No. 164: "Joy!"
"My joy is that
we're still in business and we're alive."
Who said this about what?
by noon
ET Tuesday to e-mail your answer to [email protected] .
Wednesday's question (No. 163)--"Initiation":
As a condition of joining the
European Union, Lithuania has agreed to ban a practice quite common in the
United States. What?
"Judaism."-- Jon Hotchkiss ( Deb Stavin had an identical
answer.)
"Supersizing. Anything."-- Beth Sherman (similarly, Judith
Spencer )
"Limiting presidents to two terms and one wife."-- Noah Meyerson
"Bombing the crap out of Third World countries and aspirin factories when you
need a quick pick-me-up at the polls."-- John Snell (similarly, Ananda
Gupta and Matthew Cole )
"Either
random public gunplay or regular bathing. It depends on the civilization you'd
care to malign."-- Jim O'Grady
Click
for more responses.
Randy's
Wrap-Up
By far the most popular response was to denigrate
the French. Giving this disdain a richer historical context so appropriate for
the holiday season, David Bell cites some early Anglo-French contempt in his
London Review of Books discussion of Norman Hampson's The Perfidy of
Albion: French Perceptions of England During the French Revolution .
" 'It should flatter us,' wrote the French novelist
Fougeret de Montbron in 1757. 'Every foreigner in London is called a "French
Dog".' In sermons, novels, political broadsheets, moralising treatises and
popular engravings, the French were portrayed as mangy, corrupt, effeminate,
ignorant, indolent, immoral and lecherous, as well as vain and
superficial."
And aimed the other way: "Bertrand Barère, in 1794,
wrote: 'National hatred must sound forth. Young republicans should suck a
hatred of the name Englishman with their mother's milk.' "
Inevitably European union
will dilute that continent's rich heritage of multinational scorn. You can say
adieu to all those marvelous anti-Belgian jokes the Dutch tell so well. In
another year they'll be as wan and anachronistic as Ohioans mocking Indianans.
Now that America has no more actual places, all that's left is taking cheap
shots at New Jersey from right across the river, on the dubious moral high
ground of Pennsylvania. You'd think the Europeans would learn from our loss. Of
course, for the truly nostalgic nationalist, there's always the former
Yugoslavia.
Powerful Deterrent
Answer
Executions. The Lithuanian parliament voted 76-to-3
to end capital punishment.
Amnesty International
lists 99 nations that have abolished the death penalty either in law or
practice, and 94 that retain it, among them Afghanistan, China, Guatemala,
Indonesia, both Koreas, Indonesia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and of course the
United States. In 1997, there were 74 executions in the United States, with a
mathematically and morally tidy 37--50 percent--occurring in Texas.
Holiday
Theater-Going Extra
Can you match your favorite stars of television,
movies, music, and Olympic competition with the playwright whose work each
graces? Hint: Broadway tickets generally run around $60.
1. Tony Danza
2. Judd Hirsch and George Wendt (together!)
3. Uma Thurman
4. Brian Dennehy
5. Toni Braxton
6. Cathy Rigby
7. Nicole Kidman's
ass
A. J.M. Barrie
B. David Hare
C. Arthur Miller
D. Molière
E. Eugene O'Neill
F. Linda Wolverton
G. Yasmina Raza
Answers
1-E Tony Danza, lovable star of television's
Taxi and Who's the Boss? has been offered the role of Rocky the
bartender for a revival of The Iceman Cometh .
2-G Taxi
and
Cheers --oh,
baby!--in Art .
3-D Uma Thurman has joined the cast of The
Misanthrope ; previews begin Jan. 28.
4-C Dennehy's Death of a Salesman previews
Jan. 22.
5-F Braxton stars in Disney's "Timeless Classic," as
it's billed, Beauty and the Beast .
6-A Rigby straps on the harness eight times a week
for Peter Pan .
7-B NK's A can be briefly
glimpsed in The Blue Room , of course. Scary thought: What if she caught
a really bad stomach flu and had to be replaced by Brian Dennehy's ass!
Yipes!
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