If You Didn't Know, Now You Know

On-air challenge: This week is the annual "new names in the news" quiz. You're given some names that you probably never heard of before 2012, but who made news during the past 12 months. You say who they are. These names were compiled with the help of Kathie Baker and Tim Goodman, who were players on previous year-end quizzes.

Last week's challenge: Take the last name of a famous actor. Drop the first letter, and you'll get the last name of a famous artist. Drop the first letter again, and you'll get the name of a god in classical mythology. What names are these?

Answer: [Charles] Grodin, [Auguste] Rodin, Odin

Winner: George Bastuba of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Next week's challenge from listener Ben Bass of Chicago: First, name a U.S. state capital. Rearrange its letters to spell the name of another American city. Remove one letter and read the result backward to spell a third American city. Finally, move the first letter of that to the end to spell a fourth American city. The cities are in four different states. What are they?

Submit Your Answer

If you know the answer to next week's challenge, submit it here. Listeners who submit correct answers win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: Include a phone number where we can reach you Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern.

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Sir Peter Westmacott Plays Not My Job

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

This segment was originally broadcast on Aug. 24, 2012.

We do what damage we can on this show, but it's not often we get the chance to cause a real international incident. So we're very excited that Sir Peter Westmacott, Great Britain's ambassador to the U.S., has agreed to play our game called "No homework, extended naps and eight hours of recess!"

A lot of big-time politicians got their start as little politicians, running for the student council. We'll ask Westmacott three questions about strange doings in the school halls of power.

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Phew! You Survived The Mayan Apocalypse. Now What?

Photographer David Blackwell and his wife prepared for the apocalypse. Cats and cat food? Check. Toilet paper? Check. Exploding volcanoes and hurtling asteroids? Not so much.

David Blackwell/Flickr Photographer David Blackwell and his wife prepared for the apocalypse. Cats and cat food? Check. Toilet paper? Check. Exploding volcanoes and hurtling asteroids? Not so much.

David Blackwell/Flickr

Good morning! If you can read this, then we offer our congratulations on surviving the Mayan Apocalypse!

You've evidently made it through the initial cataclysm caused by the collision of Earth with an unknown comet, a massive solar storm, a burst of radiation from the center of the galaxy, the mysterious Planet X (aka Nibiru), or some other catastrophe that scientists assured us wouldn't happen.

Before retreating to your secret underground bunker, we prepared the following survival guide to help you make the most of life in the wake of worldwide disaster.

Step 1. Cure That Hangover

So you spent the night partying like the world was coming to an end ... and then it did. Time to rehydrate, maybe pop some aspirin, whatever it takes to get you back on your feet and into full-fledged survivalist mode.

Step 2. Meet Immediate Needs

Start with the basics: water, food,and shelter. Regular Shots readers will have already prepared emergency kits for such dire situations as zombie infestations and weddings, and those will come in handy now. If you don't have one, it's never too late to grab some canned food, bottled water and first aid supplies. Feel free to raid the homes of less fortunate neighbors who didn't make it — they won't have much use for this stuff anymore.

Step 3. Safety In Numbers

Speaking of neighbors, you should try to befriend any other survivors you meet. According to the preparedness blog In Case of Survival:

"Since there's safety in numbers, you never know when you'll need someone to watch your back. And, you know, finding a survivor group to join will probably be easier if people in that group actually like you."

Tips for winning acceptance include being kind and fair, and sharing resources. You might try to link up with members of the American Preppers Network, who've been preparing for the end of the world for years. Even if you don't meet any trained survivalists, look for people with skills like gardening, basic construction and medical training.

Step 4. Put Down Roots

In the long term, you'll need to start growing your own food. This may be easier or harder depending on the type of disaster the world has just experienced.

According to NASA, collision with a large comet or small mystery planet could cause an "impact winter" — dust clouds that blot out the sun for years at a time, altering the climate and making it very difficult to grow crops. A massive burst of interstellar energy, on the other hand, could deplete the ozone layer, fill the atmosphere with smog and cause acid rain.

Either way, you'll be relying on canned and dehydrated food until the atmosphere recovers enough to start farming. Make sure to grow a variety of fruits and vegetables (you could use Thomas Jefferson's garden as a model).

Step 5. Procreate (carefully)

We've heard reports that some people tried to get a head start on the eve of destruction. But we'd suggest proceeding responsibly, after you've had a chance to assess your food supply and get the lay of the scorched land.

After a few years any remaining birth control pills and condoms will have expired. There are, however, low-tech ways that can help you to choose when to repopulate the planet.

They're not as effective as the best pre-apocalypse methods, but we're evidently going to have to get used to lots of back-to-basics approaches to life from here on out.

Good luck out there, dear reader. The future of the human race is up to you!

Oh, wait. What? There was no apocalypse, you say?

Um, where's the coffee?

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Sandwich Monday: The Latke Double Down

NPR

We all remember the KFC Double Down: the sandwich that replaced bread with fried chicken and changed our lives for the fatter. Just in time for Hanukkah, the Jewish Journal has created the Latke Double Down, which replaces the bread with latkes, aka fried potato pancakes. They fill theirs with lox. We filled ours with brisket, because brisket.

Peter: This can't be legitimate Jewish cooking, because it's delicious.

Eva: It really is great. I was so hungry.

Mike: I think you mean Chungry.

NPR

Peter: Why couldn't the ancient Hebrews have invented THIS to eat while fleeing slavery in Egypt? Passover would have been a delight.

Mike: Why is this sandwich different from all other sandwiches?

Ian: We eat this sandwich why? Because it's delicious.

Robert befriends the sandwich before eating it.

NPR Robert befriends the sandwich before eating it.

NPR

Robert: It's a shame they cut that one song from the original version of Fiddler on the Roof: "If I Were a Fat Man- Oh Wait... I Already Am."

Leah: Unfortunately since I'm half Jewish, latke fat only goes to the right side of my body.

Ian: This does seem like the wrong sandwich for a holiday commemorating a shortage of oil.

Mike: I need a Shabbos Stomach to digest this for me.

Ian has a religious experience.

NPR Ian has a religious experience.

NPR

Ian: This is the best thing Colonel Sanderstein has ever created.

Mike: The negative: you eat this, you have a heart attack. The positive: you make some mother so proud of her son who became a doctor.

Robert: This sandwich proves you could never call Hanukkah the Festival Of Lite.

[The verdict: honestly, one of the greatest sandwiches we've ever had. Just two latkes, with brisket, sour cream and a touch of applesauce. Unbelievable.]

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Economist Paul Krugman Plays Not My Job

Phil Walter/Getty Images

This segment was originally broadcast on July 28, 2012.

Paul Krugman — a professor at Princeton, an op-ed columnist for The New York Times and author of many books — has been called "the Mick Jagger of political/economic punditry."

Krugman is known for his direct style, so we don't think he'd do terribly well in the delicate art of diplomatic gift giving. We've invited him to play a game called "Well, it's a nice gift but we're going to invade your country and take your stuff." Three questions about diplomatic gifts.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell, and here again is your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Carl.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thanks everybody. So usually, usually you think of science as being dull, filled with numbers and guys sitting around working out complicated equations on blackboards. But there's also exciting sciences, like economics.

KASELL: One of the most exciting, scintillating economists in the world, Noble Laureate and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman joined us a few months before the recent election, along with panelists Kyrie O'Connor, Mo Rocca and Simon Amstell.

SAGAL: Professor Paul Krugman, welcome to WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!

PAUL KRUGMAN: Hi there.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: It's a pleasure to have you. So, you were once called, we found, the Mick Jagger of Political Economic Punditry. Does that sound about right to you?

KRUGMAN: Yeah, except for the, you know, the strutting and the sex and all that. Otherwise, I've got it all down.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Now, wait a minute. I have seen you on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," and you strut like a rooster, sir.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: You have a reputation for being very smart and for not - how to put this - shall we say suffering fools gladly.

KRUGMAN: Yeah, yeah, there are so many fools that if you try to suffer them at any great length, there's no time left.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: The word I have seen associated with you is shrill. Have you heard that one?

KRUGMAN: Yeah, I kind of like that.

SAGAL: You do?

KRUGMAN: The shrill and all of that, I guess - you know, when people call you shrill that means they don't actually have any way to answer what you just said. So that's a good sign.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: You started with the New York Times around 1999, if not mistaken, writing about economic issues primarily. And you became very well known and very influential. You won the Nobel Prize. By the way, winning the Nobel Prize, does that shut up one's critics?

KRUGMAN: Well, no, it doesn't shut them up. I mean, but it does mean that people stop saying that you're an idiot for about two weeks.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Two weeks? Because I mean...

KRUGMAN: Two weeks. Then it's right back.

MO ROCCA: It's the honeymoon period.

SAGAL: Because I remember at the time you were engaged in all of these debates, very sometimes intense about the Bush economic program and what it would do. And you had a lot of people criticizing you and dismissing you. And then you won the Nobel Prize. And I, in your shoes, would have such a hard time not saying "Aha" to everybody.

ROCCA: You should wear it when you go on Stephanopoulos' show.

