WTF Fun Fact 12451 – The Bishop of the Moon

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Archbishop William D. Borders was the founding bishop of the Diocese of Orlando, established in 1968. It covered 13 counties and nearly 10,000 square miles of central Florida. And possibly the moon.

Now, the Catholic Church has made no claim at all to the moon, but Borders’ territory happened to include Brevard, Florida, home to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that is where the U.S. launches its space missions.

At the time of the moon landing in July of 1969, many religious leaders praised the space program, seeing it as proof that God’s creation was neverending.

But for Borders, the moon landing was a little more personal. According to the 1917 Code of Canon Law (aka The Pio-Benedictine Code), which was in effect until 1983, any newly discovered territory was to be placed under the jurisdiction of the diocese from which the expedition that discovered that territory originated.

In other words, since the Apollo 11 mission launched from Cape Canaveral and that was in Borders’ territory, it was technically under his jurisdiction. A couple of other bishops joked that they might have dibs, but it was all in good fun.

In fact, to keep the joke going, Bishop Borders mentioned this to Pope Paul VI on a visit to the Vatican in late 1969. The pope had watched the moon landing with great interest (the Vatican has one of the best observatories in the world), but we’re not quite sure what he thought of the claim.

The story of their meeting comes to us via Renae Bennett, Orlando’s diocesan archivist, who wrote:

“During his visit, Bishop Borders mentioned to the pope that he was the ‘bishop of the moon.’ Responding to the pontiff’s perplexed reaction, Bishop Borders explained that according to the 1917 Code of Canon Law (in effect at that time), any newly discovered territory was placed under the jurisdiction of the diocese from which the expedition that discovered that territory originated. Since Cape Canaveral, launching site for the Apollo moon missions, was in Brevard County and part of the Diocese of Orlando, then in addition to being bishop of 13 counties, he was also bishop of the moon,” Bennett wrote. That would add more than 14.6 million square miles to the Diocese of Orlando, making that diocese the largest in the known universe.”

Of course, it all means very little, but that’s what makes it a fun fact.

Another fun fact: This would all make the current Bishop of Orlando, John G. Noonan, not only bishop of the moon but also of the International Space Station, which launched from Kennedy Space Center. – WTF fun facts

Source: “A Catholic bishop of the moon?” — The Catholic Weekly

WTF Fun Fact 12450 – Singapore’s Gum Laws

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Have you ever sat on a park bench or at a table in a public library only to have to Google “how to get gum off clothing” later on? For some reason, it’s one of those things that people still feel free to stick wherever they’d like. And now that we’ve spent the last few years learning so much about germs, it seems extra disgusting.

Well, Singapore is having none of it. None at all. To keep the country free of the gummy scourge, they’ve banned it altogether. You can’t import it or sell it. So any gum you get in Singapore is either illegal smuggled in or medicinal in nature.

The gum ban was introduced in 1992 by Singapore’s first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew. It became one of the only things foreigners knew about the country at the time, which was reportedly pretty annoying for the leader. But his goal was to create a today, pristine country that would turn into an international business hub and bastion of good behavior.

“We were called a nanny state,” Lee told the BBC’s Peter Day in 2000. “But the result is that we are today better behaved and we live in a more agreeable place than 30 years ago.”

Now, if you’re over 40, you may remember the story of American teenager Michael Fay. He was sentenced to 6 lashes with a cane (a pretty severe form of corporal punishment) in Singapore. It caused a strain in international relations between Singapore and the U.S. But, in fact, Fay was being punished for a ten-day vandalization spree during which he spraypainted cars and damaged and stole road signs. It had nothing to do with gum. In fact, caning has never been a punishment for gum chewing in Singapore.

Singapore has some other tidiness and good behavior laws as well, such as bans on graffiti, jaywalking, spitting, and everyone’s personal favorite “expelling mucus from the nose” (in other words, blowing snot rockets). Frankly, we’d be into banning that in public as well.

Another fun fact? You are legally required to flush a public toilet after use in Singapore.

