No. 160: "Put the Dis Back in Description"
"Smelly, Lethargic, Incoherent." Ads in many papers caution that
someone like this is probably ... what?
by noon
ET Thursday to e-mail your answer to [email protected] .
Wednesday's question (No. 159)--"Mourning
After":
"After wrapping up his work on the Middle East's problems,
President Clinton headed home to face his own." That's the caption to a grim
front-page photo in today's New York Times . Participants are invited
to submit a caption sure to appear on the front of any paper the day after the
House votes on impeachment.
"Sharing a snack with Rep. Bob Barr, President Clinton expresses
satisfaction that his sudden switch in party affiliation resulted in a swift
end to impeachment proceedings."-- Jennifer Miller
"Washington Post : An emotional but poised first lady announces the death
of the president. Although authorities have no suspects, they describe the
president's injuries as 'small puncture wounds in the head and chest, roughly
the diameter of a Size 9 Manolo Blahnik heel.' "-- Kate Powers
"A
pensive President Clinton bites his lower lip in the Oval Office after ordering
the carpet bombing of Capitol Hill. 'For us to initiate military action during
Christmas would have been highly offensive.' he said."-- David McShane
( Tim Carvell and Jennifer Miller had similar answers.)
"Following the vote to impeach, Vice President Gore jumps up and down and pumps
his fist in the air in a private display of grief."-- Andrew Solovay
"Boston Globe : Following his impeachment, Bill Clinton meets with
colorful, possibly apocryphal, salt-of-the-earth Boston characters."-- Tim
Carvell
Click
for more responses.
Randy's Tough Love Wrap-Up
I'll say it directly:
Read the directions. The question called for a photo caption, not a headline.
Believing a firm response was demanded, I've relegated such inapt answers to
Page 2. (Click for some quite amusing if not entirely germane replies.) My
actions came without warning but not without repeated provocation. Indeed, as
recently as November, I refrained from this course only at the eleventh hour.
Eleventh and a half. Undoubtedly my timing will be questioned. So let me assure
you that this is in no way intended to deter any proceedings under way in the
House of Representatives, no matter how idiotic. May God bless the brave men
and women at CNN who will be working so hard and with such pleasure in the
coming days. God bless America.
Adam Bonin's
Naughty or Nice Extra
Mark McGwire, Kenneth
Starr, Katie Couric, and Garth Brooks all made the list this year. List of
what?
Answer
The National League of
Junior Cotillions' "Ten Best-Mannered People of 1998." John Glenn, Chelsea
Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Billy Graham, Peter Jennings, and Whitney Houston were
also named.
All-Naughty
Stalinist Nostalgia Extra
The breakup of the Soviet Union has generated waves
of affection for the good old days. Can you match the scary anachronism with
the party calling for its revival?
Relic of a Glorious
Past
A. Official Anti-Semitism
B. Labor Camps
C. Secret Police
Sentimental Old Fool
1. Gennadi Seleznyov, speaker of the Duma's lower
house
2. Victor Ilyukhin, head of the Duma's security
affairs committee
3. The entire Duma
Answers
A-2: Ilyukhin accused Yeltsin and the Jews of
genocide against the Russian people. "The large-scale genocide wouldn't have
been possible if Yeltsin's inner circle had consisted of the main ethnic
groups, and not exclusively of one group, the Jews." (Yeltsin's frequently
shuffled Cabinet, of course, consists mostly of ethnic Russians.)
B-1: Sleznyov suggested that crime could be curbed
by reintroduction of hard labor camps that contributed so much to population
control under Stalin.
C-3: Last month the Duma
voted to bring back the statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the first head of the
Soviet secret police. Formerly displayed in front of KGB headquarters, it was
toppled in 1991.
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