KRUGMAN: Yeah. When it happens, it's such a blur. They worked me like a dog. I mean the thing is all for the sake of the Swedes, not for you. And as my wife said, you know, the two great things are first that you won this and second that we're never going to have to do this again.

SAGAL: Really?

KRUGMAN: Oh yeah.

SAGAL: So you're saying it's a pain in the butt to have to win a Nobel?

KRUGMAN: Well, the actual going through the process of collecting it is thrilling but exhausting and...

SAGAL: Do they make you, like, run and chase it? I mean what are you talking about?

(LAUGHTER)

KRUGMAN: I maybe talked to about eight different or ten different groups a day. Oh yeah, I shouldn't complain.

SAGAL: Right.

KRUGMAN: But it was a very strange out of body experience.

SAGAL: When you've been in an argument with somebody who just won't listen to you, have you ever been tempted to say, "Well, my Nobel says you don't know what you're talking about, pal?"

(LAUGHTER)

KRUGMAN: No, it doesn't work, among other things, because there are some idiots who've won Nobels.

(LAUGHTER)

KRUGMAN: So it's not...

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Wait a minute.

ROCCA: Names.

SAGAL: Name a couple.

(LAUGHTER)

KRUGMAN: Oh no, there I'm not going to go.

SAGAL: Yeah, okay.

SIMON AMSTELL: I have a question.

SAGAL: Yes.

AMSTELL: Paul?

KRUGMAN: Yes.

AMSTELL: Hello?

KRUGMAN: Hi there.

AMSTELL: What about the economy?

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

KRUGMAN: It looks like it might rain.

SAGAL: What about it? Simon, what do you want to know about it?

AMSTELL: Maybe it's time to stop banging on about the Nobel and sort it out.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: Yeah.

KRUGMAN: Yeah.

Earn that Nobel.

SAGAL: Well, you have...

AMSTELL: Sorry.

SAGAL: You have just written a book. It's called "End This Depression Now."

AMSTELL: Good idea.

KRUGMAN: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I'm not used to books that shout at me what to do. I found it a little intimidating.

KRUGMAN: Well, yeah, I mean it's not you that it's supposed to intimidate. It's supposed to intimidate some people who might actually do something.

SAGAL: Right.

KRUGMAN: It won't work, of course, but I'm trying.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I mean, here's the thing. I mean your solution is even, at least to my amateur eyes, very simple, is that you think that the solution for the current problem is that the government should spend a lot more money than it's spending. And that seems very contrary to the current wisdom. Everybody else, including President Obama, says no, no, no, we have to stop our spending.

KRUGMAN: We got a lot of history, got a lot of stuff that says that let's talk about cutting spending after this depression is over but not now. And now is the time we should actually be spending more.

SAGAL: You're usually right, but no one listens to you.

KRUGMAN: Yeah, you know, Cassandra, people forget the myth, right?

SAGAL: Right.

KRUGMAN: They call you a Cassandra, and people forget she was always right. Their curse was that nobody would listen.

SAGAL: I remember, for example, in the early 2000's, you were saying that the Bush tax plan would create huge deficits. You were correct.

KRUGMAN: Yeah.

SAGAL: Later on, you talked about a housing bubble that would eventually explode. And you were right about that. And yet, still no one listens to you.

KRUGMAN: Yeah, well, if you're not telling people what they want to hear, most of the time you're going to get people not listening. But sometimes they do. It always helps.

ROCCA: Do people listen to you at home?

(LAUGHTER)

KRUGMAN: Oh, at home? The difference is on the economy I'm always right but at home I'm always wrong.

SAGAL: Really?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: You had this interesting idea though about how we could save our economy that I thought everybody should listen to, because it's a great idea. Stage an alien invasion.

KRUGMAN: Yeah, a fake alien invasion. Which we have to solve by - you know, to be prepared for that alien invasion, we have to improve our infrastructure and educate our kids. I mean that's how the Great Depression ended, right. I mean FDR could never get approval to spend enough money. You know, WPA and all of those programs helped...

SAGAL: So he faked an alien invasion?

(LAUGHTER)

KRUGMAN: No, well, it was the threat of war. And we were actually out of the depression before Pearl Harbor because we'd started our build up to prepare in case we got involved in World War II. So, you know, what you want is the same thing except without the actual war part.

SAGAL: Really? Do you have any sort of clever way of doing that? Can you like...

KRUGMAN: Maybe I gave the game away with the fake aliens. But, you know, National Public Radio can do this by having the fake aliens.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That's true. That's true.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Hold on. Carl, you have a newsman's voice. Can you announce an alien invasion?

KASELL: Oh, absolutely.

SAGAL: Go for it.

KASELL: Ladies and gentleman, turn on your radios and your television sets. Instructions are coming down on how to handle this. Please follow those instructions.

SAGAL: There, economy saved. Bingo.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Well, Paul Krugman, we are delighted to talk to you, but we have also invited you here to play a game that we're calling?

KASELL: Well, it's a nice gift, but we're still going to invade you and take your stuff.

SAGAL: You are known for your direct, confrontational style, so we think you wouldn't do well in the delicate art of diplomatic gift giving. We're going to ask you three questions about diplomatic gifts. Get two right and you'll win our prize for one of our listeners, Carl's voice on their home answering machine. Carl, who is Professor Paul Krugman playing for?

KASELL: He is playing for Arne Bathke and Amy Lett of Lexington, Kentucky.

SAGAL: Ready to do this?

KRUGMAN: Sure.

SAGAL: Here is your first question. It is well known that on his historic visit to China, President Nixon received a pair of pandas from Chairman Mao. Panda diplomacy they called it. But what did Nixon give to Mao in return? Was it A: A pair of musk oxen? B: A chainsaw sculpture made by his aide Chuck Colson?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Or C: A secret tape of his and Chairman Mao's private conversations?

(LAUGHTER)

KRUGMAN: I'm going to go with the Musk oxen, although I have to say it doesn't sound so plausible.

SAGAL: It was in fact the Musk oxen.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

KRUGMAN: All right.

SAGAL: They were named Matilda and Milton. And after they were transferred to the Chinese, it was discovered they had mange. And this is all true. President Nixon told Kissinger to deal with it. I don't know why he gave them Musk oxen but he did.

ROCCA: Is that the scent? What is musk?

SAGAL: They're a breed of oxen.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Next question: In 2009, President Obama gave British Prime Minister Gordon Brown a set of DVDs of great American films. There was one problem, though, what? A: 18 of the 25 movies featured a British villain? B: They were American DVDs and would not play in British machines? Or C: Brown complained to Obama that he had already seen all of them?

(LAUGHTER)

KRUGMAN: I'm going to guess B, because I've had that problem.

SAGAL: Really?

KRUGMAN: Not being able to play European DVDs on our machine.

SAGAL: Yes, you're right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: They were Region 1 DVDs.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: This was discovered when Brown sat down to watch one at 10 Downing Street. All right, you're doing very well. This befits a Nobel Prize winner. Last question: One of the oddest gifts presented to an American president in recent years was the gift from the billionaire Sultan of Brunei to President George W. Bush in 2004. What was it? Was it A: a concubine?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: B: A copy of the book, "The Worst Case Scenario Handbook?" Or C: A simple plastic beach bucket and shovel?

KRUGMAN: Oh boy.

SAGAL: Yeah.

KRUGMAN: None of these is possible. So I'm going to go with the beach bucket.

SAGAL: Here, President, we want you to play with this.

(LAUGHTER)

AMSTELL: What voice were you doing there?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That was my Sultan of Brunei.

AMSTELL: It's very good.

SAGAL: Thank you.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: You went for the beach bucket. No, it was actually the book "The Worst Case Scenario Handbook."

KRUGMAN: Oh good god.

SAGAL: The Sultan of Brunei presented that to the president of the United States, even though it's an American book. We don't understand why. It must prove that even the Sultan of Brunei, a billionaire who flies in a private 747, sometimes buys a last minute gift at the airport.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

KRUGMAN: All right.

SAGAL: Carl, how did Paul Krugman do on our quiz?

KASELL: Well, Paul had two correct answers, Peter, and that was enough to win for Arne Bathke and Amy Lett of Lexington, Kentucky.

SAGAL: Congratulations.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: I'm guessing this is right up there with the Nobel Prize.

KRUGMAN: Oh, it's great. Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

KRUGMAN: I'll treasure this memory always.

SAGAL: I'm sure you will. Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize winning economist and columnist for the New York Times. His latest book is "End This Depression Now." Professor Paul Krugman, thank you so much for joining us.

KRUGMAN: Thanks so much.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

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Hugh Bonneville Of 'Downton Abbey' Plays Not My Job

Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

America is obsessed with Downton Abbey, the British series about a family so wealthy that they can't feed, clothe or care for themselves. Hugh Bonneville plays the patriarch of the family, and we've invited His Lordship to play a game we're calling, "Welcome to America, Lord Grantham."

