Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (81 page)

And furthering the debate about whether criminals learn from
CSI
, Paul Wilson, the chair of criminology at Bond University in Australia, stated, “There is no doubt that criminals copy what they see on television. However, I don’t believe these shows pose a major problem.” Prison, Wilson maintains, is where most of these people learn the tricks of their trade. So while law enforcement officials may agree that cop and lawyer shows do have an effect on modern investigations and trials, the jury is still out on exactly
what
that effect is.

The shows do have their positive aspects. For one thing, they teach basic science, saving the courts time and money by not having to call in experts to explain such concepts as what DNA evidence actually is. Anthony E. Zuiker, creator of the
CSI
franchise, is quick to point this out. “Jurors can walk in with some preconceived notions of at least what CSI means. And even if there are false expectations, at least jurors aren’t walking in blind.”

Perhaps most significantly, though, ever since
CSI
became a hit in 2000, student admissions into the forensic field have skyrocketed. So even if Zuiker’s show is confusing jurors, misinforming police, and helping to train criminals, at least it’s proven to be an effective recruiting tool. “The
CSI
effect is, in my opinion, the most amazing thing that has ever come out of the series,” he said. “For the first time in American history, you’re not allowed to fool the jury anymore.”

And finally, a message from Zuiker to anyone who walks up and points out his shows’ inherent flaws: “Folks, it’s television.”

On page 354, we gave you a step-by-step guide to having the perfect yard sale. So now you’ve got a wad of cash from your big sale. It’s time to go shopping…where else? At a yard sale! Here are some great bargain-hunting tips
.

T
HE ZEN OF YARD SALING
Does it seem like every time you go to a yard sale, all the good stuff is already gone? Maybe that’s because all the serious shoppers have already been there. For some people, going to yard sales is a passion—and a science. Here are some tips from the experts (yes, there are experts), starting with how to get started.

•
Chart your course.
Check your local paper and online posting sites the night before and map out a route. It ensures getting the most yard saling in for your time and your gas dollars. It also ensures that you won’t miss that “big super sale.”

•
Let fate lead you.
Or just head out for a weekend drive and look for signs. It’s not the most efficient method, but it’s always fun.

• Anything electrical that you can’t plug in or put batteries in to try it before buying (unless its really cheap and worth the risk).

• Anything that’s falling apart or on its last legs. (You will become a junk collector and—even worse—you’ll begin to look like one.)

• Old records, unless you know for sure that they are rare collector’s items (or unless you actually still have a record player).

• Expired food. Sounds obvious, but you occasionally come across packaged food or supplements at yard sales. It can be tempting because it’s cheap, but be sure to check the expiration date.

• Furniture from cigarette smokers’ homes (unless you don’t mind the smell).

• Things that you use regularly, even if you already have one. Examples: toaster oven, waffle iron, etc. When your old one finally
goes kaput, you have a spare and won’t need to spend a lot of money on a new one.

• Plants. They’re usually a good bargain, but do inspect them to be sure they’re healthy so you don’t spread disease or insects to the house plants you already have.

• Random goofy or fun things for Halloween or costume dress-up.

• Kids’/baby clothes, toys, and gear. If you need them, yard saling is the way to go. (They’re barely used.)

• Cool things for friends and family. Everyone loves surprise presents. You’ll make people happy and it will only cost you pennies.

• Water bottle and snacks (and eat before you head out)

• Small bills and change (it’s easier to bargain if you have the exact amount)

• An assortment of batteries for checking appliances

• A list of things you are looking for, including measurements

• Tape measure

• Your checkbook (in case you find an unexpected item you didn’t budget for, but suddenly can’t live without)

• Rope (in case you buy something large and need to tie it to your car)

• Be prepared to bargain; it’s part of the fun.

• Rule of thumb: a price that’s ¼ of retail or less is a pretty good bargain.

• If prices at a yard sale are too high and the people holding the sale won’t bargain, don’t fret—just head off to the next sale.

• Rummage sales at churches and schools are great. It’s like a bunch of yard sales all in one room, and the prices tend to be low.

• A useful over-generalization: A nicer neighborhood and house equals nicer stuff.

• Look inside the box. Make sure that what’s inside is what you think it is. This applies to CDs and videocassettes, too.

Keeping up with world events can be a full-time job. Those of us who just like to peruse the morning paper over coffee and a donut can find ourselves confused by international news—there is such variety in the different types of government from country to country… what does it all mean? Here are some of the basics
.

T
HE SKY IS FALLING
Imagine waking up one morning to newspaper headlines announcing that the United States government had collapsed and that the president and his entire cabinet were stepping down and calling for new elections. It would be frightening. You’d probably expect chaos and lawlessness to follow. You might even wish you’d listened to your crazy neighbor—the one with the stockpile of ammunition and canned goods.

