I'm not entirely sure what the hell it is, but I'm pretty sure that "feckless metrosexuality" is how I want to define the Wombat File for 2005. It sounds like a good time, right?
Since it feels like Friday -- and since the Quiz itself has only a little bit more time left in its Webly span -- we thought we'd toss out this tidbit we stumbled recently upon. If you're not already struggling along the muddy path to grandma's house, or live in some land unblessed by the incalculable graces of a God who just loves us the best (sorry!), perhaps you'll care to while away an autumnal (vernal, if you're one of our Southern Hemisphere players) day with this squib of a brain-sapper:
According to author A.J. Baime, in 1865, this man was the first businessman to register his fledgling business under new U.S. tax and regulatory laws governing his industry. It is the oldest continually registered operation of its kind in the United States. In 1905, he had trouble with the office safe and kicked it in frustration, breaking his foot and causing an infection to set in. The foot had to be amputated, but infection from the wound remained, killing him in 1911.
Who was this still-famous titan of industry, brought down by his own frustration with an inanimate object?
First correct answer posted to comments wins another serving of sweet potatoes with those little marshmallows on top. No Googling or committing election fraud in a former USSR satellite country. One guess per comment, but comment as often as you like.
This weekend we’ll post the details of December’s Wombat File Quizvitational. And later this morning, a special-edition pre-Terducken Day Wednesday Quiz.
But let us now post and acknowledge the Official Standings from lo these many weeks of head-scratching and hair-splitting. Points have been distributed as follows: One point to each correct “main” answer. ½ point to each if a split decision is reached. For announced bonus points (as opposed to follow-ups tacked on in the comments, ¼ point for each). Therefore in a week with 2 bonus questions, it is possible to score up to 1.5 points. (N.B. There were one or two quizzes conducted via crazy “tag board” when the comments were having some troubles. I wasn’t able to retrieve the record of the victor, unfortunately.)
Here are the totals to date:
The Double-Digit Dominators
1. Boxjam (17.75) – Give it up for the champeen. Uncanny ability to brush past all editorial misdirection. Was Quiz Kid when Quiz Kid wasn’t cool.
2. Scraps (15.5) – one must acknowledge the late start handicapping this intellectual omnivore’s cumulative performance.
3. Scott (14.25) – the Lou Gehrig of the quiz: always ready to play
4. Gavin (12.5) – the consummate gentleman, he sleeps late to give others a chance
5. KF (10) – One suspects that if she lived in an Eastern Standard Time-observant city, you’d all be toast
The Multi-Win Minds
6. (tie) Jonathan (9.75) –- should get bonus points for great follow-up questions (but doesn’t)
6. (tie) Hackly Fracture (9.75) -– has actually won without getting out of bed
8. teenidol (8.75) – possibly wins for total comment count and life-giving tangent links. Cal Ripken Jr. to Scott’s Gehrig?
9. Rory (7.5) – the fact that he has not won even more is we suspect due to Edinburgh’s notoriously early start on Friday cocktails
10. Laura “La Yogurt” Boutwell aka Bootsy (7.25) --always with the sass-mouth!
11. Sara (4) –- another latecomer with an impressive record
12. Terry (3.5) -– and witty, too
13. Velma (3) – I recently saw Velma walking down the street, reading intently, navigating by special extra-sensory radar.
14. Martin (2) –- Martin! Where are ye, lad? The whiskey rebellion needs you!
15. Garthmeister J. (1.25) – with a single, crucial bonus point he takes his place amongst the mighty
The One-Hit Wonders
16. Jessica, Art, Rob, Brian, Christina, Stoat and Doozy all captured one sweet, sweet victory apiece. For as long as I decide to spring for the hosting fees on this site, your fame burns on.
Stay tuned: in December, you’re all invited to join in what will likely be the poorly-managed end to this nearly-three-year parade of badly-phrased queries. Can you feel the excitement?
What with the news full of CIA reform ("Toe that administration line, boys!") and the imminent purge of non-neocon-sympathizers at the Department of State by Bush's "other wife", we turn in this week's quiz to a bit of inconsequence from the cloaks and daggers of yore.