Since Downton Abbey shows us British culture at its height, we've decided to create a quiz about the American equivalent — the TV show that shows America not only as it is, but as we most wish it to be. He'll answer three questions about TLC's Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

And now, the game where people do something dumb to take a break from being so smart the rest of the time. America is obsessed with "Downton Abbey," the great British series - yes, we all love it.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: It's about a family so profoundly stupid, they can't feed, clothe, or care for themselves in any way.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Oh, I'm sorry. My mistake. They're not stupid, they're rich.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Hugh Bonneville plays the patriarch of the family, Lord Grantham, and we are delighted to welcome his Lordship to WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME! What a pleasure to see you.

(APPLAUSE)

HUGH BONNEVILLE: Thank you. It's lovely to be here.

SAGAL: Now, I've been watching the show and really loving it, but I'm not clear to the protocol. So how should we address you? Milord? Your Grace?

(LAUGHTER)

BONNEVILLE: Hugh.

SAGAL: Hugh. Nobody on the show calls you that, but all right, we'll go with that. People I know and admire and work with and are friends with loved the show. I would say, what's it about?

They'd say, well, you know, it's all about the love affairs, and the clothes and the intrigue of who's in love with whom. I'm like, oh, that's a soap opera. Great, I'm not interested. And then I started watching it, and it is absolutely great. And it has made me into an idiot.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I used to care about important things, and now I'm like, oh dear, will Lady Mary accept Mr. Crowley's proposal? I don't know.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I can't stop. Can you explain why this show is so compelling?

BONNEVILLE: I genuinely don't know. I'm delighted, but I don't know why.

SAGAL: Yeah.

BONNEVILLE: I think one of the things is that Julian Fellowes, who writes every episode, is a huge fan of a soap we have in Britain called "Coronation Street."

SAGAL: Right. That was a classic soap that's been on for many, many years.

BONNEVILLE: Yeah. And he's also a great fan of "The West Wing."

(APPLAUSE)

BONNEVILLE: So if you put the soap elements and the pace of "The West Wing" and a bit of period drama, so you think you're watching something intelligent, then....

(LAUGHTER)

BONNEVILLE: Then you've got a recipe for something.

SAGAL: Right.

BONNEVILLE: But I think, over and above that, the production aims high. Whether it succeeds every time, I don't know, but it's set in a beautiful castle in the south of England. Yorkshire, sorry, in the north of England, but we film it in the south. And, you know, you...

MAZ JOBRANI: Wow, you must have a really great zoom lens.

(LAUGHTER)

BONNEVILLE: I don't know, I think you could analyze it to death, but please don't, just stay watching it.

SAGAL: I will. We'll be happy to. One of the things about the show is a lot of the appeal, even to me, a schlub like me, is the extraordinary grace, and the clothing and the design of the home and all the accoutrement. If the show is so much about elegance and a way of living that I can only aspire to or imagine aspiring to, why does every episode begin with the shot of a dog's butt?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: It's the weirdest thing. It's like we've got a palace, we've got these beautiful actors, we've got motorcars, but let's start with the dog's butt.

BONNEVILLE: And my name next to it.

SAGAL: Exactly.

(LAUGHTER)

BONNEVILLE: Someone up there hates me. I don't know. I don't know why. It's an interesting opening choice. But it's become a bit of a thing about the show now.

SAGAL: Yeah.

BONNEVILLE: Hound's bum.

SAGAL: Really?

BONNEVILLE: Yeah.

SAGAL: That's what they call it.

BONNEVILLE: Hash tag hound's bum.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I'm actually very curious, is it - do you know - historically accurate in the sense that it depicts...

BONNEVILLE: Yes, dogs have always looked like that, from behind.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

BONNEVILLE: Sorry about that.

SAGAL: In the sense that is this how people of that station lived at that time?

BONNEVILLE: I think it - as I said earlier, I think it aspires to some degree of authenticity. And if it makes someone reach for the history books and learn a bit more about that era, terrific. But no, ultimately, it's a fiction. But we do have a wonderful historical adviser on set, a guy...

PAULA POUNDSTONE: Does he drink?

(LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: Hugh, do you know whether it's accurate or not?

BONNEVILLE: No.

SAGAL: Really?

BONNEVILLE: No, no.

POUNDSTONE: So if it makes someone else reach for a history book.

SAGAL: Right.

PAUL WALLICH: Yeah, yeah, yeah, not me, I'm too busy.

POUNDSTONE: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

ADAM FELBER: He's busy learning lines.

BONNEVILLE: Exactly.

POUNDSTONE: Oh, my mistake.

FELBER: And doing the fake British accent.

BONNEVILLE: Exactly.

SAGAL: Yeah, he's excellent.

(LAUGHTER)

FELBER: It doesn't maintain itself.

SAGAL: Do you ever, like, wonder? I mean, do you ever go to Julian Fellowes, the writer, and go, look, so you're telling me these incredibly wealthy, powerful people sit around the house all day, amusing themselves with walks and perhaps a horse ride if they're feeling really active, and then they just wait for someone to ring a gong, where they put on formal clothes.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And are fed dinner and then they all go to bed and don't have sex. Are you telling me that's...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That's how these people live?

BONNEVILLE: Peter, you're making it sound very shallow and silly.

SAGAL: No.

(LAUGHTER)

FELBER: Isn't there one guy who works? Someone's got to bring home the money. No?

SAGAL: No, nobody works. There's a thing where somebody says I have a job, and people are like "You have a job? A job?"

In fact, I don't know what Lord Grantham does. You always seem to be sitting there, writing at your desk. And I don't know what you're writing, because you have no job. Are you writing like all play and no work is pretty much my whole day. All play and no work is pretty much my - I mean, what?

(LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: He's been filling out an application during several episodes.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Slightly more seriously, I am very impressed by, frankly, your performance. The fact that your role is to play this person who embodies this aristocracy and this position and this authority, and you do it fantastically well. You act like a lord. Did you have to - he does, does he not?

JOBRANI: Oh, he does.

(APPLAUSE)

POUNDSTONE: He seems like kind of a regular guy.

JOBRANI: Yeah.

SAGAL: Well that's my question; I mean what did you have to do?

FELBER: The tank top is a bit much.

SAGAL: What did you have to do?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I mean, to be the lord, what do you have to put yourself into to be the Lord Grantham?

BONNEVILLE: Oh my goodness, well, you know, you just put on the suit and follow Julian Fellowes around a bit. I mean he's a lord.

(LAUGHTER)

BONNEVILLE: It's just dressing up in frocks and prancing around. I love it.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I do that at home, but I try to keep it a secret, actually.

POUNDSTONE: Yeah.

SAGAL: There's, broadly speaking, one group of actors that play Lord Grantham and his family, another group of actors who play the downstairs servants. And obviously, on screen there's a very hierarchical relationship. Does that ever like seep into the offstage? I mean, do you find yourself asking, like the actor who plays the butler, to fetch you something from the craft table?

(LAUGHTER)

BONNEVILLE: Funnily enough, it's sort of the opposite. I mean, Sophie McShera, who plays Daisy, the kitchen maid, is a monster, absolute monster.

SAGAL: Really?

(LAUGHTER)

BONNEVILLE: "Bonneville. Get me some tea, Bonneville." She's always doing that.

SAGAL: Really?

BONNEVILLE: Oh yeah, terrible.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Well, Hugh Bonneville, we are delighted to have you with us. We've asked you here to play a game we're calling?

CARL KASELL: Welcome to America, Lord Grantham.

SAGAL: So, we were thinking, your show, "Downton Abbey," shows us British culture at its height. What would be the American equivalent, the TV show that not only shows America as it is, but as we most wish it to be? So we're going to ask you three questions about the show "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo," on TLC.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Do you know the show? It's the American "Downton Abbey."

BONNEVILLE: Right.

SAGAL: Much like - no, it is.

BONNEVILLE: Yes.

SAGAL: Much like "Downton Abbey" shows a British family dealing with the misfortunes and slings and arrows of time, so does Honey Boo Boo in different problems, same dignity. Carl, who is Hugh Bonneville playing for?

KASELL: Hugh is playing for Louise Garland of Los Angeles, California.

SAGAL: OK.

(APPLAUSE)

BONNEVILLE: Louise, I'll do my best.

SAGAL: "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" is, as I'm sure you know, I'm sure everybody here knows, a reality show that follows the adventures of a 6-year-old girl named Alana, nicknamed Honey Boo Boo, who enters beauty pageants. Her nickname is obviously Honey Boo Boo.

What are the nicknames of the rest of her family? Is it A: Mama June, Sugar Bear, Pumpkin, Chubbs and Chickadee? B: Haily Joe, Joseph Joe, Mary Joe, Girly Joe, and Gwyneth? Or C: Angel Hair, Linguine, Ravioli, Mostacolli, and Cavatopi?

(LAUGHTER)

BONNEVILLE: Can you give me the first one again?

SAGAL: The first one was Mama June, Sugar Bear, Pumpkin, Chubbs, and Chickadee? The second one was...

BONNEVILLE: It's got to be that. It's got to be A. It's got to be A.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: You're going to go for that? I'm just asking you.

BONNEVILLE: I'm going to go for A.

SAGAL: You're right. It is...

