1882 My Best Questions

I ask a lot of questions on my blogs--it's just my style of writing. Then I answer them, because most of you don't stop long enough. Here's a selection of my best of the best questions from May-June 2005. If you click the question, you can read the whole entry.

What would you call a group of librarians?
Somewhere I've seen a collective noun for a group of librarians congregating. Everything the librarian tells you has previously been worked out in a meeting--even the pauses and punctuation. What would be your vote? (listed some choices like peep, mob, brace, pride, etc.)

What woman would admit to this?
I've often wondered if later in life, while living maybe in San Diego or Houston, a woman would admit to a past of being [the Forreston] Sauerkraut Queen or maybe the Ogle County Pork Queen (another biggie in our farming county)?

Where do I join?
The National Coalition to End Judicial Filibuster. Where do I join? In fact, let's not stop with the judiciary, let's dump the filibuster altogether. Can you think of another organization that uses this? And it is misused by both parties--I'm not pointing fingers at the Democrats, at least not in this paragraph.

Guess the trendy car ads
Guess which ad goes with the car of your dreams. My favorite ad (although not the car), is definitely #9. It’s edgy--like a Laura Bush joke. Answers at the bottom of the page.

Do you save ribbons, bows and paper from Christmas and holidays?
Do you save ribbons, bows and paper from Christmas and holidays? Goodness. I have enough bows to last until 2047! And those cute little gift (reusable) bags--I had no idea I had so many. Birthdays. St. Pat's Day. Valentine's Day. Christmas. All purpose. I'm guessing I found about 25. And the gift boxes. Did I fear if I bought a piece of jewelry, it would come box-free?

Is there ever enough storage?
. . . in Ohio, we have $100,000 basements. At least that's what you're led to believe if you sell a house without one. For 34 years we lived in a lovely neighborhood of more expensive homes because our two-story, colonial house was slab on grade. When we put it on the market in 2001 we were always told how much it could have sold for if only we had a basement. . . We thought we'd left basement woes behind us, but the other night my husband took a phone call from someone interested in buying that house (it has been on the market because the new owners are divorcing). Would you believe the guy wanted to know if he could jack up the house and put a basement under it?

Would you spend $40,000 a year to send your daughter to Smith if you couldn't even figure out the restrooms?
Roger Kimball who wrote about tenured radicals 15 years ago when things were simple (plain vanilla Marxism) suspects, that along with Mark Twain's demise, the death of the counterculture is greatly exaggerated. I agree with his solution. Dump tenure which has become a means to stifle dissent and fresh ideas. Seems to be the only way.

Where do you cut costs?
Economically, it makes absolutely no sense for me to leave the house every morning at 6 a.m. and drive to a coffee shop. If you don't do this, you could exclaim, "But that costs you nearly $600 a year, when making it at home is about five cents a cup." Very true. But I read 2 or 3 newspapers, and see 4 or 5 people I know, chat with various folk, so as a social informational event, it's pretty cheap. Compare that $600 to a golf hobby, and you can see it is really pretty cheap.

What do children in Third World Countries ask for?
Yesterday's question in VBS was something along the lines of "If you could have anything you asked for, what would it be." Apparently, only one little girl (probably watches beauty pageants on TV) thought beyond material needs and did indeed ask for world peace, according to my husband who teaches the class. Most asked for material things, but not a bike or a pony like my generation would have done (we were self-centered too), but a house! One little girl asked for a shopping mall! Now THAT is materialistic. "What do you suppose children in Third World countries ask for," my husband mused.

Which Democrat will drive more people way from the party?
Diarrhea-of-the-mouth Dean or Tokyo-Rose-in-Drag Dick? It's been many a year since I lived in Illinois, but my recollection of those days is that about a third of Chicago was Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Ukrainian, Belarus, Slovak, Czech, Hungarian or European Jew. About half my classmates at the U. of I. were children of the escapees from Hitler or Stalin. Some had lost their accents, but they never lost their memories of starvation, forced marches, refugee camps, and grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins they'd never see again. And if their memories ever did dim in the usual frivolity of the teen years of dating, music and partying, you can bet your ass mascot their parents would remind them.

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