Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for August 28, 2014

That’s a silly excuse, Chairman Mao! (I wonder if he wore artificial dentures.)

I’ve seen pictures of Mao in which his teeth were actually green.

n my day he was Mao Tse-Tung. The Wade-Giles spelling for Chinese words (still used in Taiwan, also in Chinatowns in both Los Angeles and San Francisco) always seemed to suggest exotic enchantment, a faraway-place feeling. Later on, with the Pinyin spelling, I was more aware of the reality of these faraway places, so no more exotic enchantment.

What a poor excuse for not brushing. BTW tigers don’t ride in cars, don’t sleep in beds and eat their food raw. So I assume Mao didn’t follow every tiger habit.

Too bad tigers didn’t jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.

Sperm whales are the deepest diving whales, plunging down thousands of feet; the can hold their breath for at least two hours. It is pitch dark at those depths, so the sperm whales need their echo location to find prey, which they obviously cannot see. And their primary food is the giant squid. The squid tend to resent these dinner invitations, so there are titanic battles between whale and squid, which the whale does not always win. You will find scars on the heads of most adult sperm whales from the claws that are in the suckers on the squid’s tentacles.

Did Mao also not talk, walk on two legs, or use a toilet?

Well, that little insight into Mao’s brain explains a lot regarding Asian mentality. With leaders like that, no wonder they cling to their superstitious ideas and traditions. Thank you, China and other Asian countries, for being the nations that continue to do more than anyone to wipe endangered species off the face of the earth.

Is that why we never see a picture of Mao with his mouth open?

Bet he had some serious halitosis! Phew!

What did you learn today?

Tibetans don’t brush after having tea with sperm whales.

I thought someone was going to joke that most Chinese people today don’t brush their teeth because Mao set them an example. I have read that most of the Chinese don’t brush their teeth because of a scarcity of toothbrushes and toothpaste, and that there’s only one dentist for every 160,000 people.

Giant squids have the largest eyes of any living creatures today, but I don’t know how well they see at the ocean depths where sperm whales dive; what looks like pitch darkness to us does not keep owls and dogs from seeing their surroundings.