BONNEVILLE: Hey.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: June is the mother, Sugar Bear the father, Pumpkin, Chubbs and Chickadee are Honey Boo Boo's sisters. That's good, Hugh. That was done in an aristocratic way. Here is your next question. Which of these is a real title of an episode in the first season of "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo?" A: "A Spoon, A Jar of Glue, and Trouble?"

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: B: "She Ooooohed Herself?" Ooooohed spelled O-O-O-O-O-H-E-D. Or C: "The End of Western Civilization?"

(LAUGHTER)

BONNEVILLE: I'm going to go with B.

SAGAL: You're going to go with B, "She Ooooohed Herself?"

BONNEVILLE: Yeah.

SAGAL: You're right, she ooooohed herself.

BONNEVILLE: Hey.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Here's the synopsis of "She Ooooohed Herself": Alana meets with a new pageant coach and learns her hardest routine yet. Then, the whole family throws Chickadee a baby shower. It was moving.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Here's your last question. The producers knew Honey Boo Boo's show would be a success when it did very well against another popular program being broadcast at the same time. What was it? Was it A: "The Walking Dead?" B: "The Late Show with David Letterman?" Or C: The third and final night of the Republican National Convention this year?

(LAUGHTER)

BONNEVILLE: The convention, C.

SAGAL: Yes, it was the convention.

JOBRANI: Hey.

POUNDSTONE: Whoa.

FELBER: Nice.

POUNDSTONE: Wow.

SAGAL: The fourth episode of "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" was counter programmed against Mitt Romney's big night in Tampa, and it did really well. It beat all the cable networks, the news networks in the 18 to 14 demographic, which is why we still have Honey Boo Boo.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Carl, how did Hugh Bonneville do on our quiz?

KASELL: He had three correct answers, Peter. So, Hugh, you win for Louise Garland.

SAGAL: Well done.

(APPLAUSE)

FELBER: Hey.

JOBRANI: Hey.

SAGAL: Hugh Bonneville stars as Lord Grantham in Masterpiece Classic's "Downton Abbey." The third season begins in January. Hugh Bonneville, what a pleasure to meet you in person and to have you with us.

BONNEVILLE: Thank you.

POUNDSTONE: Thank you, Hugh.

SAGAL: Thank you so much.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

View the original article here

Untangle An 'Act Of God'

On-air challenge: Every answer is a familiar three-word phrase in the form "____ of ____." The letters in the first and last words of each phrase are rearranged. You give the phrases. For example, "Cat of Dog" becomes "Act of God."

Last week's challenge from listener Henry Hook of Brooklyn, N.Y.: In a few weeks something will happen that hasn't happened since 1987. What is it?

Answer: A year with no repeat digits (1987, 2013)

Winner: Darren Dunham of Santa Clara, Calif.

Next week's challenge from listener Adam Cohen of Brooklyn: Name two articles of apparel — things you wear — which, when the words are used as verbs, are synonyms of each other. What are they?

Submit Your Answer

If you know the answer to next week's challenge, submit it here. Listeners who submit correct answers win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: Include a phone number where we can reach you Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern.

View the original article here

Not My Job: We Quiz NASA Engineers On Mars Candy

Missions engineers Bobak Ferdowsi (left) and Adam Steltzner — also known as "Mokawk guy" and "Elvis guy," respectively — helped land the Mars Curiosity rover on Sunday night.

Left: Brian van der Brug-Pool/Getty Images/Right: Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images

This segment was originally broadcast on Aug. 8, 2012.

On a Sunday night in August, while the rest of us were ooohing and aaahing over gymnastics, a bunch of propeller heads at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were flawlessly steering a billion-dollar robotic space laboratory the size of a minivan to a landing on Mars.

Missions engineers Bobak Ferdowsi and Adam Steltzner — whose hairstyles have led them to be nicknamed "Mokawk guy" and "Elvis guy," respectively — are two of the guys behind the landing of the Mars rover Curiosity, and very well might be the Sexiest Nerds Ever.

We've invited Ferdowsi and Steltzner to play a game called "Try landing on this Mars!" Believe it or not, it is actually easier to get a camera onto the surface of planet Mars than into the factory of the incredibly secretive Mars candy company. We'll ask two experts on Mars the planet three questions about Mars the candy.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell, and here's your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Carl.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thank you everybody. Thank you everybody, great to see you all. Sometimes it amazes me that here I am, speaking into a small black object, here in Chicago, and yet, somehow, my voice gets all the way to you through a miracle involving wires and electricity and people who stare at me blankly, from behind glass, while they press buttons.

KASELL: It's one of the world's greatest unsolved mysteries, Peter.

SAGAL: I've always assumed invisible elves were listening to me, then flying out across the country and hiding in your radios to repeat what they hear.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: But, it turns out, it's science.

KASELL: Or maybe the elves just don't have their cover blown.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: We're going to go with science, at least for this hour. Today, we have some of our favorite interviews with scientists. Super nerds, who can tell us all kinds of things we're not smart enough to understand but maybe you can figure out.

KASELL: We begin with two men who did something pretty cool. They drove a car all the way to Mars.

SAGAL: Bobak Ferdowsi and Adam Steltzner joined us right after they landed the Curiosity rover on Mars, along with panelists Amy Dickinson, Roy Blount, Jr., and Tom Bodett.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: So, first of all, let's identify you guys. Bobak, you are known now, I believe all of the world as the Mohawk Guy.

BOBAK FERDOWSKI: That's me.

SAGAL: That's you, okay.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And before you became the Mohawk Guy, what was your title?

FERDOWSKI: I was a flight director, or I still am, a flight director on the Mars Science Lab Mission.

SAGAL: No, now you're the Mohawk Guy.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I'm sorry. I checked the internet. That's who you are. And Adam, you are known also colloquially as the Elvis Hair Guy.

ADAM STELTZNER: Yes, it's a heavy responsibility.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Right, to be the Elvis Hair Guy. And Adam, what is your job at JPL?

STELTZNER: I'm in charge of the landing of Curiosity.

SAGAL: Right.

TOM BODETT: How'd that go?

AMY DICKINSON: Yeah.

(APPLAUSE)

STELTZNER: Yeah, we could talk about that.

SAGAL: So Bobak, you're the flight director and Adam, you were in charge of the landing. The landing was so insanely complicated, you had the heat shied and the parachute and the sky crane and all this cool stuff. How in the world did you know it would work?

STELTZNER: You know, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting and we didn't really know it would work. I had the hardest time believing it would work myself. You know, we made models of it in computers and we tested pieces that we thought we could test, but in the end, you never know if it's all going to come together.

SAGAL: Right. So basically, the first time that you ever actually tried this in the real world was on Mars on Sunday?

DICKINSON: No.

STELTZNER: Yes, that's correct.

SAGAL: Wow. So Adam, tell me about your background. Because what we read, you were like a rock and roll guy for a while, right?

STELTZNER: Right. I was not the best student in high school. So, I stopped going to high school.

SAGAL: Really?

STELTZNER: And started playing music. And after a few years of that, playing rock and roll in the San Francisco Bay area, I became intrigued at the fact that there were a different set of stars in the sky as I'd drive home from playing a show as there had been when I went to the show. And I had some vague recollection about something moving with respect to something else. But I frankly didn't really know what it was.

BODETT: But then you stopped taking drugs, right?

(LAUGHTER)

STELTZNER: That's right.

SAGAL: And so then you...

STELTZNER: So then I went down to the local community college to try and figure out why those stars were moving. Then I started to make up for my lack of high school education, so on and so forth, and then I'm here.

SAGAL: Right. And what had you done to - congratulations.

(APPLAUSE)

DICKINSON: Amazing.

SAGAL: And what had you done to sort of qualify yourself to be the guy in charge of landing this rover?

STELTZNER: That's a really good question. I continually ask myself that.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And Bobak, you were the flight director. What does that mean?

FERDOWSKI: I'm sort of like that Ed Harris character in "Apollo 13." But our job is decidedly less dramatic, except for those last seven minutes.

SAGAL: Really? So you're the guy who's in charge of, like being in the middle of the room and sort of shouting out commands to people...

FERDOWSKI: That's right.

SAGAL: ...as they stare at monitors.

FERDOWSKI: Pretty much.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And you're famous because when people tuned into the video on Sunday to watch the landing, they saw you in charge in the room, wearing this rather remarkable hairdo, the Mohawk.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I mean just like Ed Harris, or rather the real life person, in the Apollo missions had a new vest for every mission, you have a new hairstyle for every mission?

FERDOWSKI: That's exactly right. For all the big events on this project, like launch and everything else, I've had a completely different hairstyle. The last one was voted on by the team when somebody sent out an internet poll for the whole team to vote on.

SAGAL: Wow. And they voted on a Mohawk. And these are your friends.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Talk to me about your internet fame. Bobak, in particular you have become like, you've become a practical meme. We understand you've been getting a lot of marriage proposals via twitter, which shows real commitment to you as a person.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: What is instant internet fame like?

FERDOWSKI: It's so crazy. I can't believe it. I'm still kind of getting over the fact that we just put something on Mars. But, it's a lot of...

