1) Protests have been demanding police reform. What could that look like?
a) money being taken from police budgets to fund social programmes (because having mental health issues while black should not be a capital offence)
b) police officers not looking at the people in the communities they serve as “enemy combatants” and seeing them, instead, as, you know, people
c) police officers looking like the people in the communities they serve and not like, you know, a foreign occupying army
d) all of the above, and so much more
2) How likely is police reform to happen?
a) Vegas bookies aren’t laying odds on it, and they’ll lay odds on how old you will be when you get dentures!
b) Dr. Pangloss isn’t holding his breath
c/2i) How many lifetimes are you willing to wait?
a) I, uhh, I would have to ask my spiritual adviser how many I have left
b) how did a political question become a philosophical question? Man, finding meaning in the world is more slippery than Heidegger makes it seem!
c) 37 – any more than that, and I’ll break out in a permanent rash!
3) Why are so many good cops silent in the face of police misconduct?
a) police culture – they’ll be forcefed yogurt until they end up in the hospital if they report it
b) police culture – they all saw Serpico on a weekly basis when they were at the academy, and they got the message
c) they want to be able to live long enough to do good
4) Huawei has pledged that it will not engage in spying if it is allowed to continue operating in Canada. Who is laughing the most?
a) Ji Jinping, President of China (and lover of Pong)
b) Ren Zhengfei, CEO of Huawei (his problems started when he broke up with Stimpy)
c) fans of Schitt’s Creek
5) Why Schitt’s Creek?
a) the Corner Gas animated series felt like pandering to fans of the original series
b) it was heartfelt even if the humour was sporadic
c) you didn’t specify what the people who were laughing most had to be laughing at
6) Defending a column in which Rex Murphy claimed that “Canada is not a racist country,” National Post founder Conrad Black wrote that the current spotlight on systemic racism was an “official obsession” that caused “an absurd displacement for other concerns.” What other concerns would those be?
a) why wealthy people are forced to pay any taxes at all
b) the way young people are not more deferential to their betters
c) why more people don’t love Conrad Black
7) What is “doomscrolling?”
a) obsessively following the Twitter feed of Dr. Doom
b) a trick Dungeonmasters can use to end a campaign that they’re bored of running
c) wading through endless screens of cheats to find the one that will get you to the next level of the videogame
8) Where will all this righteous anger lead?
a) down Confrontation Boulevard to Overnight Jailhouse Stay Avenue
b) to the pain relief aisle of your local drug store
c) to justice (and, if you believe that, you might want to check your answer to question 2)
9) Do you know how likely you are to encounter someone who has the coronavirus? Match the venue with the odds of meeting somebody who has COVID-19 in it.
a) the safe room in the basement of your house
b) the bathroom of your apartment
c) a sports bar on the Saturday night of a long weekend
i) oh, my Gord, do you have a death wish‽ Seriously, do you want to die‽ Badly enough to take people you love with you‽
ii) iffy, so stay spiffy and be prepared to go to emerg in a jiffy
iii) you’re safe (did we telegraph the answer to this one?)
10) Which world leader is most associated with which of the following slogans?
a) “Make America great again.”
b) “Let’s take back control.”
c) “Let’s take back Canada.”
i) Jason Kenney
ii) Donald Trump
iii) Ludwig Von Siegfried
11) Journalism is known as The Fourth Estate. What are the first three estates?
a) winter, spring, summe
r
b) milk, meat, vegetables
c) I wouldn’t know: they lie outside my postal code
12) Define the word “smize.” Use it in a sentence.
a) to assume: “This ugly neologism was coined in the United States, I smize.”
b) to kill by cutting out one’s eyes (archaic): “If you don’t stop looking at my girlfriend, varlet, you will be smized!”
c) to play for a sucker: “I just made up the word smize to see who will believe it’s real, and now people are actually contemplating how to use it in a sentence!”
13) Why is COVID-19 also known as “the novel coronavirus?”
a) books have been written about it (not that anybody has read them – so, they fit right in to the current literary scene)
b) it’s a new way of drinking beer
c) because when society finally decides to take it seriously, it will mutate into something demagogues can convince the gullible doesn’t exist, starting the cycle of denial and death anew
14) So, umm, yeah. In 2016, Donald Trump paid $750 in income tax. How best can we understand this?
a) in the same year, Joe Biden paid 2,000 times that amount in income tax
b) that is .0057 per cent of what he paid to Stormy Daniels
c) that is roughly 1/100th the amount he deducted from his taxes for hair care products. That’s a lot of products for not a lot of actual hair!
15) Hope Hicks, a close adviser to President Trump, has tested positive for COVID-19 and is symptomatic. Who among the President’s entourage is likely to get it next?
a) Mark Meadows
b) Jared Kushner
c) some secret service agent whose name you’ve never heard and wouldn’t really care about (they should really wear red shirts)
16) Are those the only people you can think of? Really? Surely, there are other people who are more likely to be the next to contract the coronavirus…aren’t there?
a) Ivanka Trump
b) Stephen Miller
c) I know what you want me to answer. You want me to say President Trump. Well, I have news for you: he’s not going to get the disease because he stays away from losers who have it!
17) Are you sure you want to stick to your answer now that it has been announced that the President and Melania Trump have tested positive for the novel coronavirus?
a) yes
b) no
c) gloating is such an ugly human emotion
18) To whom should you never demand, “Do you know who I am?”
a) your boss
b) the bouncer at the strip club
c) an Alzheimer’s patient
d) other
19) David Berry writes that as hard as it may seem to believe, we will one day look back at these times and wish we had them back. What could possibly cause that?
a) wearing somebody else’s prescription glasses
b) a knock on the head that leaves us believing we’re Winston Smith or Offred
c) Donald Trump running for President in 2024
20) What is “zoom fatigue?”
a) getting nauseous watching a film directed by somebody who is a little too fond of pulling focus
b) being made nauseous by Moses Znaimer’s unrelenting optimism about being old
c) the singular of what doctors wear when they’re fighting COVID-19 from home