Flashback Friday: Presidents Day Trivia Contest

FLASHBACK FRIDAY

This Trivia Quiz was created in 2012, 

but should be just as much fun today.

With this coming Monday being Presidents Day, this is as good a day as any to think about presidents. By presidents we're talking about U.S. presidents here. Sorry, I mean no offense to my readers in Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Zambia or Laos who were not required to memorize U.S. president-trivia in their schools while growing up. For the rest of you, here's a quiz to help keep your brain cells from atrophying. You can check your answers against my guesses at the end of this quiz. Be sure to keep score.

 
Disclaimer: This quiz is for entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as having any usefulness for passing your U.S. citizenship exam. 

 

1. Which president was nicknamed His Accidency? 

a. Harrold Wilson 

b. John Tyler 

c. Chester Arthur 

d. Grover Cleveland Alexander 

2. Which President was called The Do-Nothing President? 

a. Pat Buchanan 

b. William Buckley 

c. William Howard Taft 

d. James Buchanan 

3. Which president was sometimes called The Big Lub? 

a. Grover Lightfoot 

b. William Howard Taft 

c. Teddy Roosevelt 

d. Herbert Hoover 

 

4. Who was the only president with a Ph.D.? 

a. Charles Smedley 

b. Woodrow Wilson 

c. Calvin Coolidge 

d. Benjamin Harrison 

 

5. Who was the first president to actually dine with a black man in the White House? 

a. Abraham Lincoln 

b. Ulysses S. Grant 

c. Teddy Roosevelt 

d. John F. Kennedy 

 

6. Teddy Roosevelt was evidently into pets. Match the the following pets to their names. 

a. Guinea Pig 

b. Snake 

c. Bull Dog 

d. Chesapeake Retriever 

Their names were: Pete, Father O'Grady, Emily Spinach, and Sailor Boy... but in which order? 

7. Who was the first president's wife to be called the First Lady of the Land? 

a. Letitia Tyler 

b. Lucy Hayes 

c. Eliza Johnson 

d. Frances Clara Cleveland 

 

8. Who was the first president to fly in a helicopter? 

a. Silent Cal 

b. FDR 

c. Ike 

d. Harry S. Truman 

 

9. Who was the first president to fly in an airplane? 

a. Herbert Hoover 

b. Teddy Roosevelt 

c. FDR 

d. Calvin College 

10. This president raised 11 children, none of whom were his own. (He is one of three presidents to have had adopted children.) 

a. Chester Arthur 

b. Andrew Johnson 

c. Andrew Jackson 

d. James Polk 

 

11. When he was vice president, he presided over the Senate wearing a pair of pistols, as a precaution against the frequent outbursts of violence. (See? Contentiousness in the congress is nothing new.) 

a. Hebert Hoover 

b. Andrew Johnson 

c. Martin Van Buren 

d. Lyndon Johnson 

 

12. Which president was the first to see a baseball game and saw the Cincinnati Reds beat the Washington Senators 7-4? 

a. Benjamin Harrison 

b. Teddy Roosevelt 

c. William McKinley 

d. Woodrow Wilson
 
13. How many presidents did not win the popular vote yet won the election? 

a. 5 

b. 8 

c. 15 

d. 11 

 
14. How many Americans understand how the Electoral College works?
a. 5
b. 8
c. 15
d. 11 

 
15. Who was the first president not born on the continental United States?
a. George Washington
b. John D. Rockefeller
c. Andrew Johnson
d. Barack Obama
 
Bonus: Which website did I borrow all this information from?
a. ClassroomHelp.com 
b. NationalGeographic.com
c. Infoplease.com
d. None of the above. I took good notes in school and remembered all this stuff. 

ANSWERS
1. (b) 2. (d) 3. (b) 4. (b) 5. (c) TR dined with Booker T. Washington. 6. Some of the pets TR had in the White House for his family included a Bull Dog named Pete, a Guinea Pig named Father O'Grady, a snake named Emily Spinach and a Chesapeake Retriever named Sailor Boy. 7. I think it was Lucy. 8. (c) 9. There is a dispute here as my sources conflict. One source says it was Teddy, the other says FDR. 10. (c) Yes, Jackson had 11 adopted children. 11. (c) 12. (a) 13. (c) 14. Trick question. Nobody knows how it works. 15. (d) He was born in Sasketchewan. No, wait, Rio. Actually it was Hawaii, which was not a state until I was in elementary school. Bonus Question: a, b and c. Score five points for having read this all the way through, and one point for each correct answer. If you did better than 18, you're pretty sharp. Take a bow.