SAGAL: No, no, no, tell me about the girls. I want to hear about the groupies.

(LAUGHTER)

FERDOWSKI: They're super nice, you know.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: You're the flight director, Bobak. You're the guy in charge of landing, Adam. It flew there and it landed. Aren't you two guys out of a job now?

(LAUGHTER)

STELTZNER: Well, Bobak is still going to work the surface mission because they still need, you know, flight directors for that. But I am certified out of a job.

SAGAL: Really? So what are you going to do now?

STELTZNER: I'm going to start looking for work.

SAGAL: Really? So you're going to be like unemployed rocket scientist, genius, landed thing on Mars, can stamp cans?

STELTZNER: Will land on Mars for food.

ROY BLOUNT JR: There you go.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Well, Adam and Bobak, we are delighted to have you here. We have asked you here to play a game that this time we are calling?

KASELL: Try landing on this Mars.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: It is actually easier to get a camera onto the surface of Mars than into a Mars candy factory. The company is incredibly secretive. We're going to ask you three questions about Mars, the candy company, and if you get two right, you'll win our prize for one of our listeners, Carl's voice on their home answering machine. Carl, who are Adam and Bobak playing for?

KASELL: Adam and Bobak are playing for Adair Emmons of Portland, Maine.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: You guys ready to play?

FERDOWSKI: Ready to play.

SAGAL: All right, and remember: You are rocket scientists. Don't screw this up.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Mars is known for its very modest corporate culture, up to and including the family members who run the company. Which of these rules do the company executives have to follow?

A: For trips of less than 100 miles, they are required to travel by Greyhound Bus? B: Instead of cell phones, each executive is given a roll of quarters for payphones and told to bring back the change? Or C: Each executive, including the CEO of the company, has to punch in and out of work on a time clock?

STELTZNER: We think C.

SAGAL: Did you actually consult or did you just decide for the team there, Adam?

(LAUGHTER)

FERDOWSKI: Adam's the team lead, so he always decides.

SAGAL: I understand. Do you do that? You're just like we're hungry now?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: We feel like a pizza.

STELTZNER: We don't like what you're saying.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: All right then. But the team has collectively decided that the answer is C, the time clock?

STELTZNER: C as in Curiosity.

SAGAL: Yes. Well you guys are right. Yes, it was the time clock. They all have to punch in and out.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Even if you are, as the CEO of Mars is, the grandson of the founder and the owner of the company. All right, the company is famously efficient. For example, the company's legendary boss, Forrest Mars, son of the founder, he used to do what to save money? A: He would scrape chocolate off the faces of kid taste testers to melt down and use again?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: B: He would feed the pigs at his private farm with defective M and Ms? Or C: he changed the typeface on M and Ms to sans serif to save money on the ink that he would no longer have to use?

STELTZNER: We think it's C.

SAGAL: You think it's C.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Mission control says C, they changed the typeface to save a little ink without the serifs.

STELTZNER: Yes, confirmed.

SAGAL: Confirmed. Thank you, mission control; you are incorrect.

DICKINSON: Oh.

SAGAL: I'm sorry. Actually, what happened was is he had a private farm with pigs and he was very meticulous about M and Ms. If any of them were defective, had a little typo - a typo on M and Ms, he would...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...take them down and use them for pig food. This is very exciting. The company is extremely secretive, Mars is. So much so that what? A: Outsiders who come into the factory to work are blindfolded as they enter and walk across the factory floor? B: Until the law required them to change it, the ingredients on a Mars Bar were listed as "Wouldn't you like to know"?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Or C: If an employee is asked where they work, they're required to say, The CIA?

(LAUGHTER)

FERDOWSKI: I'm going to go with A as in Adam.

SAGAL: Bobak, you're going for A. Adam, do you agree?

STELTZNER: I'm going to follow the flight director on this one.

SAGAL: You're going to go with A. Correct, a successful landing onto the correct answer.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: If you are a contractor and you have to work on the floor, they will blindfold you as they bring you to your place so you can't tell the world their secrets. Carl, how did our guests do?

KASELL: They did very well, Peter. Two correct answers, that's good enough to win for Adair Emmons.

SAGAL: Well done guys.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: So last weekend you landed a rover on Mars. This weekend, you won on this quiz. What are you going to do next weekend?

FERDOWSKI: I'm going to try to get Carl to record a message on a Mars rover.

SAGAL: There you go.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)

KASELL: I'll be glad to.

FERDOWSKI: I'm going to hold you to that, Carl.

KASELL: Okay.

SAGAL: He'll do it. He'll be there for you. Bobak Ferdowsky and Adam Steltzner are two of the men behind the Mars Curiosity mission. Bobak and Adam, thank you so much for being on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME! Congratulations on that insanely cool thing you did.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thanks so much.

FERDOWSKI: Thank you.

SAGAL: Bye-bye, guys.

FERDOWSKI: Bye-bye.

STELTZNER: Bye.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

View the original article here

Jake Tapper Of ABC News Plays Not My Job

Ely Brown/Little, Brown and Company

Jake Tapper is the longtime chief White House correspondent for ABC News and has just written a new book called The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor.

We've invited him to play a game called "It's Mr. Bojangles to you." Three questions for a guy named Tapper about an actual tapper: Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, who some say was one of the greatest tap dancers of all time.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

And now the game where we ask interesting and knowledgeable people about something they know nothing about.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Jake Tapper is the longtime Chief White House Correspondent for ABC News. He is the author of the extraordinarily interesting and terrifying new book, "The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor." Jake Tapper, welcome to WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!

JAKE TAPPER: It's great to be here, thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: So, Jake, for the new book, you spent a lot of time around soldiers in Afghanistan. Is it intimidating being around those guys?

TAPPER: It was very humbling just because, you know, the toughest day I'll have is check tots, speaking too loudly when I'm trying to do a live shot, or, you know, the makeup gets on my collar. My makeup.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Media is hell, Jake.

TAPPER: Yeah, I know. Or the wakeup calls, oh, the wakeup call.

SAGAL: Do you ever - I mean, again, and I refer to my own much more limited experience, do you ever find yourself coming up with things that might match their exploits? Like you would say, for example, "Well, you know, you guys might have fought this terrifying war in the far side of the world, but I dated Monica Lewinsky?

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: No, it was one nice dinner date and it was certainly nothing...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: See, here's the thing...

ADAM FELBER: You were saying that.

SAGAL: Everybody thought I was kidding, but I'm not kidding.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: I did go on one date with her before the story broke. It was one of the most...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: It was before the story broke but after the story happened, if you know what I mean.

TAPPER: Yeah, it was very surreal.

SAGAL: Yeah.

TAPPER: It was definitely one of the most surreal moments, especially for a journalist. I had gone out to dinner with her. She seemed like a nice girl. She was moving to New York. She seemed very eager to get out of Washington, DC.

SAGAL: Can't imagine why.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: I wasn't really sure what was going on. She seemed a little naïve, but, you know, a lovely girl, nice, whatever. And then I went on vacation with my dad and I was in the shack that passes for an airport in Little Cayman. My dad and I went scuba diving.

And there was the local newspaper, the Caymanian Compass, and it was the story about, you know, the White House rocked by this scandal and there was - oh my god.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This must get you, to this day, pride of place in the White House Press Room, right?

TAPPER: You know, it's so long ago and so many years ago that people don't really talk about it much.

SAGAL: Ah, I do.

TAPPER: Or at least not when I'm around.

(LAUGHTER)

BRIAN BABYLON: She never forgot the date. Man, she still thinks about you, man.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: She never forgot how nice you were.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: So, Jake, you...

FELBER: I finally meet a nice guy and it's too late. I got to leave town.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I can tell we're not going to do anything else. Let's just go through...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: No, I'm not going to do that. I did want to talk to you, because it's amazing, you wrote for the Washington City paper and then Salon and you worked your way up to I think the extremely impressive position of chief White House correspondent for ABC News. When you got that role, was there like a ceremonial passing over of Sam Donaldson's hair to you? How does that work?

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: No, he's still got it.

SAGAL: That's his. He's not letting...

TAPPER: No, I mean it's a great chair; it's a great honor. I mean, it's a demanding job and everything. Sometimes I forget where I am, and, you know, we all have our impressions of the President that we do.

SAGAL: Wait a minute, you don't mean like an impression like "I feel he's a serious man who has a problem connecting." You mean like here's my Barack Obama impression, listen up.

TAPPER: Right, like much more Rich Little-esque.

SAGAL: All right. Well, now you've pitched that...

TAPPER: Well, my only point is that he came into the pressroom, and without even thinking, I said "hello, everybody," which is what he says every time he walks in.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: And I kind of forgot that all the cameras were on. "Hello, everybody." And he looked at me and he smiled and he goes, "That's pretty good."

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

FELBER: And that was pretty good right there.

SAGAL: You know, we sit around and make jokes about you guys in the White House Press Corps and what you do, but I imagine it's somewhat intimidating to stand up on live national TV when he does one of his press conferences, and challenge the president. Do you ever feel a little nervous? You've done it not just with President Obama but you asked questions of President Bush as well, right?

