News Quiz

No. 28: “Floral Tribute”

No. 28: “Floral Tribute”

By Randy Cohen

Former House Speaker Thomas Foley is accused of being a member of the Chrysanthemum Club. Meaning what?

by noon ET Thursday to e-mail your answer (NewsQuiz@slate.com).

Responses to Tuesday’s question (No. 27)–“Master Builder”:

“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?

“That’s what he said to me after our last date. The thing is, I can’t figure out whether it’s a compliment or an insult.”–Nancy Franklin

“The pyramids. After all, aren’t they really just a shapely pile of big rocks?”–NicoleCody

“The artichoke.”–Bill Franzen

“Is it Tom (former exterminator, vermin eradicator, and current House Majority Whip) DeLay’s enemies/hit list? Stuff like: Morris Udall, ants, silverfish, Patrick Moynaham (sic), cockroaches, Newt Gingrich, salamanders, Tom Paxton, gophers, bedbugs, spiders, fleas, kill, kill, kill.”–Marshall Efron

“The very unsatisfactory House of Epistemological Horror ride at Campusland, the new bemusement park for academics.”–Larry Doyle

“Wait, I meant Congress.”–Larry Doyle

“Oops. Is it too late to change my answer to Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place?”–Larry Doyle

“Certain photographs of canyons on Mars that appear to resemble socialite Nan Kempner.”–David Rakoff (Casey Trauer suggested entertainer Barbra Streisand.)

Click for more responses.

Randy’s Wrap-Up

The only interesting and surprising detail in the odious and emotionally false As Good as It Gets (other than Helen Hunt’s inexplicably wet T-shirt) occurred not on-screen but in the theater, when the audience spontaneously applauded the words “Goddamn HMO shit bastards!” I could barely hear the next line over the clicking of ballpoint pens as campaign advisers all over the room flipped open their memo books and jotted, “Note to self for November: health care!!!” What would they make of the Slate “News Quiz” participants’ wildly diverse pet peeves? Such a medley of malcontents, each uniquely disgruntled. All I know is, I’m glad I don’t have to buy birthday presents for Nicole Cody or Bill Franzen; talk about hard to impress!

Just Part of the Government Cover-Up Answer

Michael Ravine, advanced projects manager at Malin Space Science Systems (operators of the camera on the Mars Global Surveyor), is talking about the “Mars face.” Images of the planet’s Cydonia region beamed to Earth by the 1976 Viking mission resembled a face to some observers. New photographs of the region released Monday prove to Ravine that “it’s a butte, a mesa, a knob.”

Leftovers

“The hardest thing to take was kids in a school bus sticking out their tongues at me.”–Robert Pilatus (1966-1998), former Milli Vanilli member

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