2018 Year in Review News Quiz

By Ann Rostow–

Our year-end tradition continues! It’s fun to end things with the annual news quiz, but it sadly requires us to slide past some of the most recent news of the last week, which would otherwise become grist for our mill. For example, I was going to consider whether or not Mika Brzezinski has been unfairly slammed for calling Mike Pompeo a “wannabe dictator’s butt boy” for parroting Trump administration talking points about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. 

Why is this an anti-gay slur? Inappropriately crude, perhaps, but just because it evokes a homosexual image rather than a similarly pejorative straight one doesn’t mean it’s anti-gay in my book. It’s anti-Mike Pompeo, which is fine by me. I was also looking forward to discussing the Hawaiian monk seals that have started getting eels stuck up their noses. Why is this happening and how can we help them? 

Sadly, we can’t stop to consider this dilemma. Today, we will look, not to the future, but will instead cast our eyes to the rear-view mirror. Bonne chance, mes amis!

Question One: Which of the following characters featured during our 2018 columns is not a living creature? 

1. a) Marlon Bundo
2. b) Daniel Turdunken Stinkerbutt
3. c) Knickers
4. d) Sully
5. e) Lord Tod Wadley
6. f) Magic

Question Two: Justice Kennedy’s opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop …

1. a) sidestepped the main issue by ruling that baker Jack Phillips was not treated fairly by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission;
2. b) said that sincere religious convictions allow business owners to avoid anti-discrimination laws if other businesses provide the same services;
3. c) claimed that making a wedding cake is a protected form of speech under the First Amendment;
4. d) was vague to the point of uselessness.

Question Three: Which of the following Millennial antics is most hazardous to your health? 

1. a) the condom challenge
2. b) “pee-gasms” 
3. c) sex with robots
4. d) the “in my feelings” dance

Question Four: A Publix grocery store bakery in South Carolina made headlines for …

1. a) refusing to make a cake for transwoman, Autumn Scardina, with a pink interior and blue icing; 
2. b) refusing to ice the message “support gay marriage” on a cake;
3. c) censoring the middle of the Latin expression summa cum laude, because the word “cum” was considered obscene; 
4. d) refusing to sell cupcakes to a lesbian who was celebrating her wife’s birthday.

Question Five: What do Jocelyn Morffi, Stacey Bailey and Shelly Fitzgerald have in common? 

1. a) They all flipped House seats to the Democrats in districts carried by Trump in 2016. 
2. b) They are all plaintiffs in the cases now challenging Trump’s attempt to ban transgender service members. 
3. c) They were all fired from school positions for being gay. 
4. d) They were all arrested for public indecency after being caught having sex and drinking in the changing room of a Manhattan department store.   

Question Six: Why did we cover the case of the bikini baristas in Everett, Washington, who successfully challenged a city dress code that targeted their costumes, or lack thereof?  

1. a) The City Councilman leading the charge was later caught trolling for young guys on Grindr. 
2. b) The judge who ruled in their favor was presiding over one of the transgender troop lawsuits.
3. c) The two lead plaintiffs held a lesbian wedding at the coffee bar, attended by several hundred guests. 
4. d) Several of the women were arrested after they deliberately dropped their tops in protest, a newsworthy gesture.

Question Seven: Crowdfunding raised six figures to help …

1. a) Seth Owen, a Georgetown student abandoned by his parents after coming out;
2. b) Etta Ng, the teenaged daughter of Jackie Chan who found herself broke and living in Canada with a 30-something female “social media influencer” whom she later married;
3. c) Emily Scheck, a lesbian student athlete who nearly lost NCAA eligibility after her parents disowned her;
4. d) “Maddie,” a middle school trans girl from Oklahoma who was bullied by parents on the internet; 
5. e) Cross Coburn, a Texas city councilman who lost his seat in a recall after his Grindr penis pix went public; 
6. f) two gay penguins in Denmark that stole a chick and were evicted from their zoo.

Question Eight: Trumpian immigration bureaucrats have …

1. a) denied Green Cards to the children of binational couples;
2. b) denied status to the legal spouses of American citizens based on minor infractions from long ago; 
3. c) ended G-4 visas to the same-sex partners of foreign diplomats;
4. d) placed a Honduran transwoman seeking asylum in a men’s facility only to let her die of abusive injuries and lack of prompt medical attention;
5. e) all of that and God knows what else.

Question Nine: True or False? 