TAPPER: It's a little intimidating, but it's also our job. And it's also - I mean, I think most of us are the kinds of people who, you know, like being annoying in that way.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Have you ever been yelled at? I remember Brian Williams once told us a story of getting a phone call from a very angry President Clinton about something that Brian had reported. Have you ever gotten anger response from any of these powerful people you've reported on?

TAPPER: Sure, all the time.

SAGAL: I mean, do they get in your face and they yell at you?

TAPPER: They mainly - you know, they mainly release the hounds kind of thing.

SAGAL: Right.

TAPPER: It's mainly their people. One time, I was walking - you know, one of the cool things about working at the White House is that you do tend to be able to bump into people in positions of power. And Security Clinton had just gotten the job as Secretary of State, so this is early on.

And I ran into her and I said, "Oh, Senator Clinton. I'm sorry, I mean Secretary Clinton, how are you? It's funny, which honorific do you prefer? Do you prefer Senator or do you prefer Madame Secretary?" And she said, "I'd prefer either of them to what we call you when you're not around."

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Whoa.

FELBER: Whoa.

AMY DICKINSON: Whoa.

BABYLON: Whoa.

DICKINSON: Which makes me...

FELBER: That's a good one.

DICKINSON: That's make me think, Jake, like the cabinet is impersonating you guys.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

FELBER: I'm Jake Tapper.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Oh, I'm Jake Tapper. Hey Monica, nice beret, you know.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: They probably do.

SAGAL: Well, Jake Tapper, we are delighted to talk to you, but we have invited you here to play a game we're calling?

CARL KASELL: It's Mister Bojangles to you.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: So, you're named Tapper, but you're a reporter. That makes no sense. So we thought we'd ask you three questions about an actual tapper, Bill Bojangles Robinson, who some say was one of the greatest tap dancers ever. Get two right, you'll win our prize for one of our listeners: Carl's voice on their voicemail. Carl, who is Jake Tapper playing for?

KASELL: He is playing for Andrew Rossow from Northfield, Minnesota

SAGAL: All right, you ready to go, Jake?

TAPPER: I am.

SAGAL: Here we go, your first question. Bill Bojangles Robinson was one of the greatest tap dancers in history but he also had another distinction. What was it? A: he invented the sport of greyhound racing? B: He held the record for the backwards 75-yard dash? Or C: He introduced Thai food to the American public?

DICKINSON: Huh.

TAPPER: What?

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: I'll go with B.

SAGAL: You're going to go with B: he held the record for the backwards 75 yard dash.

TAPPER: Yeah.

SAGAL: That's true.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: He could run backwards very fast.

DICKINSON: Wow.

(APPLAUSE)

FELBER: So who did bring us Thai food?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I imagine a very large number of Thai people.

FELBER: Yeah.

SAGAL: That would be my guess.

FELBER: Brought it all the way from the old country.

SAGAL: Yeah, exactly. All right, second question. Bojangles most famous routine, of course, was the stair dance. You've seen him do that with Shirley Temple. He says he invented that routine spontaneously when what happened?

A: He was going downstairs drunk, he tripped, and managed to keep his feet all the way to the bottom? B: He watching an early version of the slinky descend some stairs in his home and went "aha." Or C: He was at the bottom of the stairs, the King of England was at the top of the stairs, and it just happened?

TAPPER: I'm going to go with A.

SAGAL: You're going to go with A: he was drunk, fell down the stairs, caught himself, "hey, I just did a dance." No, it was actually C. He says, the story he told, that he was getting an award from the King of England. The King of England was at the top of the stairs. He was supposed to go up there to meet him and he just danced his way up, spontaneously.

TAPPER: You know, I shouldn't have gone with the admitting drunk thing, because it was like during Prohibition probably.

SAGAL: Yeah, probably.

DICKINSON: But also isn't that stair dance, he goes up two, he comes down one, he goes up three, he comes down.

SAGAL: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

DICKINSON: I would not do that to the King.

BABYLON: No.

DICKINSON: I don't know.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: You don't want to keep the king waiting.

DICKINSON: No. It's like tricky.

FELBER: He could use that knighting sword for a very different purpose if you keep him up too long.

SAGAL: Yeah, exactly.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Well, he would tell stories about himself that may or may not have been true.

FELBER: Yeah.

SAGAL: For example, he once told the story that his original name was Luther, not Bill, but he wanted the name Bill, so he beat up his brother Bill and took it.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That's a story he told about him. You never now with Bojangles, is what I'm saying.

BABYLON: You never know.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This is an exciting thing, because now if you get this one right, you win. Here we go. He was an inspiration to many dancers, one of whom, Fred Astaire, played tribute to Bojangles in Fred Astaire's movie "Swing Time" by doing what?

A: Falling down a flight of stairs onto his face, getting up and saying to the camera, "You get what you pay for." B: Saying, "Why, I'm nothing compared to Bill Bojangles Robinson." Or C: Doing a big dance number in blackface.

TAPPER: Oh god.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: It's probably C, which is horrific.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: OK, I'm going to go with C and I should also just say I do not support that.

SAGAL: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

DICKINSON: Oh sure.

SAGAL: You're merely choosing it. Sadly, it was true. That's what Fred Astaire did.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: It's rather one of the more uncomfortable moments for fans of Fred Astaire in that he does this big number, not only in blackface but in this big cartoony suit that was supposed to represent Bojangles' style. He meant it well, what can we say?

BABYLON: Those were different times back then.

SAGAL: It was a different time.

BABYLON: A very different time.

SAGAL: A very different time. Carl, how did Jake Tapper do on our quiz?

KASELL: Jake, you had two correct answers, so you win for Andrew Rossow.

TAPPER: All right.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Well done. So, Jake, I got to ask you, you spent all this time and effort and energy writing this extraordinarily harrowing book about the war in Afghanistan. Are you going to do something easy next?

TAPPER: My daughter wants me to do a children's book.

SAGAL: OK.

TAPPER: Because she doesn't understand why I'm spending all this time with soldiers instead of with kids.

SAGAL: Right.

TAPPER: She's five.

SAGAL: Right.

TAPPER: And by the way, I would have totally aced that My Little Pony quiz you gave to Bill Clinton.

SAGAL: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: You know, it's funny, you and he have so much in common.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Yeah.

TAPPER: Actually Peter, not really.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Jake Tapper is the author of the extraordinary new book, "The Outpost." It's going to be on the New York Times bestseller list, deservedly so. Go get it; go read it. You will thank me. Jake Tapper, thank you so much for being with us on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!

TAPPER: Thank you, Peter.

SAGAL: A pleasure to talk to you.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Bye-bye.

TAPPER: Bye-bye.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

View the original article here

NIH Director Francis Collins Plays Not My Job

NIH

Dr. Francis Collins is the director of the National Institutes of Health, which among other things means he's going to outlive us all. We've invited him to play a game called "OWWW!" Three questions about athletes and the surprising ways they find to injure themselves, inspired by Bleacher Report's list of The 50 Weirdest Injuries in Sports History.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

And now, the game where we ask people who know a lot about something they don't know. Dr. Francis Collins is the director of the National Institutes of Health, which among other things means he is going to outlive us all. We're delighted to have him here with us. Dr. Collins, welcome to WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!

DR. FRANCIS COLLINS: Hey, it's great to be here as well.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Very exciting. So, before we get started, tell me - for those who don't know - what is the National Institutes of Health?

COLLINS: Well, it is the world's largest supporter of biomedical research supported by the American taxpayers. All of you who are sitting there listening or on the radio, this is what your money is doing to try to find answers to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, rare diseases, common diseases and make the world a better place with people being healthier.

SAGAL: Wow. So it's my money going to your work?

COLLINS: That's right. And I must say, it would be better if you gave more, but it is what it is.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right.

TOM BODETT: They're working on it.

SAGAL: Since we're paying for it, can we just walk in whenever we want and ask you to, like, look at this rash that won't go away?

(LAUGHTER)

COLLINS: Your rash, I'm not so sure.

SAGAL: I understand.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Oh, somebody told you then.

COLLINS: We do have, right here where I'm sitting, on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland, a 240-bed research hospital. But in order to come here you have to be on a clinical protocol. So you'd have to be willing to sort of take part in some kind of therapeutic experiment. Is your rash ready for that?

BODETT: It sounds like fun, Peter.

SAGAL: It really does.

(LAUGHTER)

LUKE BURBANK: Dr. Collins, what is the daily recommended servings of donkey cheese?

(LAUGHTER)

JESSI KLEIN: Can I ask a quick silly question...

COLLINS: Yeah.

KLEIN: ...since it's cold season and Tom and I were talking before the show. I am pro-Purell. He is con-Purell. What is the answer to that?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: So we should just say that this is the - you know, you're seeing these bottles everywhere of these disinfectants, antibacterial lotions you rub on your hands to keep from transmitting diseases.

BURBANK: And should we drink it?

(LAUGHTER)

KLEIN: I like to bathe in Purell.