Ok, so back to the gum. After so many years of having the law in place, Singapore has relaxed a bit. But that’s probably because no one really wants to risk it anymore. Since it’s illegal to sell it, the only gum you’ll see is at pharmacies. Licensed doctors and registered pharmacists can sell medicinal gum (such as nicotine gum) with no issues. But if you get caught spitting it out on the street, you can expect some trouble. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Why Singapore banned chewing gum” — BBC News

WTF Fun Fact 12449 – Sly Stallone’s Dog

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We heard this one straight from the legendary actor’s mouth (or Instagram page, which in 2022 is roughly the same thing).

It’s a pretty sad fact, actually. Having to sell your dog for food because you’re both starving must be heart-wrenching. And making the journey to repurchase him, paying out some of the first money you’ve laid eyes on in years sounds like it comes straight from a movie.

But here’s the skinny from Sly himself, which he posted alongside a photo of him and Butkus as a pup from 1971:

“1971… Since we’re on the subject of ” man’s best friend” this is myself and Butkus as a puppy, we were both, thin, hungry and living in a flophouse above a subway stop, I used to say this apartment had ” … Hot and cold running roaches” anyway there was not much to do except spend time with each other and that’s where I started to learn the craft of screenwriting. Since I never went out, I relied on his companionship, And actually it was his idea to write Rocky, but don’t tell anyone…. Years later when things got even worse I had to sell him for $40 in front of a 7-Eleven store, because I couldn’t afford food, then like A modern day miracle, the screenplay for Rocky sold, and I could buy and buy him back, but the new owner knew I was desperate, and charged me $15,000 … He was worth every penny! #NewYorkCity #HellsKitchen#BullMastiff#It‘sADogsWorld. #MoreToCome#inspiration#ThunderingYourHeart#GoingThedistance“

Now, to be completely honest, we were most surprised that Stallone was a screenplay writer and that he wrote the screenplay for Rocky. In fact, he wrote it in 3-and-a-half days, right after watching the championship match between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner on March 24, 1975.

If you’re confused by the dates, only the photo itself is from 1971; the story is from 1975.

– WTF fun facts

Source: Sylvester Stallone @officlaslystallone — Instagram

WTF Fun Fact 12448 – Killer Vending Machines

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In the United States, your chances of dying from a shark attack are roughly1 in 250 million, statistically speaking. In contrast, your risk of dying from a vending machine-related incident is approximately1 in 112 million. So a vending machine is nearly twice as lethal as a shark.

No, it’s not because the snacks you find in vending machines are high-calorie pseudo-food. We mean vending machines themselves can kill. Of course, your chance of encountering either may have gone down during the pandemic, but statistically speaking, you’re more likely to be killed by a vending machine than a great, big, toothy, man-eating shark.

Shark attacks make the news. Sharks seem dangerous. We’re afraid of sharks. They’ve made movies about how scary sharks are. They had to dedicate a whole week to sharks to show off both their deadliness and majesty. You just can’t say the same thing about vending machines. So sharks live in our imagination as something deadly.

Vending machines, on the other hand, are our friends. If the machines take over, we want them to be the ones that dispense snacks, right?

Ok, this isn’t really about ways you’re likely to die. But think about it – don’t we engage in this reasoning quite a lot? We love it. We throw it around all the time. “I can do X because Y is more dangerous.” That’s actually some deeply faulted reasoning since it ignored just HOW deadly X is (which, in this case, is vending machines).

Vending machines aren’t deadly at all. But they sure sound that way when you compare them to sharks.

And sharks? They get our attention as something deadly, even though, statistically, they aren’t. Especially if you live in, say, Indiana.

Now, we’re not going to insult you by spelling out the obvious social implications here, but let’s just say that next time you want to throw around statistics to prove a point, you might want to make sure they’re helpful. –WTF fun facts

Source: “How Are Sharks Less Dangerous than Vending Machines? An Exercise in Conditional Risk” — Freakonomics

WTF Fun Fact 12447 – The Tongue of a Woodpecker

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We never really thought about it up until now, but it makes sense that woodpeckers would have to have some kind of mechanism to protect their brains from getting tossed around in their skulls while they hammer away. But in 2010, a team of Chinese scientists figured it out – and it’s fascinating.

To be honest, we didn’t even realize woodpeckers have such long tongues. But doing all that pecking is a way to chip into beetle grub nests, and their long tongues allow them to get in there without having to bash a big old hole in the tree like the Kool-Aid Man.

