News Quiz

No. 374: “Kids Tough”

Johnny and Luther Htoo, the chain-smoking 12-year-old twins who lead the Christian fundamentalist rebel group God’s Army, made a horrible mistake Tuesday. How so?

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

Tuesday’s Question (No. 373)—”Courtier”:

On Monday the Supreme Court ruled in Nixon vs. Shrink Missouri Government PAC. Fill in the blank as Justice John Paul Stevens sums up the majority opinion: “Money is property; it is not ___________.” 

“An animal!”—Jill Pope, Steven Davis

“Eligible to vote except by proxy.”—Mary Anne Townsend (Michael J. Basial had a similar answer.)

“For everyone, that’s why they’re called ‘have-nots.’ “—Julie Anderson

“Snowing, is it? It is? Good lord! We’d better ditch work immediately!”—Daniel Radosh

“The contents of an overnight bag tossed on a bed which you roll in screaming, ‘I’m rich! I’m rich! Now no one’s gonna step on me no more! And that goes for all you chicken-shit mugs with your Aqua Velva shaves and your Grecian Formula comb-overs.’ “—Marshall Efron

Click for more answers.

Randy’s Wrap-Up

A Yahoo search for “money” turns up 31 categories and 1,750 sites, confirming the notion that we Americans want a lot of information about it, and not just from pouty blond financial reporters on CNNfn. Of course, a Yahoo search for “sex” yields 46 categories and 3,145 sites, most of which expect you to hand over the money you made applying what you learned from your first search. (And I, for one, am proud to live in a country with 46 categories of sex, most of which Orrin Hatch objects to, but he’s history, so the hell with him.) Euphoric with thoughts of money and sex and the crushing defeat of Orrin Hatch, I’m sobered to learn that these totals are surpassed by a search for “cats”—83 categories, 3,432 sites—which I presume means that a lot of people are spending a lot of money on cats, and they expect something more than a handshake and the meowed suggestion that “It’s been such a lovely evening; let’s not spoil it.” Perhaps the ASPCA isn’t screening quite as thoroughly as it should. You know, like the DNC. And the RNC. And that intolerant loser, Orrin Hatch.

Money Talks Slightly Quieter Answer

Money is property; it is not speech.

Although it did not overturn Buckley vs. Valeo, the notorious 1976 case that defined political expenditures as speech, the court determined that political contributions were not speech. Antonin Scalia cast his two votes (his own and Clarence Thomas’) with dissenting Justice Anthony Kennedy, who argued that the decision might limit the influence of the very rich, or so I understand it.

Mike Gerber’s Cartographic Quibble

I grew up in St. Louis, so I must say: Shame! Shame! Shame! Geography aside, St. Louis is part of the East: It’s more like Pittsburgh or Ohio than Kansas City. The Midwest—which doesn’t suck as much as, say, Queens—starts at the western edge of St. Louis. I’ve lived on both sides of the divide, so I know. Brrr. (I cannot defend Nashville.)

[I believe I’ve seen that on your tourist brochures: “St. Louis: We’re a lot like Pittsburgh!” and so I stand corrected.—Ed.]

 More and Moira Extra

“My name is Moira Forbes. I am a junior at Princeton University, and my dad, Steve, is running for President, and I am an alcoholic.” So begins a “letter from Moira” touting Youth for Forbes, except for the part about her being an alcoholic. While it makes my head go all funny trying to imagine a young person enthusiastic about the pudgy wealth-inheritor, Moira says there are many reasons kids should dig her daddy the most, and now that she’s not drinking, perhaps we should pay attention to what she says. Which of the following are among Moira Forbes’ reasons for youth to support her father?

  1. To show that young people do, indeed, care about the future of America.
  2. Just to piss off G.W.
  3. We’ve been called lazy, apathetic, selfish, and worse. I know better than that.
  4. To find out just what worse things we’ve been called. And by whom. And then go over to his house and kick the crap out of him.
  5. (To say) “yes” to a leader who will protect our fiscal future while cleaning up the moral mess of today.
  6. To join in the moral mess of today.
  7. Take it from me, boys: Chicks dig guys who say “fiscal.”
  8. To make a real difference.
  9. Free “Forbes Rules” bong to all registered voters.
  10. Another of dad’s embarrassing failures might cause me to slip back into the alcoholic fog that marred my childhood, had any such fog actually existed, which it did not.

Answers

1, 3, 5, and 8 are genuine.

Read the rest of Moira Forbes’ hip, hot, and happening letter to today’s youth here.

Matthew Singer’s Amtrak Slogan Ongoing Extra

He’s still soliciting new safety slogans so he can stuff the ballot box of a contest being run by MARC, the Baltimore-Washington commuter line he rides to work. Already taken: “Cleaning up the moral mess of today.”

Reponses to run Thursday.

Common Denominator

Can’t—or perhaps can—buy me love.