News Quiz

No. 344: “Futurific”

“If I’m president, it won’t happen for a long time. If I’m not, it will happen immediately.” Who said this about what?

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

Wednesday’s Question (No. 343)–“You Be the Editor”:

You are making up the front page of the Kuwait Times (online edition) for Wednesday, Nov. 24. What is the headline for your lead story?

“Hey, George Clooney, Where’s Our Gold?”–Francis Heaney (Al Petrosky had a similar answer.)

“Insider: What the Exxon-Mobil Merger Means to Your Rolls-Royce Collection.”–Al Petrosky

“A Thanksgiving Miracle: Children Starving in Iraq.”–Mac Thomason

“G.W. Bush Arrives for Impromptu Friendship Visit: Shalom, Kuwaiters and Kuwaitresses.”–Michele Siegel (similarly, Steve Plummer)

“Firm of Bush, Baker, Scowcroft, and Sununu Wins Another Big New Government Contract: ‘We’ll Forever Owe ‘Em,’ Official Explains.”–Michael C Doyle

Click for more answers.

Randy’s Wrap-Up

The greatest scene in Three Kings, this season’s best movie about Kuwait, (which is, incidentally, a new Oscar category thanks to a generous contribution from Mobil-Exxon), comes at the end, when the U.S. Army makes George Clooney hand over all those refugees to the Iraqis–right at the border! The camera goes in tight to show the complex emotions and various facial tics playing across Clooney’s handsome mug, and we hear a fusillade of gunfire–it seems to go on forever!--announcing the cynicism and greed and callousness that underlie the Gulf War, as the refugees are slaughtered. OK. That was the ending they didn’t shoot. And, for all I know, didn’t write. But the one that actually ended the movie was good too, when Clooney finally proposes to Michelle Pfeiffer right in Bloomingdale’s for gosh sakes, and all the other shoppers applaud and applaud–it seems to go on forever–announcing the cynicism and greed and callousness that underlie Christmas shopping or marriage or movies or something. And then Clint Eastwood’s guys blast the hell out of the menswear department. Cool!

Respect for Other People’s Repressive Religions Answer

“Seventh Money Show Opens: Complete Kuwaiti Support to Foreign Investors”

I, for one, breathe easier knowing that a favorable investment climate prevails in our Middle Eastern ally.

The eighth story on the page, behind “Helping Hand to Families of Convicts” and “Campaign Against Drugs to Continue,” is the only Kuwaiti story to make most American papers: “Parliament Agrees To Discuss ‘Urgent’ Replacement Bill, Women’s Decree Fails, ‘Rights’ Remain Alive.”

What is more delightful, the sarcastic quotation marks around “urgent” or the snide quotation marks around “rights”? Either way, some savvy editorializing.

Kuwait’s parliament rejected by 41-21 a decree by the emir granting women the right to vote and run for office. Some lawmakers who say they support women’s rights say they voted no out of principle: the emir’s decree undermined the house’s authority. Interesting principle.

Scores of women attended yesterday’s session, sitting in a reserved section of the gallery. Hundreds of men applauded when the result of the vote was announced. Fundamentalist Ahmed Baqer also drew applause from the men when he screamed, “Kuwaiti people don’t want (women’s rights)! Why do you want to force it on them?” Liberal lawmaker Sami Al-Munayes accused many of his colleagues of hiding behind the constitutional excuse, while in their hearts they wanted “to deny half of the society the right to live.”

Autobio Extra

Match the presidential candidate with his campaign autobiography.

The Candidates:

1. Al Gore

2. Bill Bradley

3. John McCain

4. Steve Forbes

5. George W. Bush

The Books:

1. Life on the Run

2. Faith of My Fathers

3. Cash of My Father

4. A New Birth of Freedom

5. A New Birth of Freedom in My Millionaire Father’s Pants

6. A Charge to Keep

7. A Charge Account Provided by My Millionaire Father’s Cronies

8. A Charge of Drunk and Disorderly, but I Was Just a College Boy

9. Earth in the Balance

10. Chicken in the Basket

11. Time Present, Time Past

12. Time Future, Time Some Other Thing

The Answers:

1. Al Gore wrote Earth in the Balance.

2. Bill Bradley wrote both Life on the Run and Time Present, Time Past.

3. John McCain wrote Faith of My Fathers.

4. Steve Forbes wrote A New Birth of Freedom, which is not a tell-all book about his father’s sexual liberation and which contains no confusing pictures of Elizabeth Taylor standing beside a hot air balloon.

5. George W. Bush wrote A Charge to Keep, in the sense that his communications director Karen Hughes wrote it, but he put his name on it. One man’s “restoring dignity and integrity to the White House” is another man’s lying. (In his defense, it must be said that he may have read it.)

Ongoing Autobio Extra

Participants are invited to submit the title of an as yet unwritten but badly needed autobiography of any other national political figure.

Answers to run Thursday.

Common Denominator

A corporation not a country.