By Randy Cohen
Fill in the blank in this headline from Utah’s Salt Lake Tribune: “___________ in U.S. Keep Packing Them In.”
by noon ET Wednesday to e-mail your answer (newsquiz@slate.com).
Responses to Monday’s question (No. 92)–“Franks for the Memory”:
I give the headline; you–briefly–give the story.
From Utah’s Deseret News: “Hot Dogs Inspire Songs, Protests.”
“Singer, songwriter, activist Joan Baez has released her first single in 20 years, called ‘Christ, How I Hate Wieners.’ “–Larry Amaros
“Salt Lake residents react to Starbucks’ new Frankaccino.”–Beth Sherman
“The most exotic of Times Square’s XXX performers, preferred by dittoheads and deputy mayors: lap dog dancers.”–Jack Hitt
“While it may have seemed clever and topical at the time, Hormel is now reconsidering its decision to rush ‘Semen-Stained Sausages’ into the marketplace.”–Tim Carvell
Click for more Tim Carvell responses (and a few others the technicians reconstituted).
Randy’s Technical Disaster Wrap-Up
Due to problems I don’t begin to understand but secretly believe were the devilish handiwork of Tina Brown, New York’s Mayor Giuliani, or a group of right-wing House and Senate Republicans, nearly all today’s responses were lost by the Microsoft servers. Above are all the replies received. Apparently “News Quiz” has reached its zenith as a kind of court poetry, produced solely for the amusement of Larry Amaros, Beth Sherman, Jack Hitt, and Tim Carvell. I couldn’t be more proud. I’m told that all systems will be restored by tomorrow, along with my ancestral lands in Scotland.
Doggedly Persistent Answer
Inside Utah’s Hogle Zoo, kids auditioning for a TV commercial sang, “I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener.” Outside, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals members following the Wienermobile on its cross-country talent search chanted anti-meat protests.
Linda Thomson, a Deseret News staffer, wrote:
Janet Avis and her daughter, Krystal, 4, really want a shot at the TV exposure. “I would like to get her into commercials and acting so I’m working on that,” Janet Avis said. “She’s in ballet and she has a dream of winning the Olympic gold medal in ice skating. I thought commercials would help out financially.” Avis said she had mixed feelings about the animal rights protesters outside the zoo. “I’m kind of for it and kind of against it. Sometimes they get too out of hand with their protests, but on the other hand I don’t think animals should be abused.”
Outside the zoo, Sean Diener, who heads the Utah Animal Rights Coalition and represented PETA at the protest, said the 23 participants wanted to raise public awareness. “We want to promote vegetarianism and get the stage-happy mothers to realize that while they’re making fun and games of eating hot dogs, pigs in factory farms and slaughterhouses are being tortured and killed,” Diener said. “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.”
What’s a Meta For? II Extra
1) To whom does England’s Tony Benn, a Labor Member of Parliament, metaphorically refer?:
“If I were in an aircraft and the pilot said, ‘I am not a pilot,’ I would leave the plane at once.”
Answer: The hereditary peers who sit in his country’s House of Lords.
2) To whom does England’s Tony Benn metaphorically refer this time?:
“If I went to a dentist and he said, ‘I am not a dentist, but my dad was a dentist in the 1920s–open your mouth,’ I would not listen to him for five minutes.”
Answer: Once again, those darn hereditary peers.
3) When Tony Benn goes to a team of flying dentists, do they have any special qualifications or qualities?
Answer: “These guys don’t have any special qualifications or qualities–they might be prats, drug addicts, half-wits or deadbeats–and there’s no reason for them to tell you or me what we should do,” said Hillary Boyd, the granddaughter of an earl. By next year, Britain’s Labor Party is expected to abolish the House of Lords.
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