Who Said It? And What Year? --A Quiz Featuring Barbed Remarks About Politicians and Politics

In our current era the obsession with being up to the minute and "in the know" has caused many people to lose any sense of perspective. If a politician gets caught in a lie, the incident is treated as if it has never occurred before in human history. At every instant in time "Trending News" feeds into all our devices to keep us continuously distracted by the now. Sensational headlines seem to have one singular objective, like the kid on the playground who said, "Made ya look!"

For this reason, I thought it might be interesting to serve up 10 quotes from the past to serve as a counterweight to this "Now" obsession that skews our perspectives in this fog of media wars. 

THIS IS A QUIZ, though if you do not wish to play, scroll down and read the quotes simply for entertainment purposes.

* * * * *

YOUR ASSIGNMENT, if you want to play, is to read each quote, guess who said it and what year. Take a sheet of paper, number it from 1 to 10 and write your answers. Write the name of the Person who said it, and the Year that they said it. 

Scoring: 2 points for guessing who said it. 2 points for guessing the year. 1 point for being within 3 years of the year. 

2 Bonus Points for accurately naming the person and the year. Maximum score: 60 points or 6 points per question. 

Answers will be found at the bottom of this page Below the Photo. 

* * * * * 

1.

Religious toleration, to a certain extent, has been won because people have ceased to consider religion so important as it was once thought to be. But in politics and economics, which have taken the place formerly occupied by religion, there is a growing tendency to persecution, which is not by any means confined to one party.  

2.
Socialism is the theory that the desire of one man to get something he hasn’t got is more pleasing to a just God than the desire of some other man to keep what he has got. 

3.
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.  

4.

An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought 

5. 
Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.  

6. 
… that is the nature of politics: poly, meaning more than one, and ticks, meaning blood-sucking parasites. 

7. 
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

8.
Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen. 

9.
I don't make jokes. I just watch the Government and report the facts. 

10.
A garden, you know, is a very usual refuge of a disappointed politician. Accordingly, I have purchased a few acres about nine miles from town, have built a house, and am cultivating a garden.   

ANSWERS

EdNote: If I had it all to do over again I would have skipped making this into a game. I just wanted to share the quotes. Alas, having done all this work, I will go ahead and share. Did anyone get more than 3? 

1. Bertrand Russell (1922)

2.  H.L. Mencken (1916)

3. Mark Twain (1916)

4. Simon Cameron (1862)

5. Paul Valery (1943)

6. Kinky Friedman (2007)

7. John Kenneth Galbraith (1962)

8. Friedrich Nietzsche (1883)

9. Will Rogers (1930s)

10. Alexander Hamilton (1802)

Here, There and Everywhere Valentine’s Quiz

"All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt." ~Charles M. Schulz

Here's a little Valentine's Day quiz to put you in the mood for this very special day... or not.

1. The Transistor is...
A) A Free Twin Ports rag focusing on art, music and swearing.
B) A component in transistor radios
C) All of the Above
D) The key component of “grey cells” in human anatomy.

2. The latest Female Force comic book, to be released this Wednesday by Bluewater Comics, will feature:
A) Roseanne Barr
B) Jane Austen
C) Cher
D) And Cher Alike

3. Which name does not belong in the following list?
A) Whitney Houston
B) Jimi Hendrix
C) Eddie Van Halen
D) Heath Ledger

4. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre occurred where?
A) In a New York subway.
B) In a South Chicago warehouse.
C) In a Grimm’s Fairy Tale.
D) In a North Side Chicago garage.

5. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre occurred in what year?
A) 1918
B) 1891
C) Sometime during Prohibition.
D) At a time when people were less inhibited.

6. The seven men slain in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre were first discovered by…
A) A German Shepherd named Highball
B) A Beagle named Amelia
C) A tramp named Phil
D) A Poodle named Roxie
E) The Pointer sisters

7. Sir Benedict’s Tavern On The Lake is located…
A) On the California side of Lake Tahoe
B) On the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe
C) On the Canadian side of Lake Ontario
D) One the Southern tip of Lake Superior

8. Which one of these was NOT a top 20 search yesterday on Yahoo Buzz?
A) Billy Preston
B) Zsa Zsa Gabor
C) Twitter
D) IRS

9. When you TEXT Sir Ben’s you get…
A) A free music video
B) A free “mystery beer” coupon
C) Directions to Sir Ben's
D) I don’t know. I have never texted Sir Ben’s