BODETT: Right. Well, Dr. Collins, my reason for being con-Purell is because I read a study that it really doesn't kill the bad germs, it kills the easy ones and that it actually makes germs stronger.

KLEIN: But then I was all, like, I see Purell in the hospital all the time, Tom.

BODETT: Yeah, but where are the super germs coming from, right, hospitals.

KLEIN: What is the answer?

COLLINS: The answer is, especially in hospitals, you need to wash your hands, clean your hands after every interaction. So, yeah, I'm pro-Purell, and I do not receive any remuneration for making that statement.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right.

KLEIN: Thank you. I am going to continue to mix a little vodka into my Purell.

SAGAL: OK.

KLEIN: And just make sure I'm healthy.

SAGAL: And I will continue to sniff it.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I have to ask though, you're up there on your high horse, or whatever you sit on at work, and telling us - well, do you have any unhealthy habits yourself?

COLLINS: Well, I ride a Harley and that...

SAGAL: That'll kill you.

COLLINS: Yeah. That's probably not the safest but it is a rush, let me tell you.

SAGAL: Oh, I know.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Speaking as one Harley guy to another, what's your ride?

COLLINS: It's a Road King Classic.

SAGAL: Really?

COLLINS: Yeah.

SAGAL: I had one of those all summer; I was riding it around.

COLLINS: Oh, it's a beast.

SAGAL: They're fun. And, you know, I...

KLEIN: Get a room, guys.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

BURBANK: Easy wild hogs.

SAGAL: And we also understand that you're in a band.

COLLINS: I am in a rock and roll band.

SAGAL: Are you really? Who else is in the band?

COLLINS: Nobody you would know. But I've occasionally been able to jam with people you've heard of, like Joe Perry, for instance, which is a rush too.

SAGAL: That is a rush. How did you end up jamming with Joe Perry from Aerosmith?

COLLINS: There was initially an effort here to try to make science cool.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

COLLINS: Which is sort of a hard...

BURBANK: But then they gave up?

(LAUGHTER)

COLLINS: We're still working on it. But anyway, that resulted in a video. If you go to YouTube and just punch in Joe Perry and Francis Collins, you could see it. But I wouldn't recommend it unless you've had a drink.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I have to ask one last question. Medical marijuana, what's your opinion?

COLLINS: Oh my.

(LAUGHTER)

COLLINS: Remember, I'm a government employee.

SAGAL: I understand, that's why I wanted to ask.

COLLINS: It needs a lot of study.

SAGAL: And how do you propose...

BURBANK: And you're the guy to do it.

SAGAL: Exactly.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: I appreciate your discretion, Dr. Collins.

COLLINS: Yes.

BURBANK: Is that why you guys did that study: I can't believe we have hands.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Well, Dr. Collins, we're delighted to have you with us. We've asked you here to play a game we're calling?

CARL KASELL: Owww.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: That's not the name of the game. I just stomped on Carl's foot.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: No, that's the game. You're a brilliant scientist and physician, you're the head of a powerful research institution, but there are some people who you just can't help. We mean athletes who keep finding interesting ways of injuring themselves.

Working with a list from the LA Times, we're going to ask you about three surprising injuries. Answer two of these questions; you'll win our prize for one of our listeners. Carl, who is Dr. Francis Collins playing for?

KASELL: Dr. Collins is playing for Polly Segal of Los Angeles, California.

SAGAL: All right. Here, Dr. Collins, is your first question. Roger Craig managed the San Francisco Giants in the 80s and 90s. He showed up at a game one day with a bandage on his hand and he fessed up to the reason for his injury when the reporters asked. What was it?

A: He tried to punch a sportscaster on the TV? B: He cut his hand on a bra strap? Or C: He tried to swat a fly on his hand with a knife?

(LAUGHTER)

COLLINS: Well, those all seem pretty plausible actually.

SAGAL: Well, it could happen.

(LAUGHTER)

COLLINS: I think I'm going to go with C. You can just sort of see that happening. You know, I'm like buttering my bread and all of the sudden there's this fly and well it just went all wrong.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That sounds more like a memoir than an explanation.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I'm afraid it was B. He cut his hand on a bra strap.

COLLINS: Oh, my.

SAGAL: We're wondering what kind of women he dates and what kind of lingerie she purchases, but that's what he said.

BURBANK: That's one of those stories that you know it was something way worse.

SAGAL: Really?

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: Because, like, if that's your cover story...

SAGAL: Next question - you still have two chances, Dr. Collins. In 1998, Arizona pitcher Brian Anderson showed up to work with a bad burn. What had happened? A: He tested an iron, to see if it was hot, with the side of his face?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: B: His hands were cold, so he put them in the toaster to warm them up? Or C: He burned his hand on a hot bra strap?

(LAUGHTER)

COLLINS: I'm going to go, I guess, with the hands in the toaster.

SAGAL: Really? So, he's like, oh my gosh, I'm a major league baseball pitcher. My hands are cold because I was outside. I know, I shall depress the levers on the toaster, put my hands in them until such time as they are warm and comfortable.

Is that your theory, Dr. Collins?

(LAUGHTER)

COLLINS: Well, you're illuminated it a bit, but yeah, that's the general idea.

KLEIN: Maybe I won't use Purell.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

COLLINS: You know, you describe it in a way that suddenly it seemed less plausible.

(LAUGHTER)

COLLINS: We're going to go with the iron on the face.

SAGAL: That's what he did. He ironed his face.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: He was still able to play, despite the iron burn on his cheek, on his jaw. But later hurt his pitching arm while shopping. All right, last question, here we go. Perhaps the greatest sports injury of all time was suffered by a Red Sox player, a pitcher named Clarence Blethen.

Back in the 1920s, he had to leave the game on one instance when what happened? A: A passing seagull dropped a lobster on his head, knocking him out? B: He pitched the ball right past the batter into the net; it bounced back, hit him in the head and knocked him out? Or C: He bit himself on the butt?

(LAUGHTER)

COLLINS: I'm struggling here.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

COLLINS: I guess I'm going to go with the seagull; it's just too adorable.

(LAUGHTER)

COLLINS: OK, I take it by the silence that maybe I want to rethink that one.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: You unraveled the humane genome. Who am I to...

(LAUGHTER)

COLLINS: Must have been that springy net thing. I knew it all along.

SAGAL: You're going to go for the springy net?

COLLINS: B.

SAGAL: No, actually, he bit himself on the butt.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This is what happened. Blethen had dentures, and he was known for when he ran the bases - which he didn't always do as a pitcher - but when he ran the bases, he would take them out and put them in his pocket. And once, on one occasion, he was sliding into second base and he did it just the wrong way and the dentures bit his butt so badly he had to leave the game.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: True story. Carl, how did Francis Collins do on our show?

KASELL: Well, Dr. Collins needed at least two correct answers to win for Polly Segal. He had just one.

COLLINS: And that was a struggle.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Well, you know, I just want to say, because I happen to have friends who are in the sciences, and they apply for NIH grants and many of them don't get them. It's very competitive. Will this do a little for your sympathy for those poor guys out there?

COLLINS: Yeah, it's just changed my life.

SAGAL: There you are.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Dr. Francis Collins is director of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Collins, thank you so much for being with us on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!

(APPLAUSE)

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

View the original article here

Sandwich Monday: The Mighty McRib Returns

[Note: Every year we celebrate the return of the McRib to McDonald's menus by not eating one. Below, our original review, with some updates.]

NPR

Once again, the signs outside McDonald's say "McRib is Back!" My girlfriend pointed out that it is indeed back. And front, and other parts probably best not to mention.

Eva: This reminds me of particleboard, but with meat.

Ian: It's Particlemeat.

Mike: In the Garden of Eden, God made Eve out of Adam's rib. Then he made Grimace out of a McRib.

Note how the onions and pickles cower together in the center.

NPR Note how the onions and pickles cower together in the center.

NPR

You may notice that this year, the McRib has arrived later than usual. Usually, it shows up on menus in October.

Mike: The Shamrock Shake goes with St.Patrick's Day. Why does the McRib come out in October?

Ian: Halloween. It's non-food wearing a food costume.

Eva: Or because it's the living dead.

In this case, "Created Just For You" sounds like a threat.

NPR In this case, "Created Just For You" sounds like a threat.

NPR

Peter: I think it only comes out once a year because you need that long to forget it. Like childbirth.

Mike: Or because the gestation period of whatever freakish animal this comes from is 12 months long.

NPR

Mike: What is this? On the box, it should say "No Animals Were Harmed In The Making of this Sandwich."

Peter: Now that I've had a bite, I'd like to go eat my actual lunch, but I'm afraid to eat.

Ian: Your stomach no longer trusts your hands and mouth.

[The verdict: it doesn't matter. The McRib is just something you have to do. Like puberty. The McRib is like puberty.]

[P.S. Check out this piece about the meat science behind the McRib.]

View the original article here

Sticking With The Sunshine State

On-air challenge: Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase or name in which the first word starts with "F" and the second word starts with "LA."

Last week's challenge: Name a major U.S. city in two words. Take the first letter of the first word and the first two letters of the second word, and they will spell the standard three-letter abbreviation for the state the city is in. What city is it?

