Taking a Pooh

"Reprinted from "Contrary by Popular Belief" by Joey Green (Broadway Books), with permission. Copyright 2005 by Joey Green. For a copy of the book, go to this Amazon link.

It's that day of the week again - the day we dig for the truth in the Latrine of Lies, that Bathroom of Bullshit, that Commode of Conspiracy, otherwise known as our so-called education. Yep, its ...

Pooh Thursday!
Pinch your nose, spray some air freshener or light some scented candles ... the stench will be awful!

{ Strawberries are not berries. }
Botanists classify the strawberry as an aggregate fruit - a fleshy fruit receptacle covered with dry, single-seeded fruits on its surface. True berries are pulpy, pitted fruits with a fleshy, soft ovary wall - like blueberries, grapes and cranberries.

The strawberry was originally called strewberry because the fruit appears strewn among the plant's leaves. Because of mispronunciation, the name became strawberry.

{ The Bible does not forbid masturbation }
Some religious fundamentalists denounce masturbation by pointing to the story of Onan in chapter 38 of the Book of Genesis to prove that God forbids the act.

In the story, Judah marries off his eldest son, Er, to a woman named Tamar. When Er dies, Judah tells his second son, Onan, to marry and impregnate Tamar to give his dead brother an heir, in accordance with the custom of levirate marriage.

Onan realized "that the seed would not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest he should give seed to his brother."

God slays Onan for refusing to his dead brother an heir - not for spilling his seed.

{ Cinderella did not wear glass slippers }
In the original version of the story, Cinderella wore fur slippers to the ball.

French writer Charles Perault retold the ancient story in his book " Stories or Tales from Times Past, with Morals", published in 1697.

Instead of giving Cinderella pantoufles en vair (slippers made of white squirrel fur), as told in the old French version, Perault wrote that she wore pantoufles en verre.

He confused two similarly pronounced words, and as such the mistake has been handed down to this day.

{ Icebergs are not frozen ocean water }
Icebergs are huge masses of ice that break off from glaciers or ice sheets.

Icebergs are made from snow that has been compressed into ice over thousands of years by its own weight.

Snow melts into fresh water - as do icebergs.

{ "Nearer, My God, To Thee" NOT Last song played on Titanic }
As the Titanic sank on the night of April 14-15, 1912, the last song the band played, before the ship's tilt sent the musicians and their instruments tumbling, was the Episcopalian hymn, "Autumn."

This was verified by Harold bride, the surviving wireless operator of the Titanic and was reported in the "New York Times" on April 19, 1912.

Both the 1953 and 1997 movies titled Titanic portray the band playing the wrong song, "Nearer, My God, To Thee."

(The above POOH was "borrowed" from the Random House publication "Contrary to Popular Belief" by Joey Green.)

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