News Quiz

No. 173: “Woon River”

When the Woonasquatucket River near Providence, R.I., moved into the No. 2 slot, behind New Jersey’s Passaic River, signs went up along its banks reading: “Peligro! Los Peces De Este Rio No Se Deben Comer.

Loosely translated, what would that be in idiomatic English?

by noon ET Thursday to e-mail your answer to newsquiz@slate.com.

Tuesday’s question (No. 172)–“Wear and Tear”:

A year ago she wore an orange jumpsuit and brandished a torch; now she wears a look of remorse. Who is she, and what went wrong?

“My sister, back when she was at Bennington at that ‘Take Back the Night’ rally thing. All her co-workers at J.P. Morgan keep giving her shit about it.”–Brian Fix

“She is Nathan Lane. What went wrong is that Encore Encore sucked sucked.”–Larry Amaros

“She is Dale Evans, and everything went wrong for her last year. First Roy dies, and then she gets booed off the stage at Foxwoods just five minutes into her Salute to the American Indian.”–Bill Franzen

“A Drudge Report world exclusive: Susan McDougal no longer carries a torch for ex-lover William Jefferson Clinton. In tears, jailbird confesses to her role in the murder of Vince Foster and ‘anything else Ken Starr wants.’ “–Daniel Radosh

“She is Crystall, the $200 an hour Miss Utah Olympics.”–Kate Wing (Doug Welty and Norman Oder had similar answers.)

Click for more responses.

Randy’s Wrap-Up

Mistake or metaphor? That’s what many of you wondered when you read the question. Unless you were Barbara Lippert, and then you just went ahead and decided: error. (For rush to judgment, click.) And while she is literally correct that flags were waved and technically accurate that torches were not brandished, isn’t there a deeper brandishing, a rich symbolic brandishing? (Not to some. Click for judge, jury, and executioner.) I suppose witnesses will have to be called to decide this. Fatuous, self-aggrandizing speeches will have to be made. I can’t prevent that. All I can do is calmly and modestly get on with News Quiz’s business. Please don’t be distracted by my quiet courage.

America Loses Its Innocence for the First Time Again Answer

As most of you know, Salt Lake City’s mayor, Deedee Corradini, accepted the Olympic flag at the close of last year’s winter games in Nagano, Japan. Monday she ended her political career, announcing she would not seek a third term. A member of the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee board of trustees, she insists that this has nothing to do with the bribery scandal: “I want you to know this is a purely personal decision.”

Cell Division Extra

It is not enough to hate; one must hate with clarity and understanding. Below, some reasons to loathe cell phones.

“It’s the same as seeing someone walk past you on the street busily shaving himself with a cordless electric razor, an action that implies not that this is an especially busy person but rather that this is a person who’s very interested in impressing upon others that he’s an especially busy person.”–Tim Carvell

“They’re status objects and umbilical cords for people so insecure that they need constant and instant connection and constant and instant interruption in their life in order to feel powerful and worthy. Getting a call in public on your cell phone is like flaunting how many Christmas cards you receive. It’s immodest and a sign of insecurity. People who don’t have real jobs and real lives tend to pack cell phones in order to appear occupied and loved, when in fact the reverse is true. They should, like the proverbial quarter in your pocket, be used only in a real emergency.”–Carrie Rickie

“Unlike someone talking at a pay phone, or two people talking to each other in person or, indeed, one person talking to herself, cell phone users always seem to give the impression that they enjoy having strangers listen to their conversations. It’s as if every conversation is a tiny act of performance art–cheap, banal, mundane performance art. They exploit themselves, by depriving themselves of that private life so essential to a modern liberal society, and at the same time they exploit the casual passerby by forcing that person to eavesdrop and act as audience. A cell phone user simultaneously withdraws from public life to discuss his taxes or what’s wrong with the cat or whatever, and insists that the public intrude into his private life. It’s that combination of zombielike self-absorption and fatuous exhibitionism that is so repugnant. What jerks they are.”–Jennifer Miller

“I hit on this explanation while reluctantly overhearing the inane chatter of a man describing, into a hand-held mouthpiece, in excruciating detail, a friggin’ haircut! It is that hubris, that ‘this conversation is SO important it cannot wait for a less bothersome venue’ characteristic of public cellular intercourse.”–Dave Ross

Race Results

Reference No. 1: The Statue of Liberty.

Randy’s Wrap-Up 2

All right. All right. She’s telling the truth. I misread the article. Flag, torch–it all blurs together. I was under a lot of pressure. Nobody was supposed to get hurt. I’m just glad to get it off my chest.

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