Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.” Jonathan Swift
Casual readers of political history think that President Trump was the first president to contact the leader of another country to compel that leader to investigate the son or daughter of the U.S. president’s political opponent.
Even if you don’t count the crucial help in 2016 of the Russian overlords of the NRA for a moment, Trump was part of a well-established 21st-century tradition of such skullduggery. Now the truth can be revealed.
It is not widely known that one of Mitt Romney’s five sons (even today we don’t know if it was Craig Romney, Tagg Romney, Matt Romney, Josh Romney, or Ben Romney) did not plan to have children. This is surprising because Mitt had 18 grandchildren at the time that he was running for president in 2012; evidently all Romneys have certain familial obligations. Well, you know who DID discover at the time of the yearly Romney French Riviera vacation that there was a Romney son who was considering having no children? Barack Obama. People don’t remember how well he milked that Romney scandal. How else do you think he was re-elected? Thanks for your help with that, Nicolas Sarkozy!
Now, of course, John McCain was born at Coco Solo, Panama (which, coincidentally, is also the name of one of Han Solo’s granddaughters). Recently unsealed Presidential records have revealed that then Senator Obama and then Panamanian president Martin Torrijos had many conversations about this what they called McCain’s “Central American Roots.” Evidently the Senator from Illinois and presidential candidate promised future additional Canal dredging work contracts in exchange for photographs of the baby McCain wearing a “McCain for Herbert Hoover” onesie on a Panamanian beach in October of 1936. This might explain why the Arizona Senator was so flustered during the 2008 financial crisis.
In 2004, President George W. Bush, hoping for a second term, telephoned the then president of Vietnam, Trần Đức Lương, and told him that his country could expect significantly more military aid if Trần Đức Lương himself would make a large personal contribution to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which he did. It was a beautiful phone call.
Bush was confident that this tactic would work because in 2000, his brother Jeb had successfully negotiated with Festus Mogae, the onetime President of Botswana (in power from 1998-2008), regarding Gore daughter Karenna’s recent trip to the African nation. Evidently she had haggled rather rudely with a shopkeeper! Mogae promised the Bush family actual footage of the overseas incident in exchange for “future considerations” (which he received). Eventual Bush cabinet member and Department of the Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne was even dispatched to Botswana to help with the Mogae re-election campaign.
They decided on this campaign slogan: “Don’t Mess with Festus.”
So, as you can see, Trump hinging innocent “favors” to hundreds of millions of our American tax dollars of military aid to Ukraine is not so odd. Those in the know see this as contemporary presidential politics as usual. As David Hume said, “The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.”
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will somehow address an issue peripherally raised above, as well as the following: love as a driving force, the state of California, guards with cymbals, state borders, Samuel L. Jackson, residual bleachers, angelic enjoining, pianists, short gentlemen, momentous trials, bodies of water, contiguous states, darling dives, integration, British poets, bonus deals, Idaho, popular reads, chemical bonds, escape plans, Indiana, private colleges, Oscar nominees, AI sneezes, particulate matter, disappearing vocations, monkeys, apps that record audio, Colorado, and Shakespeare.
Poetry Night Thursday will feature Camille Norton and Maya Khosla as our featured poets. Join us Thursday night at 8 at the John Natsoulas Gallery.
See you this evening!
Your Quizmaster
Here are three questions from a previous quiz:
- Japanese Cities. The second most populous city in Japan has four syllables in its name. What is it? Angeles
- Food and Drink. Vermiculture depends on what W word?
- Books and Authors. What Chinese author was the founder of philosophical Taoism?
P.S. “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” – Ernest Hemingway.