No. 355: "Top 11 List"
"It suspiciously
tracks the Ten Commandments," says ACLU lawyer Kenneth Falk about the 11 rules
the Scott County, Ind., School District intends to post in every classroom.
Name one of these "Common Precepts to Promote a Virtuous and Civil School
Community."
Send
your answer by 5 p.m. ET Sunday to [email protected].
Wednesday's Question
(No. 354) "You're a Dead Man, Charlie Brown"
After drawing Peanuts for nearly 50 years, Charles
Schulz, 77 and ailing, is putting down his pen. Participants are invited to
describe his final strip. (Question courtesy of Jon
Delfin.)
"Both
Schroeder and Peppermint Patty come out of the closet as Schulz admits his
'don't ask, don't tell' policy was a failure."-- Ken Novak ( Chris
Kelly had a similar answer.)
"A
cavalcade of guest 'Farewell, Charlie Brown' appearances by Mike Doonesbury,
Garfield, Dilbert, Beetle Bailey, Blondie and Dagwood, and the inevitable Regis
Philbin."-- Gary Frazier
"The
whole Peanuts gang bands together and kicks Garfield's sorry
ass."-- Tim Carvell
"Charlie Brown is wheeled into surgery at Sloan-Kettering. Snoopy muses on what
life will be like without the boy with the crooked smile. Back in the surgical
unit, the doctors prepare to give Charlie Brown his first round of
chemotherapy. Lucy comes running in, and kicks the needle out of the doctors'
hands."-- Larry Amoros
"Charlie Brown wakes up in bed with Suzanne Pleshette and discovers it's all
been a horrible dream. Either that or the ASPCA euthanizes Snoopy."-- Jon
Hotchkiss (similarly, Tim Carvell )
Click
for more answers.
Randy's Wrap-Up
I liked Peanuts .
(It is difficult to be funny in praise of anything, so if you want your little
laughs, leave off here and go peruse those newly released medical records with
their vivid--a little too vivid--description of the polyps Al Gore doesn't have
in his colon. I'll meet you there later. I'll bring the sandwiches.) For 50
years, with impressive economy of line and language, Schulz avoided the
dimwitted rhythm of setup/lackluster punch line that defined comic strips and
would soon dominate TV sitcoms. Unlike most strips, his was about adults,
albeit adults depicted as children. And still more unusual, he was not
concerned with the follies and foibles of everyday life, that least interesting
comic subject, but something deeper, darker, and less ephemeral. Along with
Mad magazine, he provided comedy to my suburban boyhood--Schulz the
philosophical and Mad the topical--at just the right intellectual level
for a suburban boy. And if he sometimes wandered into whimsy--that alluring
comic swamp--and even farther, into mawkish sentimentality with "Happiness Is a
Warm Puppy," he more often executed that most difficult comic turn, being
simultaneously funny and sweet. Few can. Thurber, Woody Allen, and Mark
O'Donnell come to mind. But not many more. I'll miss the strip.
Happiness Is a
Warm Answer
We can, of course, only speculate. Schulz works
about six weeks ahead; the final daily installment will run Jan. 3; the last
new Sunday strip will be published Feb. 13.
The first Peanuts
appeared Oct., 2, 1950. It now runs in 2,600 newspapers, reaching about 355
million readers daily in 75 countries.
Fun With Subjects
and Predicates Ongoing Extra
Simply by swapping
subjects and objects from a pair of actual headlines, you can eliminate the bad
news that fills our front pages, and create a happier world, as in these
examples using headlines from Excite.com:
Billy Crystal To Host
Chechen Capital
Russian Troops Pound Oscars
U.S. Officials Warn of
Saturday Night Live Skit
Protest Forces NBC To Shelve West Nile Virus Return
Polanski Bad for Elderly;
Health-Study
Philadelphia Water
Feted by French Academie
And, while it deviates
entirely from the form, there is this holiday cheer:
Garth
Brooks May Retire Next Year
Participants are invited
to submit similar mix 'n' match pairs using headlines from any news source.
Results to run Monday.
Common
Denominator
Peppermint Patty, Marcie: gay.
