News Quiz

No. 244: “When IRS Eyes Are Smiling”

Fill in the blank on this tax tip from a Washington state IRS collection officer. “If you don’t want to pay your taxes today all you have to do is say two magic words: _________ _________.”

Send your answer by noon ET Wednesday to newsquiz@slate.com.

Monday’s Question (No. 243)–“A Crush on You”:

“All great leaders since Moses have known that feared enemies must be crushed completely.” Who served up this baloney on Sunday, to inspire whom, to do what?

“A leader of the Makah tribe, inspiring 600 men armed with pointed spears and high-powered rifles to tear into the ‘feared enemy,’ who was, at that moment, peacefully sorting baleen.”–Dale Shuger

“The ‘voices’ telling Joan Van Ark to liberate France from the English, in yet another strange twist on Knots Landing.”–Matt Sullivan

“A government spokesman explains why the federal government is funding research on the Crushinator 6000, an alternative to the Crushinator 9000.”–Jane Bu

“Cat leader, to all the other cats, to finally get those dogs. (The head cat learned about Moses from a very cool Bible.)”–J. Kamensky

“Martha Stewart, on using the proper blender setting for pulverizing ‘those f**king tomato skins.’ She gets a little obsessive about her sauce.”–M. Koegel (Norm Oder had a similar answer.)

Click for more answers.

Randy’s Wrap-Up

With the glorious exception of the St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V, there is nothing more demoralizing than an inspirational address. That sort of thing generally entails a coach or an east regional sales manager exhorting you to do something pointless, painful, or profitable to someone else. Physics has few inspirational speeches: Unify that Field Theory! Writing novels, performing surgery, preparing a light and elegant soufflé–each must be done without rousing declamation. Sex sometimes includes a heartening oration, but usually toward the end, urging you on to mutual victory; such remarks are rarely delivered at halftime, when you’re lurking in the locker room, glum and battered. (The exception here is phone sex, where the inspirational speech pretty much is the sex.) “For the Senate and the Roman People”–that’s what gladiators used to say. Not too many people today seek inspiration from the Senate, although a surprising number do seek sex there, frequently for money. But they think themselves accurs’d and hold their manhoods cheap. Poor bastards.

Motivational Answer

Coach Pat Riley tried to inspire his Miami Heat to beat the New York Knicks. They didn’t.

From Bad to Verse Extra

Below, a new form of cut and paste poetry.

The rules:

  • Four lines, each with the same number of words.
  • The words in each line must originally appear adjacent to each other in a newspaper headline.
  • The headlines must all come from a single edition of a single paper.

Two samples:

Daredevil soprano
Cow valve
Heart boy
Smart toilet

–New York Times, May 18, 1999

New Jersey rabbi
Dutch mental patient
Crack, not ping
Pittsburgh awaits fate

–New York Times, May 18, 1999

Participants are invited to submit similar poems.

Also welcome–a good name for this verse form.

Common Denominator

Personification of uncompromising belligerence–Bill Gates.

Close second–Eisner/Katzenberg.