The British Special Intelligence Service's counter-intelligence wing, during World War II, contained a rising star in Kim Philby, who was later revealed as the most notorious Soviet spy of his era. One man who served under Philby in the British counter-intelligence group later wrote about his recollection of the SIS rivalry with the counter-intelligence operations of the American OSS (the CIA's predecessor), who occupied the next floor up of the same house in London. He recalled specifically that "Security was a game we played less against the enemy than against the allies on the floor above."
What was this man's name?
First correct answer posted to comments wins a replica of George H.W. Bush's "Do the Black Ops Thing On This One" rubber stamp from his days at Langley. No Googling or bothering Michael "Imperial Hubris" Scheur, who's presumably busy polishing his C.V. One guess per comment, but you may comment as often as you like.
If you have the urge to have the urge to go out for Thai food, but need a little help summoning up a truly monumental craving, our friend Thaifood Mary's vacation blog may come in handy. As she seeks the perfect sai krok issan and learns to make "a KILLER khao soi" she manages to convince me that I actually want to share her experience of a transcendent "25 cent bowl of pork blood noodles."
The only disappointment is that she fails to fully transcribe her conversation with a cooking instructor, in which she attempts to explain the cultural significance of the song title on his t-shirt.
One of Brooklyn's historic nicknames is "The Borough of Churches" (and the panoramic view from the F train's elevated stretch between 4th Avenue and Smith/9th Street reveals a considerable number of steeples), but there are people who nevertheless worry that we don't have enough. People out there in the heartland.
I got interested in this because of a heated exchange on a local parents email listserv. After one parent noted a newish and attractive coffee shop on a side street in the neighborhood, another quickly chimed in to say that this particular shop was really a low-profile community outreach program of a new local evangelical church -- which was itself part of a large-scale southern-funded project to jumpstart evangelical congregations in the Northeast. This, of course, immediately touched off accusations of religious intolerance, Osama bin Laden was invoked, and the discussion collapsed into the sort of thing that we're shocked -- shocked! -- to see happening on an Internet discussion board.
Given the paranoid-seeming tenor of the accusation and the dyed-in-the-Blue-wool nature of the nabe itself, I was inclined not to believe it. But then I realized the poster making the claim had provided some links.
Of course, there's nothing in the church's publicly announced plans to cause much alarm --after all, if we don't have room to accomodate one Christian coffeeshop in our gorgeous mosaic, then we really need to kick out that store that sells $60 notebooks and $400 table lamps, not to mention two or three of those plentiful"Chinese" restaurants that serve a painful approximation of the real cuisine you can find a couple of subway stops away.
But what really makes me sit up and meditate on a higher purpose is the news of the support available for those brave missionaries who must leave the comforts of Indiana and Kentucky to seek out an arbor here in the howling spiritual wilderness where the tree of life maybe planted anew.
And we all can be sympathetic to the struggles ahead for Brian and Allison. After all, there are many of us who have beseeched heavenly aid in locating a reasonably priced shoebox-sized studio (to say nothing of the 3-bedroom apartment it looks like they'll need), and who have "crisscrossed the city, praying for clarity about God’s specific location." Or at least for clarity about the specific location of rent-stabilized, no-fee apartments with an easy walk to the subway and nice light in the morning, with maybe a little exposed brick? Which most people would agree would be just divine.
Just thinking out loud here, but I'm wondering if there's a forward-thinking congregation somewhere in Memphis, or Houston, or maybe suburban Atlanta, that would like to help me plant the First Wombat Church of Brooklyn. I guess I'd have to work up our core values a bit, but if you want us to serve coffee, hey, no problem! Just a nice one-family brownstone should be enough to get the ministry started...
I post today's question late and fleetingly, as the whirlwind of tasks at hand threaten to overwhelm your beleagured editor. Damn the madness of this modern age, with it's its endless parade of memoranda and telegraph messages! The pnuematic tube discharges and endless vomiting of cylinders, each stuffed like an eggplant with queries, demands, imprecations, and retractions! Curse the chatter of the ticker-tape in the corner! And the bellowing of that infernal steam-carriage in the street -- what a purgatory for a mind of sensibility to endure!
