Just how much cocaine was originally in the formulation is hard to determine, but the drink undeniably contained some cocaine in its early days. Frederick Allen describes the public attitude towards cocaine that existed as Coca-Cola's developers worked on perfecting their formula in 1891:

The first stirrings of a national debate had begun over the negative aspects of cocaine, and manufacturers were growing defensive over charges that use of their products might lead to "cocainism" or the "cocaine habit". The full-throated fury against cocaine was still a few years off, and Candler and Robinson were anxious to continue promoting the supposed benefits of the coca leaf, but there was no reason to risk putting more than a tiny bit of coca extract in their syrup. They cut the amount to a mere trace.

Allen also explains that cocaine continued to be an ingredient in the syrup in order to protect the trade name "Coca-Cola":

But neither could Candler take the simple step of eliminating the fluid extract of coca leaves from the formula. Candler believed that his product's name had to be descriptive, and that he must have at least some by-product of the coca leaf in the syrup (along with some kola) to protect his right to the name Coca-Cola. Protecting the name was critical. Candler had no patent on the syrup itself. Anyone could make an imitation. But no one could put the label "Coca-Cola" on an imitation so long as Candler owned the name. The name was the thing of real value, and the registered trademark was its only safeguard. Coca leaves had to stay in the syrup.

How much cocaine was in that "mere trace" is impossible to say, but we do know that by 1902 it was as little as 1/400 of a grain of cocaine per ounce of syrup. Coca-Cola didn't become completely cocaine-free until 1929, but there scarcely any of the drug left in the drink by then:

By Heath's calculation, the amount of ecgonine [an alkaloid in the coca leaf that could be synthesized to create cocaine] was infinitesimal: no more than one part in 50 million. In an entire year's supply of 25-odd million gallons of Coca-Cola syrup, Heath figured, there might be six-hundredths of an ounce of cocaine.

So, yes, at one time there was cocaine in Coca-Cola. But before you're tempted to run off claiming Coca-Cola turned generations of drinkers into dope addicts, consider the following: back in 1885 it was far from uncommon to use cocaine in patent medicines (which is what Coca-Cola was originally marketed as) and other medical potions. When it first became general knowledge that cocaine could be harmful, the backroom chemists who comprised Coca-Cola at the time (long before it became the huge company we now know) did everything they could with the technology they had available at the time to remove every trace of cocaine from the beverage. What was left behind (until the technology improved enough for it all to be removed) wasn't enough to give a fly a buzz.

Last updated: 2 May 1999

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A construction worker came home just in time to find his wife in bed with another man. So he dragged the man down the stairs to the garage and put his Wet Willy in a vise. He secured it tightly and removed the handle. Then he picked up a hacksaw.

The man, terrified, screamed, "Stop! Stop! You're not going to.. To.. Cut it off, are you???!?"

The husband said, with a gleam of revenge in his eye, "Nope. You are. *I'm* going to set the garage on fire."

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DDL

A penguin had been at the wheel
Lost oil from his automobile
Left his car at the place
Got ice cream on his face
And it looked like he'd just blown a seal.

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Work is the crab grass in the lawn of life.
-- Charles Schultz

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Cold, adj.
When the local flashers are handing out written descriptions.

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Q. What are a woman's four favorite animals?

A. A Mink in the closet, a Jaguar in the garage, a Tiger in the bedroom, and an Ass to pay for it all.

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Hey Martha (true)

Monday, December 4, 2000

Foresters chop down swastika forest

By SVEN KAESTNER-- The Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) -- Forest rangers Monday put their chain saws to a cluster of trees that form a huge swastika when seen from the air, believed to be the legacy of a forest warden who planted them in 1938 out of enthusiasm for Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Officials in the eastern state of Brandenburg say the relic near the rural village of Zernikow, some 60 miles north of Berlin, is an eyesore in what is now a nature reserve.

An attempt to make the swastika disappear five years ago failed because when some of the larches were cut down, the others grew to fill in the spaces. The swastika popped up again this fall for anyone flying overhead, when the trees turned dark yellow against the surrounding green pines.

"This is something of a wound, so we really want to do something," state agriculture ministry spokesman Jens-Uwe Schade said. "We want to finally bring this to a conclusion."

Officials reportedly also fear the forest could become a neo-Nazi pilgrimage site. In addition, the swastika display is technically illegal under German law.

Chain saws broke the morning silence at the site Monday as foresters began felling 25 of the 57 trees in a bid to break up the pattern once and for all. Discovered in 1992 by a researcher on an aerial photograph, the swastika has generated bad publicity -- reportedly even a complaint by former French President Francois Mitterrand.

Schade said forest swastikas were planted at several places in Germany during the Nazi era, but others had been removed long ago. According to local reports, unsuspecting children helped the forest warden lay out string on the ground for the swastika pattern, Schade said.

"It seems to have been something of a fashion among Nazi loyalist forest wardens," he said.

Ironically, the trees survived not only the Nazi defeat in 1945 but also four decades of official anti-fascist ideology in former communist East Germany.

Some speculate that local villagers simply wanted no trouble under the communist dictatorship. Then again, the swastika is visible only from a certain height and private planes were unheard of under communism.

"In East German times, agricultural planes flew over all the time and no one noticed a thing," Chief Forest Warden Rolf Leib said Monday as he supervised the operations.