Well, in parliamentary democracies, governments “collapse” all the time—it happened, for example, in Canada in 2006. All it means is that the dominant political party lost control of the legislature. There are almost 200 countries in the world, and each one of them has a government that is organized at least a little bit differently from all the rest. The terminology that reporters use to describe what is going on in the world doesn’t always make sense to people who are familiar with only one system. So, for the discerning bathroom reader, here’s a social-studies primer to help simplify the world beat.

Most countries in the world have some form of representative government, in which voters elect politicians to represent them in a legislative assembly. That doesn’t mean that they are always full democracies, just that some kind of political representation is built into the system. The least-representative governments: countries like China, Cuba, Syria, Vietnam, and North Korea, where only a single political party is allowed to participate.

Along with undemocratic, single-party systems, there are still a few absolute monarchies left in the world—among them Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Swaziland—where a hereditary king (or,
in Qatar’s case, an
emir
) has complete control over the government.

There are also plenty of countries where the mechanisms of representative government are mostly for show and the real power is a military
junta
(Myanmar, Fiji, and Libya), or a president without a strong legislature to check his power (Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, for example).

Representative governments tend to fall into two basic categories:
parliamentary
and
presidential
. The biggest difference between the two has to do with what social-studies textbooks call “separation of powers.” Under a presidential system (used in countries as varied as the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Sudan, and the Philippines), the executive branch of government is completely separate from the legislative branch. In the U.S., this means that the president holds power independently of Congress.

In a parliamentary government (like those in the U.K., Canada, Australia, Italy, Israel, most of Europe, India, Japan, and Cambodia, among others), the executive and legislative branches are combined. The executive (usually called the prime minister) is the leader of the legislative assembly (parliament). Think of the prime minister as a combination of the president of the United States and the Speaker of the House.

The prime minister is also selected differently from a president. A president is elected directly by the voting public to serve a fixed term in office (in the U.S., four years; in Mexico, six). Under a parliamentary system, citizens don’t get to vote for prime minister—not directly, anyway. The voters elect members of Parliament (MPs), and the leader of the party that wins the most seats becomes prime minister.

Not only is a prime minister not directly elected by popular vote, he (or she) usually doesn’t serve a fixed term in office. No one in a parliamentary system does—general elections aren’t held on a fixed schedule. In Canada and the U.K., elections are traditionally held at least once every five years, but there isn’t even a written rule that requires it.

So how does the system work? The head of the dominant political party becomes prime minister, and must then “form a government.” To American ears that probably sounds like what the founding fathers did back in the 1780s, but it’s actually closer to what a president does during his first weeks in office. Primarily, it involves assigning key cabinet positions to the appropriate politicians.

The tricky part is that it’s more difficult to form a government at some times than at others. In the U.K., there are two main political parties (Labour and the Conservative, or Tory, party), and one of them usually wins an absolute majority in Parliament. They are then able to form what is called a “majority government.” This means, in effect, that the majority party can run the government however it pleases without too much interference from the opposition.

In Canada, the last two elections have resulted in what is called a “minority government.” There are four political parties represented in the Parliament of Canada, but two of them (the Conservatives and the Liberals) hold more than 70% of the seats as of 2008. The Conservatives currently have more seats than the Liberals, but not enough to constitute a majority. Because of this, the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper must make policy compromises and court the votes of MPs from the other three parties in order to get anything done.

Some countries have so many political parties that there’s
never
a majority government. The Israeli Knesset (their parliament) is a good example: Israel uses a proportional representation system in which citizens cast their votes for a party rather than for an individual candidate. The parties are then assigned seats in the legislature based on the percentage of the popular vote they received. In Israel, any party that gets at least 2% of the vote gains seats. And in the 2003 and ’06 elections, the 120 Knesset seats were divided between 12 parties. (Nineteen more were on the ballot but fell short of the 2% threshold for representation.) The party that “won” the 2006 elections controls less than 25% of the legislature. In a situation like this, government-forming becomes a trickier business. The leader of the party that gets the most votes
becomes prime minister, and attempts to form a government by piecing together a coalition of smaller parties. Together, such an association can vote as a majority block, but, not surprisingly, these coalitions can be hard to hold together.

Coalition governments last until the least-satisfied party involved decides to withdraw its support. This usually means that the prime minister no longer controls enough votes to get anything done. When this happens, most parliaments will hold a “vote of no confidence” in the prime minister, and the government is said to have “collapsed.” In most cases, this leads to the dissolution of parliament and a new round of general elections.

Several European governments collapsed in 2008. Belgium’s prime minister offered to resign when he saw that the five-party coalition government he’d spent nine months building was unable to work together on key issues facing the country. In Austria, an uncomfortable alliance between the two dominant parties ended when one of them pulled out of the governing coalition in a bid to force new elections. And in Italy, the 20-month old Prodi government lost a vote of no confidence and was replaced by a new coalition headed by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.