By Randy Cohen
According to Utah’s weekly Box Elder News Journal, Ginger Bess will soon leave her position but recommends it to others, “because you can fix yourself up mentally, physically and spiritually.” What does Ginger do?
by noon ET Thursday to e-mail your answer (newsquiz@slate.com).
Responses to Tuesday’s question (No. 93)–“Take a Number”:
Fill in the blank in this headline from Utah’s Salt Lake Tribune: “___________ in U.S. Keep Packing Them In.”
“Crazy Schmuel’s Budget Undertakers.”–Larry Amaros
“Indian Brothels. (Why stop at legalized gambling? These guys got screwed, damn it, and we owe them.)”–Chris Kelly
“Mormon Temples. (The Salt Lake Tribune has a tendency to overgeneralize.)”–Tim Carvell
“Styrofoam Peanuts.”–Colleen Werthmann
“Ballots: Glendening Campaign Staffers.”–Ananda Gupta
“Shows With Singing, Dancing Cats. (I told you Jerome Robbins had regrets.)”–Adam Bonin
“Juvenile Prisons. (Wait a second; that’s not funny.)”–Daniel Radosh
Click for more responses.
Randy’s Wrap-Up
Utah Week continues, and for the duration anyone with a year’s supply of canned goods in the basement plays free, as do seagulls.
The goals of Utah Week:
To counter the New York tilt of “News Quiz” with stereotypical references to other locales.
To learn more about what its license plate proudly proclaims “America’s Whitest State.”
To use a lot of short paragraphs with these little bullet things.
(Cliché Hunters’ Handbook. These hack references still available: polygamy, proselytize, Mormon Mafia, Howard Hughes, Garry Gilmore, swarms of grasshoppers, right-wing maniacs, misogyny, Tabernacle Choir, team basketball.)
Live Free or Not Answer
“Prisons in U.S. Keep Packing Them In”
The headline ran over an Associated Press story that included these fun facts:
The U.S. prison population surpassed 1.2 million in 1997.
Another 500,000 are in jail serving shorter sentences or awaiting trial.
At this rate, more than 2 million Americans will be imprisoned by 2000, although the crime rate has been dropping since 1994.
The United States trails only Russia in per capita imprisonment.
The U.S. incarceration rate is six to 10 times that of most industrial nations.
California and Texas account for more than a quarter of all state prison inmates.
Texas has the highest incarceration rate, followed by Louisiana and Oklahoma.
The lowest rates were in North Dakota and Minnesota.
Utah Week Extra: Meet Hartley Anderson
Utah’s Beaver County Monitor reports on Anderson, a Republican challenger for Robert Bennett’s U.S. Senate seat.
“Dragging a ball and chain as he entered the Beaver County Republican Convention, Anderson said he would like to ‘pull the IRS out by its roots.’ “
“A strong supporter of the Second Amendment, Anderson advised, ‘Hang on to your guns.’ “
“Anderson is 100 percent against undeclared wars, and he does not want to see U.S. soldiers fighting ‘in a blue hat.’ “
Utah Letters
A letter to the editor of the Wasatch Canyon Reporter:
Dear Editor:
Where the hell is my subscription? I sent you a check, which you cashed, yet I have not seen your promised publication. Either the Beehive State’s postal service is severely backlogged or that’s quite a scam you’ve got going there. I have enclosed one Family Circus cartoon as punishment. Please remedy the situation, otherwise more of Bill Keane’s work will follow. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Brady Toensing
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.
