The Old Sniff and Poke

By Randy Cohen

A just-released report praises the federal government's new HACCP program, and the New York Times concurs, noting, "It is a definite step up from the old sniff-and-poke method." Method of doing what?

by noon ET Thursday to e-mail your answer (newsquiz@slate.com).

Responses to Tuesday's question (No. 123)--"Evil Doughnuts":
"It's not just the cup of coffee," says former New Jersey policeman Michael Anderson, "it's what the cup of coffee leads to." What does the cup of coffee lead to?

"A hankering that can only be satisfied by harassing black motorists on the turnpike."--Eric Zicklin

"Marriage."--Evan Cornog

"Cigarettes, then alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and finally--worst of all--methadone."--Daniel Radosh

"That unbearable urge to pee while robbing old ladies."--Peter Lerangis

"I have no idea what the coffee leads to. But, isn't Buddy Faro on Friday nights at 9 p.m. on CBS? Just wondering. Welcome home!"--Jon Hotchkiss

Click here for more responses.

Randy's Wrap-Up
Despite the hammerlock liberals (and we Jews) have on the media, the Hero Cop is a persistent TV presence. Isn't this the sort of thing we used to mock the Soviets for? "So repressive is their society, the stars of their popular broadcasts are agents of state security!" We still enjoy that warm glow of the superiority of the present over the past by mocking Joe Friday--he's so square!--but we applaud hero cops from Hill Street to Homicide.
In the '30s and '40s, Hollywood made two-fisted action guy heroes out of civil engineers--John Wayne was always building a railroad or a dam or a highway across the Andes or through China or up the Zambezi. (Always in a womanless world with his all-male crew of really close "buddies" who ... hey! Wait a minute! But I digress.) In the 1950 Panic in the Streets--an Oscar winner--Richard Widmark was a two-fisted action guy public health officer. But those were the days when we still built things and still had a public health system.
Even in the late '50s and pre-Beatles '60s--an era we enjoy condescending to--network television prospered with a kind of anti-cop, the strutting private eye who assumed that the police were maybe not corrupt but certainly inept. The Warner Bros./ABC stable included 77 Sunset Strip (PIs in Hollywood), Surfside Six (PIs in Miami), Hawaiian Eye (PIs in Honolulu), and Bourbon Street Beat (PIs in New Orleans). But those were the days when we still had Warner Bros. Now we have Time Warner/CNN and hero cops.

Just the Facts Answer
It leads to a life of crime as a dirty cop, as Peter Lerangis and others know.
Honest law enforcement is increasingly hard to find in the small towns of northern New Jersey, where local cops and petty criminals often grow up together. It is particularly difficult for a new officer to stand against a corrupt force, but Anderson wishes he'd followed the unusual example of rectitude set by a veteran in his department who would not accept so much as a free cup of coffee. Sgt. Anderson, formerly of the Palisades Park Police Department, is currently awaiting sentencing on theft charges.

What Is It? Deductive Reasoning Extra
(All facts drawn from a full page ad in national newspapers.)

• It presents steamy unmarried sex situations, filthy jokes, perversion, vulgarity, foul language, violence, killings, etc.
  
• It is leading children down a moral sewer.
  
• It sends filth, vulgarity, sex, and violence into our homes.
  
• It is opposed by Steve Allen and Shirley Jones.
  
• It encourages a lack of respect for authority and crime.
  
• Shirley Jones won an Academy Award.
  
• The heads of major corporations are fine people.

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