Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader® (60 page)

In 1880 a large, heavily armed party led by 20-year-old Maurice Vidal Portman, the British colonial administrator, landed on North Sentinel and made what is believed to be the first exploration of the island by outsiders. Several days passed before they made contact with any Sentinelese, because the tribe members disappeared deeper into the jungle whenever the strangers approached.

Finally, after several days on the island, the party stumbled across an elderly couple who were too old to run away, and several small children. Portman brought the two adults and four of the children back to Port Blair. But the man and the woman soon started to get sick and then died, probably from exposure to Western diseases like smallpox, measles, and influenza, to which they would have had little or no resistance. So Portman returned the four children to North Sentinel island and released them with gifts for the rest of the tribe. The children disappeared into the jungle and were never seen again.

The world’s largest sea cave is near Florence, Oregon. It’s the height of a 12-story building.

INDIA’S TURN

After this experience, the British left the Sentinelese more or less alone, and focused their pacification efforts on the other tribes. When India won its independence from Great Britain in 1947, the Andaman Islands were handed over to India, but the Indians ignored the Sentinelese, too, for about 20 years.

Then in 1967, the Indian government launched its own large-scale expedition to North Sentinel Island, complete with plenty of armed policemen and naval officers for protection. The visit was less aggressive than the British had been 87 years earlier (no kidnapping), and it was more scientific (an anthropologist named T. N. Pandit was a member of the party). But they never made contact with a single Sentinelese soul—once again, the tribe members vanished deeper into the jungle whenever the outsiders approached.

RE-GIFTING

That began a decades-long policy of “contact visits” by the Indian government to North Sentinel Island. From time to time during the short calm-weather season, an Indian naval vessel would anchor outside the coral reefs and dispatch small boats through the openings in the reefs to approach the beaches.
Approach
the beaches, but not land. The boats had to be sure not to come within an arrow’s flight of the beach or risk being attacked by the Sentinelese.

These strangers, like the British before them, came bearing gifts—usually bananas and coconuts, which do not grow on the islands, and sometimes other gifts, including bead necklaces, rubber balls, plastic buckets, and pots and pans. Once the visitors approached as closely as they felt was safe, they would toss the items overboard to wash up on the beach. Or, if the party was large enough to frighten the Sentinelese into retreating into the jungle, it might even land on the beach, but only long enough to drop off the gifts and beat it out of there before the Sentinelese attacked. When a
National Geographic
film crew lingered a little too long during one such visit in 1975, a Sentinelese warrior with a bow and arrow shot the director in the thigh, and then stood there on the beach laughing at his accomplishment.

The world’s 10 most developed countries all speak Germanic languages.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

It wasn’t until the early 1990s, after more than 20 years of such visits, that the Sentinelese finally relaxed their guard—just a bit—and allowed the boats to come closer. Sometimes unarmed tribesmen stood on the beaches while the people on the boats tossed the coconuts overboard. A few times, they even waded out into the water to collect the coconuts in person. Even so, they did not allow the visitors to stay long. After just a few minutes, the Sentinelese would signal with menacing gestures or “warning shots”—arrows fired with no arrowheads attached—that the visit was over.

LEAVE ’EM ALONE

That was about as close as the Sentinelese ever came to opening up to the outside world. In the mid-1990s, the Indian government decided that its policy of forcing contact with the Sentinelese made no sense, and it ended the visits in 1996.

The visits made no sense to India, but they were actually dangerous for the Sentinelese. With so little resistance to Western diseases, the islanders risked not just the death of individuals with each contact with outsiders, but the extinction of the entire tribe. That was the experience of the other Andaman Island tribes: When the British established their penal colony on South Andaman Island in 1858, the native population of the Andaman Islands was nearly 7,000 people. But the British arrival was followed by a succession of epidemics, including pneumonia, measles, mumps, and the Russian flu, which decimated the tribes. After more than 150 years of exposure to Western diseases, their numbers have dropped to fewer than 300 people, and continue to decline. Some tribes have gone completely extinct. The Sentinelese, by refusing contact with the outside world, are the only tribe that has avoided this fate.

