By Randy Cohen
“Nothing jumps out at me and screams, ‘This must have been built by the forces of intelligence,’ ” says Michael Ravine. What is he talking about?
by noon ET Wednesday to e-mail your answer (NewsQuiz@slate.com).
Responses to Monday’s question (No. 26)–“Risky Business”:
The current Youth Risk Behavior Survey of ninth- through 12th-graders reveals that three in 10 boys and one in 10 girls have done something in the past month. What?
“Fantasized about Tommy Tune … and his incredible gams.”–Larry Amaros
“Been members of the Russian Cabinet.”–Aaron Schatz
“Gone to eighth base.”–Larry Doyle
“Been honest about their behavior while filling out the survey.”–Bill Franzen (Seth Stevenson had a similar answer.)
“They’ve been assigned to read John Knowles’ A Separate Peace and found themselves alternately bored and creeped out. Two out of three are reasonably sure there’s something gay going on, but they can’t figure out what.”–Chris Kelly
“Smoked a cigarette after sex with a teacher. (Is ‘smoked a cigarette after shooting a classmate’ too dark? Maybe I’m not getting out enough.)”–Beth Sherman
Click for more responses.
Randy’s Wrap-Up
The sex, the drugs, the guns–who was it who said, “Loathing and high auto insurance rates are the tribute age pays to youth”? Why, I believe that was me. And who was it who explained the 67 percent rise in military discharges since “don’t ask, don’t tell” by saying: “We think the rise is almost exclusively explained by the increase in the numbers of people stating they are homosexuals. We think they are voluntary statements. We can only speculate as to why they are doing this”? Why, I believe that was Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon. And who was it who in 1991 cut his wrists, mixed alcohol and pills, and tried to jump out a ninth-story window? Why, it was Milli Vanilli’s Robert Pilatus, who died of a heart attack yesterday at 32. And who was it who said, “Far more disgraceful than not to have sung on a Milli Vanilli album is actually to have sung on a Madonna album”? Me again. And why would I say such a thing? We can only speculate.
Reckless Teen-Age Answer
Smoked a cigar.
The survey, in Friday’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, found that between 1991 and 1997, smoking rates among high-school students increased by 33 percent, and among African-American high-school students the smoking rate increased by 80 percent.
In a related story, plaintiffs in a Minnesota lawsuit took possession of 200,000 pages of tobacco company documents hours after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block their surrender. “It sends a very chilling message to any trial lawyer that attorney-client privilege is not as sacred as it once was,” said Greg Little, a lawyer for Philip Morris.
Leftovers
“I’m not sitting here like some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette.”–Hillary Clinton, 1992
Disclaimer: All submissions will become the property of Slate and will be published at Slate’s discretion. Slate may publish your name on its site in connection with your submission.
