“I’ve never seen one of these,” President Clinton said Monday, as he used something for the first time. Apparently he enjoyed the experience: “Now that I’m a homeowner, I better get one of these.” What was it, and what did he do with it?
Send your answer by noon ET Thursday to newsquiz@slate.com.
Thursday’s Question (No. 299)–“What Would Jesus Sue?”:
In England, a group of 40 independent Christian schools plans to petition the European Court of Human Rights to have the ban lifted. Ban on what?
“The use of ‘Baby I’m-a Want You’ in the regular rotation of morning hymns.”–Bill Scheft
“Those new British ‘People’s Crucifixes’ with Princess Diana hanging on the cross.”–Molly Shearer Gabel
“British beef-based religious objects.”–Richard Nikonovich-Kahn (MelodyYiu had a similarly beefy answer.)
“Teaching creationism as science, and the Narnia books as history.”–Floyd Elliot
“Hunting, with horse and hounds, the smallest boy in the fourth form.”–Kim Day
Click for more answers.
Randy’s Wrap-Up
Murderous gangs in East Timor, deadly bombings in Israel and the Caucasus, scary tumors in Cardinal O’Connor’s head, fugitive financier Martin Frankel in the Holsenglacis jail, runaway parade floats plowing into the crowd and yet not crushing a single presidential candidate–so much news and so little time, the effect of the summer schedule on News Quiz–which, incidentally, you can play all week without paying New York sales tax or showering or even getting out of your pajamas: Such is our end-of-summer malaise. Or perhaps it’s just a perverse disappointment that the anxiously anticipated NQ3C problem was no problem at all. Today’s publication of News Quiz question No. 300 resulted in no fiery eruption on Strom Thurmond or Alan Greenspan’s … well, never mind. I’m sure we all did the best we could, although many participants, absorbed with the idea of burning heretics, seem to have confused the C of E with the RC, so let’s all reread Barchester Towers and study up on the Gordon riots, with our trousers down around our ankles.
Thank You, Sir, Could I Have Another Answer
Christian schoolmasters want the court to lift the ban on their fundamental human right to hit children with a stick.
On Sept. 1, school beatings were banned from Britain’s private schools, bringing them in line with state-run schools where caning was outlawed 13 years ago.
“I believe the government should not intervene in how parents bring up their children. This is dictatorial and an example of the nanny state,” said Philip Williamson, headmaster of the Christian Fellowship School in Liverpool, which is leading the protest. “It’s a slippery slope. First you can’t thrash them, next you can’t give them a good boot in the ribs, then no summary executions of the really impertinent ones,” he did not add, nor did he emphasize his point by menacingly slapping his palm with the “Fellowship Stick,” as he does not call it since it does not exist.
A spokeswoman for Britain’s Department of Education was unimpressed with the spanking-obsessed schoolmasters. “The European Union is itself against corporal punishment so it is unlikely to uphold any arguments that the new provision against caning is an infringement of human rights,” she said
See Everett. See Everett Koop. Koop, Everett. Koop, Koop, Koop Extra
Which were actual topics in Monday’s “Today in Health Chat,” a regular feature on Dr. C. Everett Koop’s Web site, and which are cheap attempts to mock a beloved national figure’s efforts to cash in on this whole Internet thing?
1. “Hey, It Itches!”
2. “Stay-at-Home Moms”
3. “Stay at Least 500 Yards Away Due to a Court Order Dads”
4. “Love the Swelling, Hate the Redness”
5. “Memory Loss or Alzheimer’s?”
6. “What Was That Last One Again?”
7. “Does This Smell Funny?”
8. “Women With MS”
9. “Women With Motorcycles–Nude! Nude! NUDE!!”
10. “Adios, Señor Spleen”
11. “Ostomates”
12. “Tough Guys Don’t Dance”
13. “Tough Guys Do Dance With Ultra-Hot Ostomates”
14. “Conquering Self-Abuse”
15. “Shirtless Pictures of Dr. Koop for Those Who Surrender to Self-Abuse”
16. “Don’t Pick at It!”
Actual Topics
2, 5, 8, 11, 12, and 14.
Common Denominator
Burning heretics.