WAVE GOODBYE

The Sentinelese even survived the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the deadliest in recorded history, with few or no casualties. Though the tsunami killed more than 230,000 people in surrounding countries, it appears that the Sentinelese were able to sense the coming of the tsunami and escape to higher ground before it
arrived. When an Indian Navy helicopter arrived three days later to check on their well-being and drop food parcels on the beach, a Sentinelese warrior came out of the jungle and warned the helicopter off with bow and arrow, a clear sign that the Sentinelese did not want help from outsiders.

Moving fact: The U.S. Postal Service processes about 38 million address changes a year.

KEEP OUT

Today the Indian government enforces a three-mile exclusion zone around North Sentinel Island with regular sea and air patrols. Heavy fines and jail time await anyone caught trespassing into the zone. And if that isn’t enough of a deterrent, the Sentinelese continue to defend their island as fiercely as ever. In 2006 two poachers who’d spent the day fishing illegally inside the exclusion zone dropped anchor near the island and went to sleep, apparently after a night of heavy drinking. Sometime during the night the anchor came loose and the boat drifted onto the coral reefs. The Sentinelese killed both men and buried their bodies on the beach. At last report the bodies were still there; when an Indian Navy helicopter tried to recover them from the beach, the Sentinelese fought it off with bows and arrows.

EYE IN THE SKY

Today anyone with a laptop and Internet access can use Google Earth to spy on places that are not meant to be seen by outsiders. You can look at satellite photos of Area 51, the secret military air-base in the Nevada desert. You can look at Mount Weather, a secret facility in Virginia that is rumored to be the place where members of Congress are evacuated in times of national emergency. You can even peer down on secret waterslides on the outskirts of Pyongyang, North Korea, that are the playground of that country’s Communist Party elite.

But when you look down on North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal, all you can make out is the wreck of the
Primrose
, still stuck on the reef where it ran aground in 1981. You can’t see the Sentinelese, their dwellings, or anything else that might shed light on how many people there are on the island, or how they live their lives. The dense jungle canopy that covers every inch of the island except the beaches conceals everything: Even when viewed from outer space, the Sentinelese remain free from prying eyes.

Indonesia has more mammal species than any other country (and the most under threat).

ODD BIKES

Proof that fads come in cycles
.

T
ALL BIKES
An early version of these bikes, primarily used by lamplighters, first appeared in the late 19th century. They’re not to be confused with the old-fashioned “penny farthings,” bikes with one giant wheel in front and a tiny one in back. “Tall bikes” have conventional wheels, but their frames and seats (and pedals) extend high into the air. They’ve become increasingly commonplace in bike-loving cities such as Portland, Oregon, and Nashville, Tennessee, where thousands of people participate in tall-bike clubs. The bikes aren’t commercially available; they’re constructed by hobbyists out of spare parts, and are often made up of two bike frames welded together. The seat can be anywhere from 6 to 10 feet off the ground, giving the rider an excellent—and dangerous—view of the surroundings. (It should go without saying that getting on and off a tall bike takes a good deal of practice.) One tall-bike hobby: jousting, where high-riders whack each other with lances made out of foam and PVC pipes.

LOW-RIDER BICYCLES

Car and motorcycle enthusiasts often “trick out” their vehicles with expensive, flashy modifications. But if that’s out of your price range, try these. Favored by inner-city cyclists, low-riders are shorter than a standard adult bicycle, and are often modified children’s bikes. (Most preferred brand: Schwinn Sting-Ray.) Low-riders are typically customized into elaborate mini-monsters with banana seats, elaborate paint jobs, stylish handlebars, all-white tires, stereos, and other features. Some riders have even managed to work in hydraulics. All told, it’s a $10 million-per-year industry.