In 1901, the year's biggest bestselling novel was a gripping Civil War story, The Crisis. That same year, the thirty-two year-old author hosted a dinner for an English writer, giving a lecture tour in the U.S. at the time. They continued to correspond for a number of years afterward. This other man went on to become much more famous -- and indeed, it is his fame which has made his American friend's notable, long after The Crisis and other novels have fallen out of print. The American went on to run for Governor of New Hampshire on Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive Party ticket in 1911, but was not elected.
Who was this once-popular American writer and sometime politician?
First correct answer posted to comments wins one of the new Massachusetts quarters, first in the revised set of Blue State-only commemorative quarters, the reverse of which displays a high-ranking G.O.P. strategist setting fire to the flag of the state in question. No Googling or consulting Richard Scarry's Big Big Book of Late Nineteenth-Century Historical Authors. One guess per comment, but you may comment as often as you like.
I apologize in advance for offering up another round of Democracy Sours. And I freely admit that nobody likes a serious Wombat. But a number of articles and discussions I've read over the last few days are perhaps worth sharing. If, therefore, you want to join me for one more lashing of the poor dead beast...
The Blue in the Red
I've said before and I'll say again: the idea of the solidly right-wing heartland is a G.O.P. weapon, a myth carefully nurtured to isolate both ends and destroy the possibility of common ground and evolution of the status quo. Diversity of opinion exists throughout the country.
No, I'm not high. Yes, it's sunk in that the Republicans have very effective majorities in most of the rural areas and throughout much of the South, and that's devastating right now. Those majorities are big electorally, where small margins of victory in a two-party system can deliver roughly the same political dominance engendered by a big gap (as long as the demographics don't change on you: it's the stability of the lead that matters). But even a 60-40 split in terms of cultural position is a different story. A minority that large is neither invisible nor inconsequential in day-to-day affairs. New York and California dwellers disheartened by what their seeing on all those crimson-stained maps floating around (who've been unable, by the way, to oust our Republican stooge of a governor, or stop a Republican mayoral candidate from buying the office) need to realize that we need more than ever to listen to people in Cleveland and Santa Fe and Jacksonville and Richmond and lots of communities in between those big cities. Some of them really are on our side. And some of them aren't now -- but could be if they felt they were being heard.
(UPDATE: see this visual aid for a nice illustration of the above from a demographic perspective.
The Spiritual War
Pato picked up on this must-read essay after it spawned a particularly heated MeFi thread. The linked article should be required reading for everyone who wants to understand how religion shapes ideology shapes politics these days. But note the argument that begins in the Metafilter thread as well -- Bush voters who regularly interact with communities (like MetaFilter) which are on the left as a whole take as their refrain our arrogance, our sheer unbelievable condecension toward the rest of the country. They are still able to see the left as the Establishment (this after 8 years of Reagan and two terms of a Democrat who bodily hauled his party further to the right than it had been since JFK), and the right as the opposition.
Lefties do not understand this, on the whole. We have been seeing ourselves, over the last several years, as the outraged victims. The Supreme Court stops the 2000 recount in a split decision. The GOP runs hard right, and don't get called on it by the press. Smear campaigns are run at will, the newest and fastest-growing network is openly allied with the party in power. And the man in charge, who had campaigned on a platform of bipartisan co-operation, switches to a set of decisions that seem calculated to demonstrate his disregard for viewpoints outside of his inner circle.
Etecetera etcetera -- point is, it hasn't sunk in to us yet that as far as many people are concerned a radical left-wing agenda is using media and money power to dominate the country. Is this another myth fostered by the Republican party, with the goal of keeping its base angry and ready to rumble? Absolutely. But identifying that doesn't solve the problem. Even if Limbaugh disappeared tomorrow, the damage is done. We've got to find a way to make the majority of people assign the "arrogance" where it belongs -- to a ruling clique who discard their responsibilities for stewardship, even as they claim a God-given mandate.
