News Quiz

No. 249: “Cam Com Can Gal”

The list includes cameras, laptop computers, canvas bags of tools, and 665 gallons of water. List of what?

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

Tuesday’s Question (No. 248)–“Re Place”:

According to Justice Anthony Kennedy, it’s a place where people “practice newly learned vulgarities, erupt with anger, tease and embarrass each other, share offensive notes, flirt, push and shove in the halls, grab and offend.” Where is this wonderful, magical place?

“HBO.”–Larry Amoros

“The Routledge Press.”–Dan Ricci

“Los Alamos Security.”–Beth Sherman (Heather Williams had a similar answer.)

“Camp Rosie O’Donnell.”–Jon Hotchkiss

“drudgecharterschool.com.”–Ken Novak

Click for more answers.

Randy’s Wrap-Up

It’s much noted that if you saw what goes on in a restaurant kitchen, you’d never eat out again. Similarly, you’re advised to avert your glance from the making of sausages, and laws, and presumably laws about the manufacture of sausages to be fried up in some restaurant that you won’t be visiting. And yet, it really would be nice if the Supreme Court were televised. Lower courts are televised without diminishing our respect. Charlie Rose is on television every night, without diminishing our … OK, bad example. But what is the argument against putting the Supreme Court in a glass-walled, street-level studio, cranking up the theme music, hiring a second-tier comic to warm up the gallery, and … OK, again, there is no doubt some kind of case to be made against that. But if the court could be televised discretely, in black and white, surely justice would not be imperiled, and might even be improved. At least we’d get a more vivid idea of how justice works. And each December, when the networks do all those year-in-review shows, there’d be swell footage of mighty impressive fatuity. And of some guy vomiting up sausage all over the waiter. And the name of that guy? Anthony Kennedy.

“In the Final Analysis, This Case Is About Federalism” Answer

Justice Kennedy fondly recalls his school days, what he terms “the real world of school discipline.”

In a dissent that ran longer than the decision, he argued against the federal government’s tampering with school fun, just as it, presumably, ought not have messed around with slavery, or what Kennedy would call “the real world of agricultural labor.”

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who wrote the 5-4 decision, found that school districts can be liable for damages for failing to stop a student’s severe and pervasive sexual harassment of a classmate. She said that Kennedy’s dissent, endorsed unsurprisingly by William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas, would “teach little Johnny a perverse lesson in Federalism,” but the majority found a way that “assures little Mary may attend class.”

LaShonda Davis–little Mary–was a fifth-grade girl subjected to five months of harassment from a classmate. Her school refused to help her, even by changing her seat. Her harasser was eventually charged and convicted of sexual battery in juvenile court.

Arlene Hellerman’s Infelicitous Metaphor Corner

“These theories have all been tried before and have all been shot down before.”–Steve Sanetti, vice-president and general counsel of Sturm, Ruger & Co., the largest and only publicly traded gun manufacturer in the United States, poo-poos legal arguments against his company.

Tim Carvell’s Philosophy Corner

Why is it that when J.D. Salinger sends love letters to Joyce Maynard, she forwards them to Sotheby’s, but when I do, she sends them to the FBI?

Rough Translation Extra

IN THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE:

“It is particularly disturbing in this instance that Trooper Burke jeopardized the public trust and his career over less than $200.”–Paul Zoubek, Acting Attorney General, New Jersey

IN ENGLISH:

“This is New Jersey: big bribes only.”

Headline Haiku

Anticipating family grief

Hadassah open meet

Dressler, star of old

Orthotics alter walking

–Stuyvesant Town & Village, May 20, 1999

Barbara Lippert

Battle for Funds

GOP Upstarts Challenge

A Home Movie

As Overly Violent

–Wall Street Journal, May 20, 1999

Mary O’Driscoll

Common Denominator

It’s a flirty, pushy, shovey, grabby world after all.