No. 344: "Futurific"
"If I'm president,
it won't happen for a long time. If I'm not, it will happen immediately." Who
said this about what?
Send
your answer by noon ET Tuesday to [email protected] .
Wednesday's Question (No. 343)--"You Be
the Editor":
You are making up the front page of the
Kuwait
Times (online edition) for Wednesday, Nov. 24. What is the headline for
your lead story?
"Hey,
George Clooney, Where's Our Gold?"-- Francis Heaney ( Al Petrosky
had a similar answer.)
"Insider: What the Exxon-Mobil Merger Means to Your Rolls-Royce
Collection."-- Al Petrosky
"A
Thanksgiving Miracle: Children Starving in Iraq."-- Mac Thomason
"G.W.
Bush Arrives for Impromptu Friendship Visit: Shalom, Kuwaiters and
Kuwaitresses."-- Michele Siegel (similarly, Steve Plummer )
"Firm
of Bush, Baker, Scowcroft, and Sununu Wins Another Big New Government Contract:
'We'll Forever Owe 'Em,' Official Explains."-- Michael C Doyle
Click
for more answers.
Randy's Wrap-Up
The greatest scene in
Three Kings , this season's best movie about Kuwait, (which is,
incidentally, a new Oscar category thanks to a generous contribution from
Mobil-Exxon), comes at the end, when the U.S. Army makes George Clooney hand
over all those refugees to the Iraqis--right at the border! The camera goes in
tight to show the complex emotions and various facial tics playing across
Clooney's handsome mug, and we hear a fusillade of gunfire--it seems to go on
forever!--announcing the cynicism and greed and callousness that underlie the
Gulf War, as the refugees are slaughtered. OK. That was the ending they didn't
shoot. And, for all I know, didn't write. But the one that actually ended the
movie was good too, when Clooney finally proposes to Michelle Pfeiffer right in
Bloomingdale's for gosh sakes, and all the other shoppers applaud and
applaud--it seems to go on forever--announcing the cynicism and greed and
callousness that underlie Christmas shopping or marriage or movies or
something. And then Clint Eastwood's guys blast the hell out of the menswear
department. Cool!
Respect for Other
People's Repressive Religions Answer
"Seventh Money Show Opens: Complete Kuwaiti Support
to Foreign Investors"
I, for one, breathe easier knowing that a favorable
investment climate prevails in our Middle Eastern ally.
The eighth story on the page, behind "Helping Hand
to Families of Convicts" and "Campaign Against Drugs to Continue," is the only
Kuwaiti story to make most American papers: "Parliament Agrees To Discuss
'Urgent' Replacement Bill, Women's Decree Fails, 'Rights' Remain Alive."
What is more delightful, the sarcastic quotation
marks around "urgent" or the snide quotation marks around "rights"? Either way,
some savvy editorializing.
Kuwait's parliament rejected by 41-21 a decree by
the emir granting women the right to vote and run for office. Some lawmakers
who say they support women's rights say they voted no out of principle: the
emir's decree undermined the house's authority. Interesting principle.
Scores
of women attended yesterday's session, sitting in a reserved section of the
gallery. Hundreds of men applauded when the result of the vote was announced.
Fundamentalist Ahmed Baqer also drew applause from the men when he screamed,
"Kuwaiti people don't want (women's rights)! Why do you want to force it on
them?" Liberal lawmaker Sami Al-Munayes accused many of his colleagues of
hiding behind the constitutional excuse, while in their hearts they wanted "to
deny half of the society the right to live."
Autobio Extra
Match the presidential
candidate with his campaign autobiography.
The Candidates:
1. Al Gore
2. Bill Bradley
3. John McCain
4. Steve Forbes
5. George W. Bush
The Books:
1. Life on the Run
2. Faith of My Fathers
3. Cash of My Father
4. A New Birth of Freedom
5. A New Birth of Freedom in My Millionaire
Father's Pants
6. A Charge to Keep
7. A Charge Account Provided by My Millionaire
Father's Cronies
8. A Charge of Drunk and Disorderly, but I Was
Just a College Boy
9. Earth in the Balance
10. Chicken in the Basket
11. Time Present, Time Past
12. Time Future, Time
Some Other Thing
The Answers:
1. Al Gore wrote Earth in the Balance.
2. Bill Bradley wrote both Life on the Run
and Time Present, Time Past .
3. John McCain wrote Faith of My
Fathers .
4. Steve Forbes wrote A New Birth of
Freedom , which is not a tell-all book about his father's sexual liberation
and which contains no confusing pictures of Elizabeth Taylor standing beside a
hot air balloon.
5. George W. Bush wrote
A Charge to Keep , in the sense that his communications director Karen
Hughes wrote it, but he put his name on it. One man's "restoring dignity and
integrity to the White House" is another man's lying. (In his defense, it must
be said that he may have read it.)
Ongoing Autobio
Extra
Participants are invited to submit the title of an
as yet unwritten but badly needed autobiography of any other national political
figure.
Answers to run
Thursday.
Common
Denominator
A corporation not a country.
