Fill in the blank as one Istanbul lawyer offers his solution to a serious national problem. “My suggestion is to ___________ everyone who bought a Jeep Cherokee or Range Rover last year.”
Send your answer by 10 a.m. ET Wednesday to newsquiz@slate.com.
Friday’s Question (No. 459)—”Speak Threely”:
Fishing with Dennis Hastert, cocktails with Colin Powell, a photo session with Larry Holmes—what’s the connection?
“Hydrogen: the new cable network for men.”—Mark Wade (Mark Romoser had a similar answer.)
“Three unmet demands from Yasser Arafat that ultimately led to the breakup of the Camp David talks. A hickey from Diane Sawyer had been agreed upon.”—Brooke Saucier
“I choose bachelor No. 2!”—Ben Perry
“A big bass, some big brass, and a big ass. HI-YO!”—Adam Bonin
“Gee, when I was a kid we just used ‘spanking the monkey.’ “—Joel Grus
Click for more answers.
Randy’s Wrap-Up
When you are uncertain if you are blessed or cursed, try this handy guide. Describe your unexpected bounty in both the “I get to …” and “I have to …” forms, and see which rings true. For example: “I get to go fishing with Dennis Hastert. I have to go fishing with Dennis Hastert.” Which seems to be the more accurate description? Applications for this method occur with disturbing frequency, particularly when hearing the prizes for a contest on MTV. The once baffling question, why would anyone buy a book of harmless twaddle like When Bad Things Happen to Good People?, has been superceded by the knottier problem of determining which are the bad things and which are the good people. Two weeks on a cruise ship? Dick Cheney? Two weeks on a cruise ship with Dick Cheney? Two weeks on a cruise ship with Dick Cheney vividly described on your answering machine by Norm MacDonald? (I get to take powerful anti-depressant drugs? I have to take powerful anti-depressant drugs?) That’s capitalism 2000. If you describe a thing in giddy enough terms, it might sound great—a I get to instead of a I have to—like a new fill-in-cool-car-here. But in the end, you’re still stuck in traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel for 40 minutes, with Dennis Hastert in the seat beside you telling one of his interminable fishing stories, a prospect so demoralizing, it makes me crave a stiff drink with Colin Powell.
Fun on a Big Big Budget Answer
All three activities are for sale at your neighborhood Republican Party headquarters. If your neighborhood is in Philadelphia.
These are just a few of the semicelebrity events available at the convention to the party’s six figure contributors. Other rentables—an afternoon with race driver Bobby Labonte, dinner with Trent Lott at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and brunch with Gerald Ford.
But do big donors get to meet Michael Spinks? Indeed they do! At the “Main Event Fight Night,” a boxing-themed reception featuring a mock ring, just like the ones where so many black athletes have pummeled one another into insensibility for the amusement of so many white Republicans.
And golf? Plenty of it! With Tom DeLay! “But probably larger than that is the opportunity for our candidates to meet directly with donors who can give them the resources they will need in the fall,” said Stuart Roy of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “We want our officeholders to have a chance to meet informally with the folks who bought and paid for them,” he neglected to add.
Douglas Yu’s Fun With Redundant Headlines Extra
“Soviet-Era Kazakh Nuclear Test Site Destroyed”—Reuters, 4:24 a.m. ET
Supercool NPR Extra
SOME NPR REPORTER IN PHILADELPHIA: And what will the Republicans have at this convention to appeal to young people?
COKIE ROBERTS: Rock stars.
You Be the Psychiatrist Extra
“I’ve got a kind of special feeling for moms—if you know what I mean.”—G.W. Bush, speaking in Blue Ash, Ohio, Friday
Common Denominator
Gifts that keep on giving no matter how much you wish they’d stop.