A woodpecker’s head strikes with around 1,000 times the force of gravity, about ten times more than what would definitely kill a human.

Their sharp beaks help them out a lot, as do their strong neck muscles, but up until relatively recently, no one knew how their heads could absorb the shock of that motion.

–WTF fun facts

Source: “Why woodpeckers can hammer without getting headaches” — Birdwatching Daily

WTF Fun Fact 12446 – Lady Gaga’s Ghost

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While we don’t quite know when or why “Ryan” the ghost chose Lady Gaga to haunt, it seems plausible that rumors of her purchase of machinery to detect him is true based on past interviews.

Apparently, Ryan followed Gaga around wherever she went, which she found pretty “annoying.” She tried contacting a medium to stage a séance and communicate with him, but apparently, that wasn’t enough.

Now, granted, if we were convinced we had a pestering ghost, we’d probably try to get rid of it too. But we don’t exactly have Lady Gaga’s funds, so we’d have to pass on the $50,000 state-of-the-art Electro Magnetic Field meter. We’re not sure if that got rid of Ryan, but sources also told celebrity news magazines that she would have a team of paranormal investigators on hand to assess each concert venue she was about to perform in.

Frankly, we’d like to know more about what they thought they found. How many ghosts hang out at Madison Square Garden, for example?

Lady Gaga is also rumored to believe that she’s is the reincarnated spirit of a dead aunt.
– WTF fun facts

Source: “Lady GaGa calls in the ghostbusters” — Glamour

WTF Fun Fact 12445 – The Sprinkle Police

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In what can only be described as an absurd abuse of the country’s emergency police services number, a woman called 999 (the English version of 911) to report her ice cream man.

He didn’t steal anything from her or harm her in any way. She was just really upset that he hadn’t given her enough sprinkles. Yes, she was a grown woman at the time.

The police declined to give her name but did release the audio from the absurd 999 call.

During her full minute of complaining, she told the operator: “It doesn’t seem like much of an emergency, but it is a little bit.” In fact, it is not.

In light of the call, police warned citizens of the dangers of abusing the emergency system.

There’s no word on whether the woman got justice following the grave insult of getting a mere sprinkle of sprinkles. –WTF fun facts

You can listen to the call here:

Source: “Woman Calls Police Because There Aren’t Enough Sprinkles on Her Ice Cream” — Time Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12444 – Roosevelt’s Pet Hyena

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There’s an official Presidential Pet Museum dedicated to all the furry and feathered friends that have roamed the White House halls (and lawns).

Theodore Roosevelt has quite a few pets, and he and his family were animal lovers. However, he wasn’t terribly fond of hyenas. And that turned out to be a bit of a problem at first when Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia gifted him a male hyena in 1904.

It was reported by the captain of the ship that brought him to America that the hyena, plainly named “Bill,” “laughed all the time.” Apparently, this grew on Roosevelt, who became fond of the creature. In fact, he even let it into the White House and gave it scraps from the dinner table!

It has always been common for world leaders to give exotic pets as animals, but a hyena seems like a bit of an odd choice. Then again, what do you get the man who has everything?

Roosevelt reportedly was able to teach Bill a few tricks before he was sent along with his White House pal Joe the Lion to the National Zoo to live out his life. After all, Roosevelt was a busy man. –WTF fun facts

Source: “Theodore Roosevelt’s Hyena” — The Presidential Pet Museum

WTF Fun Fact 12443 – Immortal Billionaires

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You know what they say about money – “You can’t take it with you.” That saying is supposed to remind us to live our lives and discourage us from hoarding money since it won’t do any good after death.

But what if you have a fortune and you really can’t bear to think of the world without you? Well, if you’re a tech billionaire, you invest some of that money in your immortality.

There are multiple projects underway to study human immortality and extend life led by the likes of Jeff Bezos, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, and Russian Internet tycoon Dmitry Itskov. Now, not all of them want to live forever, exactly, but they do think that extending life by a decade or so sounds just about right.

We suppose being able to afford everything in life tends to make a person enjoy it more and want to keep the party going. But is it ethical? Will these billionaires share this tech with the rest of us, or will it only be for the rich?

Can the planet really handle a bunch of immortal billionaires? – WTF fun facts

Source: “The Men Who Want to Live Forever” — The New York Times