10. Who would you rather follow for three hours on Route 66?
A) LeAnn Rimes
B) Zsa Zsa Gabor
C) Obama’s Mother
D) Randy Travis

11. The best rock concert you ever saw in person was…
A) Three Dog Night
B) Jethro Tull
C) Yes
D) No

12. Zsa Zsa Gabor was in the news yesterday because…
A) She fell down a flight of stairs and broke her hip.
B) She fell in love with a famous Duke.
C) Her husband is very rich and threw her a big birthday party.
D) Any story about her is newsworthy; there’s something exotic-sounding about the name Zsa Zsa that makes people want to read more.

13. What was Zsa Zsa Gabor’s real name before she became a movie starlet?
A) Jane Remington
B) Nancy something. (I can’t remember off the top of my head.)
C) Peaches Galore
D) Jane Brackenheimer

14. The Capital of Indigo is….
A) Blue
B) Pale
C) A slightly lighter shade of pale
D) Gleen

109. The song "Magic Bus" by The Who is about…
A) How many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
B) Chuck Norris, because everything cool is about Chuck Norris.
C) Drugs, sex and rock ‘n roll.
D) Four minutes and nine seconds long.
E) None of the above.

44. My award-winning story "The Breaking Point" can be found in which of the following eBooks?
A) The Red Scorpion
B) Unremembered Histories
C) Newmanesque
D) The Breaking Point and Other Stories

15. This quiz was…
A) Silly
B) Very stupid
C) A disappointing waste of time.
D) A semi-amusing introduction to Valentine’s Day.
E) Inspired by a Coleman Miller blog entry.
F) Living proof that you can never know what to expect at Ennyman’s Territory.


ANSWERS: 1 (C), 2 (C), 3 (D), 4 (D), 5 ©, 6 (A), 7 (D), 8 (A), 9 (D), 10 (?), 11 (E), 12 (C), 13 (F), 14 (G), 109 (C), 44 (Take a guess), E15 (E)

Happy Valentine's Day

Bookends: The Trivia Quiz & Art Class Memories

My junior year in high school I took my first art class since grade school. It proved to be a significant decision. The night before that first day of school my best friend had been hit by a car and was killed twenty minutes after I had seen him and said, "I'll see you tomorrow."

Art took on a significant role for me that year. It became a way in which I dealt with my internal wrestlings with significant life issues and a form of escape. It simultaneously became intertwined with my search for meaning.

So it was that art class with Mr. Sebes was a meaningful safe harbor in the midst of the tedium of high school studies, reports and other stresses. This was the late sixties, and there was a record player in the art class room. And there were a couple girls in our class who brought Simon Garfunkel albums to that class, playing them endlessly. In fact, I believe it's possible we went two full years listening to nothing but the same Simon and Garfunkel albums, over and over and over.

In English class, Mr. Harris used contemporary music to teach us about poetry, elevating it to cultural explorations about the angst of our time, which was especially conveyed in many of the songs Simon & Garfunkel wrote and sang, such as Richard Cory and A Most Peculiar Man or the Beatles' She's Leaving Home.

So it is that last night I was thinking about how these songs were played so frequently I could actually remember nearly every line and tonal inflection. From this, I decided to make a quiz for you. Maybe you remember those songs as well. Here are twelve questions based on the album Bookends. See how well you perform. Ten or better is an A. Answer below.

At the Zoo
1. Which animal is kindly but dumb?
2. Which animal is skeptical of changes in their cages?
3. This animal stands for honesty. What is it?
4. Which animal plots in secrecy?
5. And which is insincere?

And more...
6. What was the name of the draft dodger living downstairs in Punky’s Dilemma?
7. What was the name of the famous baseball player in Mrs. Robinson?
8. In the song Fakin’ It, what occupation did the narrator have in another lifetime?
9. Who was the officer in Save the Life of My Child?
10. What happened when the spotlight hit the boy?
11. What was the narrator drinking while looking over manuscripts of unpublished rhyme in A Hazy Shade of Winter?
12. In the song America, what did the narrator say when Kathy was sleeping?

ANSWERS
1. Elephants
2. Orangutans
3. Monkeys
4. Pigeons
5. Giraffes
6. Old Roger draft-dodger
7. Joe DiMaggio
8. A Tailor
9. Officer McDougal
10. He flew away
11. Vodka and lime
12. “Kathy, I’m lost.”

How did you do?