Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. You would think that John DeLorean, as the founder of an automotive company which made some really cool cars, would possess a high degree intelligence. However, when his company hit the financial rocks, he chose an outrageously illegal way to raise the $17 million that he needed. How did he do it?
2. "Rocket science" has become a cliche for a highly technical endeavor requiring the minds of some really smart people. However, the 1986 explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger showed that all the best scientific and engineering work is irrelevant when it is overruled by politics. Which Nobel Prize-winning physicist, also well known for his love of safecracking and bongos, was responsible for unearthing the conspiracy?
3. This 2008 US presidential candidate was well-respected for his long and distinguished history of service to his country. So, his decision to choose this Alaska governor as his running mate proved puzzling, and went a long way towards helping him lose the election. Who were this presidential candidate and his running mate?
4. On the other hand, it perhaps should not follow so easily that winning an election automatically qualifies someone to carry out that job. Which writer gave us this observation? "It is a well known fact, that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. Anyone who is capable of getting themselves into a position of power should on no account be allowed to do the job."
5. From politics, let's turn to religion. As portrayed in a "Monty Python" film, what is the name of the man who is born in the stall next to Jesus and spends his life being mistaken for the real Messiah?
6. The novel "Samskara" by U. R. Anantha Murthy deals with the paradox of adhering to religious law in a Brahmin community in South India. When Naranappa, a Brahmin who has rejected his brahminhood, dies, the community is faced with a dilemma. According to one law, a Brahmin must cremate the corpse immediately. According to another law, the Brahmins would be polluted by touching his corpse. Who eventually cremates the body?
7. In an old Jewish story, a learned non-Jewish cleric challenged a Jewish community to a duel of knowledge--they would send their most learned member to the contest, and whoever was the first to be stumped by a question about the Torah, Talmud, or commentaries would be killed. The town tailor, not a noted intellectual, volunteered. According to the story, what was the town tailor's winning question, which caused the cleric to yell, "I don't know!"
8. As the god of prophecy, Apollo may be all-knowing, but he can make fools of us all. When Croesus, the King of Lydia, asked the oracle at Delphi whether he should attack the Persian empire, Croesus received the response, "If you attack, a mighty empire will fall". So Croesus attacked, and, sure enough, a mighty empire fell. Which one?
9. Literature contains many Cassandra figures, people who speak sooth but whose words go unheeded. One such figure is Kilgore Trout, a failed science fiction writer whose ideas are genius but who is such a bad writer that nobody reads his books. In which author's work does Kilgore Trout appear?
10. The Austin Lounge Lizards' song "Old Blevins" is a satire of the country music cliche in which a man having trouble in his life goes to a bar, where he meets an older, wiser man who gives him some advice that turns his life around. In the Lounge Lizards version, what does the geezer, Old Blevins, have to say?
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