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May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
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Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
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May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
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May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
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Jewish World Review
Putting my life in Jeopardy
By
Jim Mullen
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
We were eating the last of this year's fresh corn for dinner while watching "Jeopardy" recently. Writing questions for "Jeopardy" would by my dream job. All of them seem so incredibly easy when you know the answer. "Hawaii became a state in this year." "She sang 'You Light Up My Life.'" "Midnight mass happens at this time." These "questions" are easy, because unlike real life, they only have one answer. Imagine how hard "Jeopardy" would be if they asked questions like "This is the best Woody Allen film," or "This chain makes the best doughnuts," or "The three appropriate circumstances in which men can use hair mousse."
But many times, even on easy questions that you know the answer to, it's hard to spit it out quickly, hard to beat the other contestants to the buzzer. You can see the actor's face but can't bring up the name. You've read the book but can't get the title to come out. It's not like they're asking you to solve Fermat's Last Theorem, but they are asking you to think fast. Add all the things I don't know -- the names of vice presidents who weren't in office during my lifetime, medical and scientific terms, opera plots and characters, Shakespeare plays -- and it's obvious what a miserable contestant I'd be. The perfect contestant would be an opera-singing, classically trained actor with dual degrees in biochemistry and geography. But even all that wouldn't be enough to win. You've got to have the answers on the tip of your tongue, not way down deep in your diaphragm.
How many times have you known the answer but not been able to say it? But as soon as the contestant blurts it out, you chime in with, "That's it, that's right, that's what I was thinking of." It's like singing along with a song on the radio; the words come out effortlessly. Yet stand in front of a group of people and try to do it by yourself and blankness descends. What is the first line? What's the first word? How are these contestants able to pull out the answers so fast? If we all know a lot of the answers but can't spit them out as fast as the winner, does it mean they are smarter, or just faster?
So, Sue and I are watching "Jeopardy" and the clue is something like, "This member of the Beatles is celebrating his 70th birthday this year," and we both know the answer immediately, "Who is Ringo Starr." I didn't know he was 70, but I knew he was the oldest Beatle. You could not be our age and fail to know that. It would be like not knowing who shot Lee Harvey Oswald or not knowing what Cassius Clay changed his name to. What a softball question! But the guy who ended up breaking one of the game show's records by winning the most money in a single day said, "Who is Paul McCartney?"
Here's a guy that knew that "Rh" was the symbol for rhodium, for God's sake. I didn't even know there was an element called rhodium. He knew who Millard Fillmore's vice president was, he knew that Emma Lazarus wrote the poem on the Statue of Liberty, but he didn't know Ringo? "I'll take how can anyone not know that for $800, Alex."
Sue said, "You missed every other question they had. Your answer to every music question you don't know is 'Lady Gaga.'"
"Hey, it's a good guess. They always tell you to say the first thing that pops into your mind."
"Try saying nothing for a change. Why let people know you're stupid? Let them find out the hard way. The way I did."
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Jim Mullen is the author of "It Takes a Village Idiot: Complicating the Simple Life" and "Baby's First Tattoo."
Previously:
Mo' government, mo' problems
iLostIt
Dressed for excess
Expert tease
The mysteries of Jersey
You are a toilet, where am I?
Don't we all cheat at the game of life?
What happens when I forget where Google is?
Don't let the doorman hit you on the way out
Picasso fiasco
Purple (hair) Daze
Let me hear your body talk
Working from work
Babies deserve clean restrooms, too
3-year-old bear-killers are a thing of the past
Money-making ideas on the fly
Collecting and hoarding
Chain of fools
Please come pick up your acting awards, ESPN commentators, you've earned them
You've been superpoked by the U.S. gov't
e-Readin', e-Writin' and e-Rithmatic
A pose by any other name
Warning: Column contains 2010 spoilers
He loves only gold, only gold
Think about direction, wonder why …
Flushing your money down a diamond-studded toilet
More like wack Friday
The good, the ad and the ugly
The desert of the real
Let books be large and in charge
I was insulting people way before the Internet
GPS drill sergeant: Left, right, left!
Butterfly in the sky, you make winds go twice as high
Music to my ears it's not
You don't light up my life
Fair or not: Country living is far from Little House
A parable for the ages
Top 100 Cable news stories of the century
Green dumb
A developing story
Thinking outside the lunch box
What's good for the goose is good for the scanner
Newspapers will survive, but network TV?
A really big show of generation gaps
When pigs flu
The reports of our decline have been greatly exaggerated
Mergers and admonitions
Invest in gold: little, yellow, different
Stuck in Folsom Penthouse
Collecting karma
Setting loose the creative juice
It's all in the numbers
You're damaging your brain with practical skills
The real rat pack
The unspeakable luxury of the Park-O-Matic
Gross-ery shopping
© 2009, NEA
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