Two Starving Bums

Interesting Facts

(1) More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.

(2) More people are killed each year by coconuts than sharks. Approximately 150 people are killed each year by coconuts.

(3) You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.

(4) Fleas have the distinction of killing more people than all the wars man has ever fought. The "Black Death" plague killed 1/4 of Europe's population in the 14th century, caused by germs transmitted from rodents to humans by fleas.

(5) The animal responsible for the most human deaths worldwide is the mosquito.

(6) The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.

(7) A hundred years ago, the average life expectancy in the United States was forty-seven.

() Today, only one in two billion people will live to be 116 or older.

(9) Your statistical chance of being murdered is 1 in 20,000.

(10) There are 5 times as many deaths due to the negligence of doctors as there are deaths due to firearms.

(11) On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.

(12) Robert Hershey, of Hershey Chocolate fame, died when he fell into a vat of chocolate and drowned.

(13) Dr. Alice Chase, who wrote "Nutrition for Health" and numerous books on the science of proper eating, died of malnutrition.

(14) Adolph Hitler's mother seriously considered having an abortion but was talked out of it by her doctor.

(15) When Mahatma Gandhi died, an autopsy revealed that his small intestine contained five gold Krugerrands.

(16) When Thomas Edison died in 1941; Henry Ford captured his last dying breath in a bottle.

(17) In 1845, President Andrew Jackson's pet parrot was removed from his funeral for swearing.

(18) Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln, was present at the assassinations of three presidents: his father's, President Garfield's, and President McKinley's. After the last shooting, he refused ever to attend a state affair again.

(19) When Mark Twain was born on Nov 30, 1835, Halley's comet was visible over Florida, Missouri. Mark Twain predicted in 1909 that he would die when it returned. He was right. When he died on April 21, 1910, Halley's comet was once again visible in the sky.

One day five blind men decided to find out what an elephant "looked" like. Led to one, each man grabbed hold of whatever section of the animal he could, certain that what he had grabbed was the whole of the elephant itself.

The one holding onto the trunk thought for certain that the elephant must indeed be the shape of a wiggly snake and said so, but the one who had found an ear countered, insisting that the elephant's size was that of a palm leaf. With a firm grip on one of the elephant's legs, the third announced that the animal was actually like a tree trunk. "No," stated another, while patting the elephant's side, "this beast is truly the size of a wall."

Then the fifth, being the loudest and most impatient of the group, clasped the animal's tail and yelled, "Oh, my brothers, you are not only blind but crazy, for the elephant is the shape of a rope" - (an ancient Hindu parable illustrating humanity's many attempts to define God)

A man spoke with the Lord about heaven and hell. The Lord said to the man, "Come, I will show you hell." They entered a room where a group of people sat around a huge pot of stew. Everyone was famished, desperate and starving. Each held a spoon that reached the pot, but each spoon had a handle so much longer than their arms that it could not be used to get the stew into their own mouths. The suffering was terrible.

"Come, now I will show you heaven," the Lord said after a while. They entered another room, identical to the first - the pot of stew, the group of people, the same long-handled spoons. But there everyone was happy and well-nourished.

"I don't understand," said the man. "Why are they happy here when they were miserable in the other room and everything was the same?"

The Lord smiled, "Ah, it is simple," he said. "Here they have learned to feed each other."