An Interesting Contradiction
This Ask Metafilter post prompted some Bush voters to give illuminating responses to the question: what were your reasons for your choice? While there was no individual reason that came as a surprise, I wish to note for the record what I haven't followed before: that there are some strongly competing views within that 51% who voted for Bush concerning what is it that vote means. Observe the support for Bush and the G.O.P. among people who do not believe the social conservatives will actually get their way in the end, and who have a view (right or wrong) of the administration as responsible and centrist at the end of the day. Some of them are pro-choice and/or against the notion of an anti-gay constitutional amendment. But, of course, for many others, social-conservative issues were pre-eminent, and their votes were made in the belief that Bush will address. In short, different subsets among Bush voters believe opposite things about what his administration will set out to do.
A couple of announcements before we get to today's cortical destimulant --
First: prepare ye, o former Quiz laureates, for the Wombat File Quizvitational, to be held in December. More details to come soon, but all previous victors -- there are almost two dozen of you to date -- are eligible to play in this multiweek tournament. I'll post a list of the previous winners (and their total number of victories) soon, and I'll seek to contact everyone by email if possible.
If you've never thrown your hat into the ring, a November quiz win gets you in the door to this non-historic competition, this super-forgettable battle-royal of the truly trivial. Don't miss out. Mentally muscle your way in today, o ye lurkers!
Second: following this celebration of the pointlessly remembered detail, the Friday Quiz will lay down its weary head, at least for a while. Not to worry -- a similarly inane diversion is being prepared to take its place. Stay tuned.
Now, on to today's aid-in-not-reading-the-horrible-horrible-newspapers....
There are currently several hereditary monarchs in Europe -- the Queen of England being one, of course. At this time, all hereditary heads of state in Europe hold the royal title of King/Queen or Prince/Princess.
Less than a decade ago, however, that was not the case. Who was the exception -- until abdication in 2000? (The person's title and place of "rule" will be sufficient.)
Related bonus question: What European state besides the Vatican has an ordained member of the Catholic clergy as head of state?
UNRELATED DOUBLE-BONUS GEOGRAPHY QUESTION: After the recent demonstration of God's Will in the United States of America, many who resist the divine plan have spoken about the beauties of our northern neighbor, Canada. An act of mass relocation to this paradise of beer and bilingualism is not, after all, unthinkable, as it is the 8th least-densely populated nation on the planet (measured in persons/sq. mile). But if elbow room is important, maybe the No. 1 nation on that list should be considered. What is the least-densely populated nation?
First correct answer to the main question posted to comments wins a one-way bus ticket to Windsor, Ontario and a used DVD of Bowling for Columbine. (Bonus winners get a leftover Jolly Rancher retrieved from the bottom of a plastic jack-o-lantern). No Googling or changing horses. One guess at each question per comment please (i.e. you may not guess multiples for either main or bonuses in one comment, but may include a guess at each).
Toggling between the networks, refreshing this and that website (and nervously mousing over the map at C-SPAN.com. It's hard to relax; certainly hard to feel confident. Early returns from Ohio are grim. Wisconsin too. And while I was trying not to drink the exit-poll Kool-Aid earlier today, I had been entertaining the notion that maybe there was something wonderful afoot in Florida. That was apparently some severely wishful entertaining.
Yeah, grim's the word right now. If there's to be a Kerry victory, it'll be one surprisingly eked out of last-minute tabulations of those high-turnout districts in Ohio -- and held against whatever legal maneuverings are brought to bear in the aftermath. And since New Mexico looks like it'll go to Bush, that means that for an Ohio victory to mean anything, Kerry also has to hold onto New Hampshire, Iowa, and Wisconsin, not to mention Michigan and Minnesota. Oh, and Washington, since I'm in no mood to take anything for granted.
Yeah, grim is about the only word to cover it. And my chief response is to feel an immense sense of alienation: if the administration wins the freaking popular vote this time around -- I simply don't understand it. How incompetent do they have to be to get fired?
I can't stay up to wait and wait on a good word from Ohio. There's a little girl who'll be up bright and early, regardless. And worth getting some rest for, regardless of All This Bad Business.