FIXED-GEAR BICYCLES

Since they lack the part called a “freewheel,” these bikes, also known as “fixies,” prevent the rider from coasting. If the bike is moving, that means the pedals are moving. Sound ridiculous? Well, many fixies don’t have brakes, either; you stop by “skidding
”—leaning forward to take weight off the rear wheel and then resisting the forward motion of the pedals. They’ve been used by cyclists in
velodromes
(indoor bike tracks) and by racers training during the off-season because they supposedly encourage “good pedaling.” In recent years, their popularity has skyrocketed among everyday riders. Nonetheless, they’re illegal in many countries and cities. A fixie is definitely not a bike for beginners, but if you can manage one, here’s a plus: You can ride backwards. They’re also lighter than regular bikes, and because they have fewer parts, they’re easier to repair and maintain. But don’t worry about fixed-gear bikes replacing regular bikes. Despite an eightfold sales growth since 2001, only 0.5 percent of all bikes sold each year are fixed-gear bikes. Cost: around $500. (You can convert your own for about half that.)

Emperor Charlemagne (768–814) made burning witches a crime punishable by death.

RECUMBENT BICYCLES

These bikes allow the rider to sit back, almost lying down as if they were lounging in a deck chair. Favored by older cyclists for their ergonomic benefits over more conventional styles, they’re not necessarily for the lazy or the elderly: The world bicycle speed record was set with a recumbent bike. While they’re fast, recumbents are difficult to pedal up hills and have a wider turning radius than traditional cycles. They’re also tough to balance on and tend to be pricier than standard bikes. About 20,000 are sold in the U.S. each year.

UNICYCLES

Riding a unicycle is not for the faint of heart—they are tough to balance on, and crashing can earn you a ticket to the hospital. But believe it or not, there are people who commute to work on these things. So why ride something so unforgiving? For one, unicycles are lighter and easier to store than two-wheelers. They work different muscles than normal bikes do, and they cost less. In comparison to two-wheeled bicycles, they’re easy to get in and out of elevators or up a flight of stairs. And then, of course, there’s the “fun factor.” While unicycles haven’t quite caught on in the United States (it’s estimated that only about 2,000 Americans use them to commute to work), the mode of transportation is gaining popularity in Japan.

Year of Maine’s first state fair: 1819. Year Maine became a state: 1820.

GOVERN-MENTAL

A few goofs from the public sector
.

S
HOULD HAVE SETTLED.
In 2008 the city of Bridgewater, New Jersey, charged a resident named Tom Coulter $5.00 for a compact disc recording of a public council meeting. After Coulter paid, he felt he should only have to pay for the actual cost of the disc itself, which cost 96 cents, so he asked the city to return the balance. The city refused, so Coulter took them to court. City leaders could have settled, but decided to fight. They lost. In the end, Bridgewater spent $17,500 on legal fees and Coulter’s court costs...and still had to refund him his $4.04.

A KILLER MISTAKE.
When U.S. Representative Michele Bachman kicked off her presidential campaign in 2011, she did so from Waterloo, Iowa. “John Wayne was from Waterloo,” she boasted in her speech, “That’s the kind of spirit that I have, too!” One problem: It was John Wayne
Gacy
who was from Waterloo—a serial killer who murdered 33 people. John Wayne the movie star was from another town on the other side of Iowa.

VOTE SHMOTE.
Lisa Osborn of Burton, Michigan, lost her bid for a spot on the Board of Education by one vote—her own. Why? She attended her son’s baseball game that day, and figured she had enough supporters to carry her in the election. She would have won with one more vote. “It was a dumb move,” said Osborn.

THE GULLIBLE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.
Two years after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, a 57-year-old software developer named Dennis Montgomery offered the CIA a way to catch al-Qaeda. He told them he’d developed computer software at his Reno, Nevada, company that could unscramble terrorist messages hidden among the pixels on Al Jazeera’s news channel. The CIA awarded Montgomery $20 million in government contracts without even testing the software. It turned out to be completely bogus—Montgomery was simply a tech geek trying to con the government. He wasn’t prosecuted, and all information regarding the incident has been classified to avoid any further embarrassment to the CIA.