No. 259: "Even Educated Fleas Do It"
Millions of
retirees and middle-aged women do it, and officials say that's fine, as long as
they do it for "health purposes" and not to "promote superstition, spread
rumors, engage in sedition, destroy social order or hold mass assemblies." Do
what?
Send
your answer by noon ET Wednesday to [email protected] .
Monday's Question
(No. 258)--"Swiss Dis":
Fill in the blank as Christian Levrat assesses Sunday's referendum on
asylum-seekers: "There is a side to Switzerland that is very generous, giving
millions to refugees, and a stricter side that wants to make sure that people
coming in are not ____________."
"Er,
litigious."-- Jennifer Miller
"Under
17, unless accompanied by a parent or guardian."-- Paul Tullis
"Planning to stay past the weekend."-- Katha Pollitt ( Matthew
Singer , Herb Terns , Dan Simon , and Ethan Underwood had
similar answers.)
"Fugitive rape suspects whose parents are bankrolling their ski trips. That was
embarrassing last time."-- Matt Sullivan
"Going
to upset our delicate multicultural balance."-- Matthew Singer
Click
for more answers.
Randy's
Wrap-Up
Three things we know about the Swiss.
First, they're boring, in a cheese and chocolate
way that makes the country a lovely place to massage your money. Everyone
(especially Brent Curtis) knows what Harry Lime says in The Third Man :
"In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and
bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the
Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love--they had 500 years of
democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
Second, they're a refuge, said Tom Stoppard, in
Travesties --Zurich, World War I, home to Lenin, Joyce, and Tzara: "Oh,
Switzerland!--unfurled like a white flag, pacific civilian Switzerland--the
miraculous neutrality of it, the non-combatant impartiality of it, the
non-aggression pacts of it, the international red cross of it--entente to the
left, détente to the right, into the valley of the invalided blundered and
wandered myself when young--Carr of the Consulate!"
Of course Carr was quite dotty, and neutral does
not mean pacific, as John McPhee makes clear in La Place de la Concorde
Suisse , his book on the Swiss army, our third bit of alpine lore: Their
armed neutrality includes universal military training. Every family has a gun,
and none of your sissy American pistols; these are assault rifles. The Israeli
defense forces are based on the Swiss model, the hedgehog, designed to extract
a high price from any invader--artillery presighted on every important bridge,
shelter space for every citizen and cow, cool Saab fighter planes whose pilots
train to take off from highways.
Four things--those
red-handled multi-blade ... five ... five things--the Swatch. And the sixth
thing we know--the Alps. Numbered bank accounts would be seven.
Neutral
Answer
The Swiss want to make sure people coming in are
not abusing the law.
More than 70 percent of Swiss voters approved
tougher rules restricting asylum-seekers and rejected a proposal for maternity
leave, presumably concerned that some incoming baby might abuse the law.
The new law limits refugees' rights to appeal
individual persecution, and it speeds up the process of ejecting those without
identity papers.
Although Swiss law requires new mothers to take an
eight-week leave, the Swiss have rejected financial assistance for mothers four
times since the maternity leave law was enacted in 1945.
Levrat works for an
organization called Aid to Refugees.
Gina Duclayan's
Dissent
I beg to differ, Randy!
One of the favorite movies of my youth, a Tony Randall and Richard Dreyfus
vehicle called Sub a Dub Dub , a k a Hello Down There , features
the amusing antics of a researcher and his family and friends in their undersea
lab-home. Or perhaps you consider this movie to be evidence for your statement,
not against it? Pshaw!
Matthew Singer's
Savvy Traveler
You will recall that
John Calvin, the granddaddy of fundamentalist Protestant preachers, founded his
theocracy in Geneva, Switzerland. This has left more of a mark than you might
expect. A North American friend of mine was driving from Lyon to Geneva. A few
miles after he crossed the border, his little boy asked, "Dad, what happened to
all of the billboards with naked ladies on them?" It was an acute observation:
The prudish Swiss countryside did indeed lack for any of the casual skin that
covers France.
Misplaced
Modifiers Extra
Which of these
adjectives appear in a New York Times piece describing George W. Bush at
his first New Hampshire campaign appearance, and which are from the World
Book Encyclopedia (1960) article on the beaver?
hard-working
useful
personable
adorable
charismatic
interesting
vague
intelligent
fuzzy
thickset
Answers
Bush: personable, adorable, charismatic, vague,
fuzzy.
Beaver: hard-working, useful, interesting,
intelligent, thickset.
The choice is yours. See
you at the polls in November.
Common
Denominator
Jews.
