KNOX – Get your pencils ready to begin this week’s current events quiz

Posted on October 28, 2018 in Knox, Local Voices, Page One // 0 Comments

(Image: Pixabay.com)

GOOD MORNING class. Time for a current events quiz. Pick up your pencils and begin.

1. In the U.S., they’re up in arms (as it were) over pipe bombs being mailed through the post. In B.C., it’s electoral-reform referendum packages. Your reaction is:

A) #winning

B) Shouldn’t it be their posties, not ours, who are going on strike?

C) Never mind the referendum packages, where’s my weed?

2. Pipe-bomb suspect Cesar Sayoc is described as a “lunatic” loner, a racist conspiracy-theorist crackpot with a long arrest record.

Your response:

A) Good thing they caught him before anyone was hurt.

B) Is he running for the U.S. House or Senate?

C) In Chictoria, he would still qualify as “a catch.”

3. Air Canada’s enRoute magazine just named Victoria’s Courtney Room (it’s at the Magnolia Hotel) as one of 2018’s top 10 new restaurants in Canada. The eatery’s offerings include an $88-per-person tasting menu.

Meanwhile, McDonald’s just announced home delivery in Victoria through the Skip The Dishes app.

In 200 words or fewer: which of these items excites you more, and what does it say about you?

4. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. warns of “a high degree of vulnerability” in the Victoria market, where the benchmark price for a single-family house in the core was $883,700 last month.

Your question is:

A) Is there a Skip The Dinner app?

B) How many families can you stuff in a single-family home?

C) Is Cesar Sayoc’s van available?

5. The U.S. Geological Survey lists 18 U.S. volcanoes — including Mount Baker, visible from much of Victoria — as being a “very high threat” to erupt.

The correct reaction to this is:

A) Relax. Nothing is imminent.

B) Does this mean the benchmark house price will plunge to $882,700?

C) Hey baby, this could be our last night on Earth. …

6. Last Saturday’s municipal elections saw Victoria city council take a distinct turn to the left.

Which change will come first:

A) Victoria Royals out, Victoria Red Army in

B) Empress Hotel out, Imperialist Settler Oppressor Stay’n’Save in

C) Victoria out, Saanichgrad in

7. A B.C. Hydro survey found close to 90 per cent of pet owners leave the heat and lights on for their animals, half leave the radio, music or TV playing for Fido, and a sizable minority record television shows specifically for Spot and Tigger to enjoy. These customers consume up to $400 worth of energy a year this way.

The correct response is:

A) Good thing we’re not facing a climate change crisis or anything.

B) I don’t care. My Toonces loves to watch Coronation Street.

C) You know that cheery B.C. Hydro Guy from the commercials? He just stuck his head in the oven. Happily, it was on power-saver mode.

8. New teachers will have to pass a math test before being licensed in Ontario.

A) Parents are unanimously supportive. That’s almost 85 per cent.

B) Ottawa ran a deficit of $1.9 billion in August. Is there a test for finance ministers?

C) Never mind math. Can they explain the proportional-representation options?

9. Following Sayoc’s arrest Friday, Donald Trump declared: “We must never allow political violence to take root in America.”

What else did Trump say this week?

A) He called Republican Greg Gianforte “a tough cookie” and praised him for body slamming a reporter who annoyed him with a question about health care. “Any guy who can do a body slam, he is my type!”

B) Minutes after Friday’s no-political-violence statement, Trump laughingly repeated the “Lock him up” chant that some of his supporters were directing at Democrat donor George Soros, one of the pipe bomb targets.

C) Also Friday, Trump lashed out on Twitter at “low-rated CNN” for drawing a link between the political violence and his Twitter attacks on his critics. CNN documented hundreds of times Trump has used Twitter to attack those who received suspicious packages in the mail (including CNN itself, which was singled out 63 times by the president).

D) All of the above. You know this one’s a gimme, right.

Jack Knox is a born-and-raised Kamloopsian who once worked at the Kamloops Daily News. He is now a columnist with the Victoria Times Colonist. Since joining the Times Colonist in 1988, Jack has worked as a copy editor, city editor, editorial writer and editorial page editor. Prior to that he was an editor and reporter at newspapers in Campbell River, Regina and Kamloops. He won the Jack Webster Foundation’s City Mike Award for Commentator of the Year in 2015.