On Wednesday, the Future Homemakers of America made a startling announcement. What?
Send your answer by noon ET Thursday to newsquiz@slate.com.
Tuesday’s Question (No. 270)–“Crisis Management”:
“I didn’t even want to talk about chocolate-chip cookies, really. I shaved my beard and stopped wearing hats.” Who said this about what?
“Famous Amos, after being profiled and strip-searched one too many times on the New Jersey Turnpike.”–Dan Ricci
“Donna Shalala, in reference to some new Health and Human Services crap.”–Jon Hotchkiss
“George W. Bush. I don’t know what he was talking about, and I don’t really care. What matters is that he can win this, and we’re backing him all the way.”–Daniel Radosh
“This was the disillusioned Jesus speaking days after performing the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Knowing he had lost his grip on the crowd when they inquired what was for dessert, he decided to make a radical change in his life.”–Ellen Macleay
“Queen Elizabeth, complaining about just everything, describes the disguise that enabled her to sneak out of Edinburgh a day early.”–Steve Bodow (Sean Fitzpatrick and Matthew Cole had similar answers.)
Click for more answers.
Randy’s Wrap-Up
By far the most frequent response involved Hillary Clinton, the once and future baker, or nonbaker, who today begins her four-day “listening tour” at the Moynihan Farm. (Fun With Juxtaposition: Which is the more ludicrous expression, “listening tour” or “Moynihan Farm”?) Unimpressed with her upstate forays, Rudolph Giuliani, her likely Senate rival, boasts: “Every time I have gone up there, I have gotten the sense that they like me. I think they like what I did with New York.” (Fun With Prepositions: Instead of “with” New York, substitute “to.”) Like him they may, but have any of them written a tribute as passionate as Ann Powers’ love letter to Hillary in this morning’s Times? (Some sentences omitted.)
“[S]he waits, like the sentinel of an enchanted world, and judges when it’s safe to open up a trade route. Her judgment has not always proven correct, but right now it is impeccable. [W]hen you’re a star of her magnitude, fashion will always return to you, hanging its head. [S]he established herself as a mythical heroine, questing but always true to herself. Even at her most spectacularly styled, she keeps a rough-and-tumble vaudevillian edge. By maintaining an old-fashioned ethic of showmanship, she seems exceptionally real.” (Fun With Objects: Was this flatulent blather actually about Hillary or was it perhaps about Cher? Either way, just nuts, right?)
There Are Second Acts in American Baking Answer
Wally “Famous” Amos reveals his feelings about the dark days when his cookie empire collapsed.
Amos started the company in 1975 with $25,000 borrowed from Marvin Gaye and Helen Reddy, pals from his days as a talent agent. In 1982, revenue reached $12 million. But like many entrepreneurs, he was not prepared to manage such a large enterprise, and in 1988, after attempts at restructuring, the company lost $2.5 million and was sold. Under the terms of the deal, Amos was not even permitted to use his own name for business ventures. That’s when he hit rock bottom.
Much has improved. Keebler, the new owner of Famous Amos, just offered him a two-year contract to promote his old brand, and they are allowing him to use his name for his own new businesses.
Jewish Environmentalism Extra
Yesterday’s Extra squeezed a few cheap laughs out of a pamphlet for the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, including their use of the phrase “Jewish Environmentalism,” for which you were invited to provide even cheaper definitions. Such as these:
“What has the ozone ever done for our people?”–Beth Sherman
“Not peeing in the (indoor) pool at Grossingers.”–Eliot Cohen
“No, it’s all right, I’ll sit in the dark.”–Jon “Have You Ever Known Any Jewish Jons With an ‘h’ in the Name?” Zerolnick
“You call THIS an environment?!? Feh! I’ll show you an environment.”–Matthew Singer
“Suffering in Silence”–Alison “The WASP-y Name Is Not My Fault” Rogers
“A tree has been planted in your name …”–Beth Sherman
“Look, where once dead deserts lay, now flowering cities arise! Zionism IS environmentalism. Oh, and no Arabs allowed.”–Matthew Singer
Good News Extra
“Missing Man is Found Alive and Stuck in Mud”–headline, New York Times
Jon Zerolnick’s Headline Haiku
’You’ve Got Mail’
doesn’t inspire Americans
to buy two
guns of Academe
–Wall Street Journal, July 6, 1999 (first section)
Common Denominator
Mrs. Clinton, Mrs. Fields, Mr. Claus, Mr. Elf.
