Ten Questions

Here are ten random trivia questions. See how many you get right!

1. What is the travel time on the French high-speed passenger train between Paris and Lyon?

2. Who appears on the $100 bill?

3. If there are five protons in an atom, how many electrons are there?

4. Who wrote the symphony commonly known as the "Ode to Joy?"

5. What is the life expectancy of the average American?

6. In what year did Ronald Reagan leave the office of President of the United States?

7. How often are members of the House of Representatives elected?

8. In what year did Hawaii become a state?

9. What is the capital of Afghanistan?

10. What was the name of the game show in the 1984 "Saturday Night Live" sketch in which guest host Jesse Jackson played himself as a game show host?

The answers are as follows:

1. The question is moot! Although industrialized nations like France, Japan and Germany have high-speed passenger rail service and China is getting started on building such a network, the United States lacks such a system. Every attempt to build such a system in this country has ended in defeat because of the airline industry, because it cuts into the very profitable business of selling tickets on overcrowded planes. And even though the airlines now support such a system to reduce the strain on their domestic flight paths, Republicans, who have just taken over the House, oppose the idea as more government spending. They also oppose public transportation in principle because it’s an example of the government telling you when you can go somewhere and where you have to be to catch the train or bus, and besides, it gives mobility to those pesky poor people! Also, many Americans are out of work and can’t afford to go overseas and ride a high-speed train, so most Americans will never see one in their lifetimes.

2. The question is moot! More and more Americans are being thrown out of work because American companies are consistently outsourcing jobs to China. Republicans in the House only propose cutting taxes for the rich as a way of creating jobs, even though giving rich people money to invest in a steel plant in Cleveland ends up being used by rich people to buy another mega-mansion in the Hamptons. The only jobs created in America anymore are jobs that pay less than the minimum needed to live on. So, most Americans will be unable to identify who’s on the $100 bill because they never actually see one.

3. The question is moot! The new Republican majority is dominated by the Tea Party, which has made it clear that they want to diminish public education, if not undermine and dissolve it altogether with private schools and school vouchers. Also, cutting spending on education means less money to teach science, and the United States ranks shockingly low in the number of scientifically literate students it produces. So it really doesn't matter how many electrons there are for five protons in an atom.

4. The question is moot! In addition cutting funding for general education, Republicans want to cut funding for arts education. In addition, they also want to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts. Republicans have decided that high culture is a frill the government cannot afford to support. If average Americans prefer hip-hop to symphonic music, if they prefer sadistic action movies to cutting-edge art films, if they prefer NASCAR to ballet, so be it! The free market has spoken. High art, like public transportation, doesn't make money and so has no place in America. So, as Republicans actually take pride in the fact that this is a country made for William Shatner, not William Shakespeare, why should you care who wrote "Ode to Joy?" Most Americans don’t.

5. The question is moot! Republicans in the House want to repeal a health care law that will save lives. They hope to replace it – it not in 2011, then in 2013, when they get all the power – with a plan of their own, as defined by Alan Grayson, the Democratic congressman from Florida who was voted out of office after only one term: Don’t get sick, and if you do, die quickly. So it doesn't matter what the life expectancy of the average American is, because it’s going to drop very sharply very soon.

6. The question is moot! Today (November 4) is the thirtieth anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s election to the Presidency. It doesn't matter in what year he left office because the Reagan era has continued long after the nation’s fortieth president left office and even after he died. Because the pro-business, anti-public, pro-gun, pro-law enforcement, anti-civil rights agenda he left behind has stayed in place. We've now had three decades of Reaganism; chances are we’re headed into a fourth decade of Reaganism, starting now.

7. The question is moot! Although the Democrats theoretically have an opportunity to regain the majority in the House, redistricting by Republican governors and legislature leaders in traditionally Democratic Northeastern and Midwestern states that are losing House seats will tilt the House delegations in these states in favor of Republicans. Also, the states that are gaining House members are Republican states in the South and West. So the next several election cycles are going to turn against the Democrats. Who cares, then, when the House of Representatives is up for re-election again?

8. The question is moot! People on the American mainland don’t consider Hawaii to be a real state. They consider it a foreign, exotic, far-off territory where the locals are not really Americans. Not coincidentally, that’s where President Obama was born and raised. Also, not surprisingly, this ties in with the argument that Obama was not really born in the United States and thus should be impeached, convicted and removed from office. It doesn't matter that Daniel Inouye, currently the longest-serving U.S. senator, is also president pro tempore of the Senate by virtue of the fact that he’s also the senior senator of the majority party. Hawaii isn't considered by Tea Partiers as part of the real America; it might as well be another country, which it actually was until 1898. So it doesn't matter when it became a state.

9. The question is moot! The government of Afghanistan only controls the capital city and the area around it. Nevertheless, President Obama feels obliged to continue the one policy Republicans can agree with him on – the war in Afghanistan, even though it’s doing us much more harm than good. And the Republicans would prefer to see the war go beyond the July 2011 draw-down due date. Since we can’t get Afghanistan to be a responsible nation rid of fundamentalist Taliban militants, since it’s a failed state, it doesn't matter what its capital is.

10. "The Question Is Moot." Really. That sketch inspired this quiz.