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.)
Send
your answer by noon ET Thursday to [email protected].
Tuesday's Question (No.
353) "Bad-Ass Query"
General Motors made an announcement Monday involving two important
words, one hyphenated, unlikely to show up in any of its forthcoming TV
commercials. What two words?
"Crash-test puppies."-- Michael Koegel
"Anti-lock and scrotum."-- Tim Carvell
"Bodacious ta-tas."-- Floyd Elliot
"Boutros and Boutros-Ghali, now that he's turned down the endorsement
offer."-- Francis Heaney ( Heather Williams had a similar
answer.)
"Shit-eating grins." The announcement was about G.M. execs' 1999 holiday
bonuses."-- Matt "Ein Nod" Heimer
Click
for more answers.
Randy's Wrap-Up
Badly planned, poorly
made, and apt to burst into flames--no, not prime-time TV (although I, for one,
would be more likely to watch Ally McBeal if the law firm were more
frequently devastated by fatal explosions, or the nightly news if furious
grease fires now and then ravaged Peter Jennings' hair). Rather, those are the
qualities News Quiz participants associate with G.M. cars, despite the
company's demonstrating with its Saturn line that it is quite capable of
producing a first-class car commercial. Apparently the news hasn't reached quiz
participants that America has shaken of the malaise of the Vietnam War and the
clunky gas-guzzler by invading several small nations and imitating the design
and manufacturing methods of Toyota. I suppose that's not the sort of thing
that gets talked about on the IRT or in some dissident cell. But you won't find
it so easy to knock this country and its great corporations with the sort of
left-wing philosophy best expressed on a bumper sticker when you don't even
have a bumper! Try slapping a sticker on the conductor's ass, and he'll toss
you right off your overcrowded, overheated, way-behind-schedule railroad. In
the rain. Maybe then you won't be too good to ride in an exploding Chevy.
Following Orders
Answer
Nazi-Era Slaves
Those were the words in a New York Times
headline when Thomas Gottschalk, G.M.'s general counsel, announced that the
company would likely contribute to a fund to compensate the slave laborers who
worked in its Opel division. As the Times notes: "G.M. would be the
first U.S. company to accept responsibility for wartime abuses."
There are thought to be 240,000 slave laborers,
most of whom were concentration camp prisoners, left alive; about half are
Jews. The Germans used about two million others, mostly Russians and central
Europeans, mostly not Jewish, as slaves throughout the war.
In Berlin Tuesday,
German industry and government officials announced plans to establish a $5.1
billion fund to compensate slave laborers.
Presidential Presence
Extra
Which of these important
public events, some actual some not, did President Clinton attend, and which
did he blow off?
1. Franjo Tudjman funeral
2. Panama Canal hand-over
3. Running of the Show Girls at Caesar's Palace
4. Traditional INS New Year's Day Body-Cavity
Search of Terrified Immigrants (Employee who finds the gold coin wins a free
turkey.)
5. Full Dress Betrayal of Gay Rights by U.S.
Army
6. Ribbon-Cutting at Hillary Clinton's New York
State Bed
7. Ice-Cream-Cake-Cutting at Some Carvel in
Ohio
8. Phony-Baloney Bipartisan Pledge of Campaign
Finance Reform Press Conference and Fish Fry
9. Meet Barney the Lovable Purple Dinosaur and Gaze
in Awe at the Splendors of Capitalism and Universal Studios Tour (Laid on to
persuade the little Cuban raft-boy that living in a rich country with plentiful
theme parks is better than returning to a poor country and his father.)
10. Ceremonial
Presentation of 30,000,000 Human Cattle to Emperor Xzarlac, Dark Lord of the
Three Galaxies
Answers
1. No
2. No
3. May have attended in disguise, like that Prince
and the Pauper thing
4. Not yet R.S.V.P.'d
5. Present in spirit
6. No
7. Rumor is he'll show up late, sprawl beneath
soft-ice-cream tap, and suck it down until he passes out
8. Yes. Except for the fish fry
9. Probably attended by that stooge they use as his
double, so he can simultaneously attend and deny having attended
10. Scheduling conflict;
Jimmy Carter sent in his place
Gina Duclayan's Least
Persuasive Assertion Extra
"Rather than being 'toxic,' urine (which is about
95% water) may actually contain some of the
purest water
that we
can drink."--from the "Jesus Diet" Web site.
