Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
What a week it has been since last we congregated at the Irish Pub for intellectual challenges and revelry! Here’s how my wife Kate put it on Facebook:
The myriad details of most days disappear from my mind by the end of the week. Friday was different — I suspect that June 26, 2015 will remain etched in many of our minds for years to come. My typical summer day includes carting my three kids to various activities all over the Sacramento valley. On that day, in between and throughout the swimming lessons and camp and medical appointments and therapy, I remained fixed on satellite radio following reports of the day’s events. And when I heard President Obama’s voice as he began to eulogize the nine church-goers slain in South Carolina, I stopped everything to listen to his remarkable performance.
A week like the last one takes a while to process and digest, and in my house, we’ve been talking about little else. Truman’s excitement, his consciously absorbing history as we all live through it, infects us with his hopefulness and curiosity. Tonight Andy and I plan to sit down with the kids to watch the eulogy together. During a week as memorable and important as this one, I’m so proud of my president and of my country.
Today’s news from the Supreme Court was less good from my ecologically-informed Davis perspective, with a ruling about the EPA’s restrictions on power-company smokestacks. According to today’s Washington Post, “The court’s 5-to-4 decision halts further implementation of the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards rule, which required hundreds of coal-burning plants to install equipment to control mercury, a substance linked in multiple studies to respiratory illnesses as well as birth defects and developmental problems in children.”
That setback aside, last week will be remembered for the decisions on Obamacare and Marriage Equality, and for the sad events that have catalyzed southern states to re-examine its relationship with the Confederate Battle Flag. Do you agree with President Obama that our union is somewhat more perfect because of the strong steps forward made by our country in June, 2015?
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on some of the topics raised above, as well as composers, U.S. Presidents, the Caribbean, flags, Twitter, rainbows, bankruptcies, A&M Records, tennis, seeking to please in Latin, Massachusetts politicians, thorns, Finnish bullets, TV antagonists, the San Francisco Bay, alien invasions, adorable puns, marriage equality, revision, numbers that are divisible by 15, stars, hymns, beautiful titles, seasickness, populous islands, Cyprus, Harry Potter, red birds, the USDA, and Shakespeare.
See you this evening!
Your Quizmaster
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Here are five questions from last week’s raucous quiz:
- Film. Inside Out has been released to widespread acclaim and box-office success. Divisible by five, what is the total number full-length films released by Pixar?
- Countries of the World. The names of eight of the 14 most populous cities in South Korea end with the same letter. What is that letter?
- Consecutive Integers. The sum of the least and greatest of 3 consecutive integers (numbers in a row) is 60. What are the values of the 3 integers?
- Science. Starting with the letter M, small grains of what common iron oxide (with a chemical formula Fe3O4) occur in almost all igneous and metamorphic rocks?
- Sports. Starting with the letter B, what is the last name of the Cleveland Cavaliers head coach who said that it has been a “great honor” to work with LeBron James this season?
P.S. Congratulations to my son Truman, the nine-year-old actor who will portray Miles Standish on stage at B Street Theatre in Sacramento this evening, in a production called Many Plays by Children, a title that Truman came up with himself. He and I will be performing at the same time this evening, but in different cities, so I will get to see his dress rehearsal this afternoon while the rest of our family, and many friends, see Truman’s Sacramento premiere tonight.