1. a) Increasing temperatures have caused green sea turtles in Australia to give birth to females at a rate of 99 percent.
2. b) Eagles fans visiting Minneapolis for last year’s Super Bowl accidentally wound up at the EagleBOLTbar, a gay men’s watering hole that they thought was a sports bar for Philly fans.
3. c) The Pussy Church of Modern Witchcraft lost its bid for tax exempt status after fudging the paperwork.
4. d) Apple got in trouble from Russian authorities for a Pride watch feature that lit the screen in rainbow colors.
5. e) In Stafford County, Virginia, a transgirl was forced to spend a school shooter drill alone in a gym, while her classmates hid in the locker room.
6. f) “Hotnhairy,” who was looking for bear-on-bear action, was the online name of ex-gay conversion therapist Norman Goldwasser.
7. g) The bachelor on the Vietnamese reality show announced his love for the show’s male producer in a viral video.

Question Ten: In 2019, would you rather see: 

1. a) A do-over vote on Brexit? Or MBS ousted and jailed on corruption charges? 
2. b) Donald Junior indicted for lying to Congress? Or Pence dropped from the 2020 ticket? 
3. c) The High Court rule against us on the scope of Title VII? Or the High Court rule against us on the antigay florist case? 
4. d) Donald and Melania divorce? Or Donald be impeached? 
5. e) Beto O’Rourke leading the Democrats? Or Kamala Harris? 
6. f) A tell-all book by Michael Cohen? The complete, un-redacted testimony of Mike Flynn to the FBI? 
7. g) An economic recession? A new bull market?

Happy New Year!

arostow@aol.com

 

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2018 Year in Review News Quiz Answers

Answer One: e) Lord Tod Wadley was a stuffed doll carried
around by eccentric lesbian boat racer Joe Carstairs,
who had affairs with Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich,
among others. Bundo is Mike Pence’s rabbit. Stinkerbutt is
an emotional support duck that caused trouble on an airplane.
Knickers is an adorably huge steer. Sully was Bush
41’s service dog, and Magic is an Australian penguin that
is raising an egg with his partner, Sphen.

Answer Two: a) and d) Basically, the opinion rested on a
technicality, but it can be interpreted to support a range of
viewpoints, including those hostile to gay civil rights.

Answer Three: a) I’m going with the condom challenge,
which involves inhaling a condom up your nose and getting
it to come out of your mouth. Arguably, another correct
answer is probably d), which calls for the dancer to
balance on the roof of a moving car. In contrast, holding
your bladder or having sex with a robot seem pretty tame.
Could it be possible, by the way, that the monk seals are
simply competing in the “eel challenge?”

Answer Four: c) See? It’s not always about homophobia.
Sometimes it’s just stupidity. Scardina’s cake was refused
by our old friend Jack Phillips, of Masterpiece Cakeshop in
Denver. Asher’s Bakery, the store that said no to “support
gay marriage,” won its case in Belfast, Ireland. I vaguely
recall something like scenario d), but it wasn’t part of last
year’s coverage.

Answer Five: c) Morffi taught first grade at a Miami Catholic
school until she married her partner. Bailey lost her
elementary teaching job in Texas after showing the kids
a photo of herself and her partner dressed as Nemo and
Dory. Fitzgerald was a guidance counselor at a Catholic
high school in Indianapolis whose marriage was a secret,
until it wasn’t.

Answer Six: b) Judge Marsha J. Pechman, the Senior U.S.
District Court Judge for the Western District of Washington,
has ruled in favor of transgender troops in all aspects
of the case that is now pending at the Ninth Circuit.
Trump and company are trying to get the West Coast case
and others prematurely accepted for Supreme Court review.
Meanwhile, in enforcing an injunction against the
Everertt dress code, Judge Pechman called the code vague
and possibly unconstitutional. For all of these reasons, she
seems like Someone We Would Like to Have a Beer With.

Answer Seven: a) and c) Both students capped the donations,
and Georgetown gave Owen a full ride. Ng is still
broke and upset with the gay community for not helping
her with bills. Maddie and her family moved to Houston.
Coburn was out of luck, and the Danish penguins were
not evicted, but given a spare egg from another couple and
were working on hatching it.

Answer Eight: e) Enough said.

Answer Nine: a) True, b) False (No one really thought it
was an Eagles bar, they just enjoyed the ambiance), c) False
(The transphobic church somehow won tax exempt status),
d) False (Apple disabled the rainbow light in Russia),
e) True, f) True, g) False (Two of the contestants vying for
his hand fell for each other instead).

Answer Ten: The answers are a matter of opinion, of
course. Mine are a) a Brexit do-over, b) Pence dropped, c)
Can’t decide which is worse, d) Divorce, because it would
be more chaotic, e) Can’t decide which is better, but lean
towards Beto f) Flynn’s testimony, g) A bull market.