Answer: Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Winner: Mark Sobolik of Newburg, Ore.

Next week's challenge from listener Henri Picciotto of Berkeley, Calif.: Name a two-word geographical location. Remove the first letter. Move one of the other letters to the front of what's left. This will result in a single word that names what you are most likely looking through when you see that geographical location. What is it?

Submit Your Answer

If you know the answer to next week's challenge, submit it here. Listeners who submit correct answers win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: Include a phone number where we can reach you Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern.

View the original article here

Arab-American Comedienne: No Apology For Jokes

Maysoon Zayid is a Palestinian Muslim with cerebral palsy. She's turned that identity into a tool for laughter, performing stand-up around the world. She says she doesn't apologize to anyone for her very political and personal jokes. Host Michel Martin talks to Zayid about her comedy and a program she runs in the West Bank.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Switching gears now, the issues of Palestinians, both in the U.S. and abroad, are often in the news, but not, I think it's fair to say, because of the comedy scene, which is where Maysoon Zayid comes in.

MAYSOON ZAYID: I am a Palestinian Muslim virgin with cerebral palsy from New Jersey and, if you don't feel better about yourself, maybe you should. I'm just saying. So I'm a virgin and people are like, really? You're a virgin? And they feel sad for me and I just want you guys to know I'm a virgin by choice and that is my father's choice.

MARTIN: That was Maysoon Zayid on Comedy Central's "The Watch List" in 2008. Her tours have taken her from North America to North Africa to the Middle East and, when she's not entertaining crowds, she's running a nonprofit called Maysoon's Kids. That's a scholarship and wellness program for disabled and refugee children in the West Bank.

We caught up with Maysoon Zayid earlier this year when she was on a break from touring and she's with us now.

Thank you so much for joining us.

ZAYID: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

MARTIN: So how did you get bitten by the comedy bug? I hear that you actually starting thinking about being an actress.

ZAYID: I actually went to Arizona State University to become a lawyer and was forced to take a fine arts class and I wanted to take the easiest thing they had and my friends told me it was acting because I got to be, like, a tree and an elephant. And, after my first acting class, I switched majors and decided that I was going to become a huge soap star and I was going to be on "General Hospital" and it was going to be amazing.

And I realized very, very quickly that I was never going to be more than an extra because Hollywood didn't really have a place for fluffy, ethnic, disabled people and I wasn't really seeing people that looked like me on television unless they started doing comedy.

So my acting coach at the time, who was a legend, total legend named Tanya Berezin - she suggested to me that I started doing comedy, like Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O'Donnell and Roseanne Barr and so I went to Caroline's in New York City. I took a comedy class and, by my third, like, open mic, I was professionally doing stand-up comedy.

MARTIN: So you weren't, like, the funny kid in class? You weren't the one that was always getting sent to the principal's office for trying to crack everybody up? That was not you.

ZAYID: I was the girl who did everybody's homework, but I was also, like, student council president and yearbook editor and, like, all-around overachiever, like, I'm disabled, but I can do anything.

MARTIN: Do you mind if I ask? How do your folks feel about this? I mean, you could see where being a super smart kid, head of the class, they might have been thinking dentist, maybe doctor.

ZAYID: No, not really. My parents are very interesting people and I think that they quite enjoy my career. First of all, I love the clip that you played. When I heard it, I was like, oh, my God, this is from such a long time ago because I got married and my father passed away.

MARTIN: Oh, I'm sorry.

ZAYID: God rest his soul. So it's changed a lot, but when I was on stage and my father was alive, he was very proud of what I was doing, because I think my mother and father are both well aware of the fact that I am showing people throughout the world that disability doesn't stop you. And it's not quite as big a deal here in the United States as it is when I perform onstage in Jordan or in Palestine or in Qatar where they're not used to seeing functional disabled people.

MARTIN: Oh, interesting. Yeah.

ZAYID: So I think that, as far as my parents, you know, went, being on Keith Olbermann on a weekly basis wasn't too shabby as compared to, say, being a lawyer or a doctor. And I definitely could have never been a doctor because I have no eye-hand coordination.

MARTIN: OK.

ZAYID: It'd be dangerous. There was, like, five things I could do, one of which was teach, which is what I did until my stand-up comedy took off. I taught seventh and eighth grade reading and English at a Catholic school, like all good Muslim comics do.

MARTIN: Which is scarier, facing a roomful of rowdy comedy patrons or teaching a roomful of seventh and eighth graders?

ZAYID: See, I'm totally fearless. I got my chops in the most, like, dangerous comedy atmosphere. If you can make it in New York, you can really do stand-up anywhere.

MARTIN: I'm Michel Martin. We're speaking with comedienne Maysoon Zayid. Talk a little bit about where we started out. You talked about being born with cerebral palsy. Could you just describe what that is for people who don't know and how it affects you?

ZAYID: It affects my motor skills because the messages from my brain to my body go in all the wrong directions, but they eventually get there, so I shake all the time, kind of like Michael J. Fox meets Tickle Me Elmo with a lot less income.

MARTIN: OK. And you do joke about that or you certainly talk about that.

ZAYID: I do. I talk about that and that was the whole point of the original intro that you played, because what's interesting about me is the fact that people can't tell what's wrong with me and, in a comedy club, it's distracting and it could read as nerves. And if it read as nerves, the audience would be uncomfortable and they wouldn't laugh. So I knew that I needed to get out there something about my disability within the first couple of seconds and that's why I buried it within the intro of, I'm a Palestinian Muslim virgin with cerebral palsy from New Jersey.

Now, the older I got and the more comfortable I got onstage and as a person and as a performer, the more I started doing jokes about the actual disability and how it affects my daily life, but I think one of the reasons people kind of don't know where to place me is because I don't focus on one thing. I don't focus on being a woman and dating, or focus on being married, or focus on being ethnic or being disabled. It's like I am who I am and the comedy I do is very personal, it's very political and I don't apologize to anyone.

MARTIN: Thanks for breaking it down for us in that way. I appreciate it. I did want to ask before we let you go. The organization that you founded, Maysoon's Kids.

ZAYID: Maysoon's Kids.

MARTIN: Want to talk a little bit about it?

ZAYID: Maysoon's Kids is a scholarship and wellness program and what we do is we attempt to raise scholarship money to mainstream physically disabled children into the top schools in the West Bank and we also facilitate adoption for special needs orphans. And we teach moms how to integrate their children into society and we support girls and have a soccer team for at risk girls who we coach through life and coach into college. And we have some kids at Bethlehem University on scholarship. So we're all about educating and empowering, and not just giving people stuff. It's definitely, definitely a teach a kid to have an education program.

MARTIN: How did you come up with the idea for that? Does that come out of your teaching background?

ZAYID: No. Uh uh. And my teaching background was really just like - I qualified to be a sub and someone got pregnant. I got to stay there for a really long time.

MARTIN: That's encouraging.

ZAYID: No. Definitely. No. Maysoon's Kids came from 2002. No. April 2001. I'm sorry. I was watching images on the news of Jenin (unintelligible) being bombed during the Second Intifada by Israel. And I saw this image of a crushed wheelchair and I thought, oh, my God, we're creating an entire new generation of disabled children in Palestine that nobody knows how to deal with. And they need someone who's going to fight for them the way that my father fought for me. Because, like, when I started the school system in New Jersey, they wanted to send me to a school for children with special needs. And the reality is, had I gone to that school, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you, being a little bit too sarcastic.

MARTIN: Well, thank you for that. I'm happy to listen to you talk about whatever you want to talk about. Before we let you go, I mean, you are - I don't know how you feel about this, being called a role model, but you are a role model for a lot of people in a lot of ways. And I wondered if you had some words of wisdom for someone who might want to follow in your footsteps, who's listening to you and thinking, gee, I think I can do that. I want to do that.

ZAYID: If you're disabled and you're trying to achieve your dreams, accept the fact right now that you have to work 500 times more than the average bear next to you. Stop bucking for sympathy, put on your titanium legs and run.

I think that carries through for all artists - is that, like, if you think that you're so good, go out there and do it and prove it, and work, because nobody's ever going to give you anything. And, if you are handed anything, it's ephemeral and you're going to have to eventually build, anyway. So, like, know that you're worth it and do what you need to do to get there. Don't expect anyone to ever just hand you anything.

MARTIN: Maysoon Zayid is a professional comic. She also runs an education program for disabled and refugee kids in the West Bank. And she was kind enough to join us from New York at the Radio Foundation.

Maysoon Zayid...

ZAYID: And everybody can find me on www.maysoon.com. My name. I bought it.

MARTIN: Maysoon Zayid, thank you for joining us.

ZAYID: Thank you, Michel.

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MARTIN: Coming up, R&B singer-songwriter Miguel made a huge splash with his debut album in 2010. Now, he's back with a second album that he hopes will let fans and critics know he's here to stay.

MIGUEL: This album, "Kaleidoscope Dream," is a really great statement for the kind of artist that I hope to become.

MARTIN: A conversation with rising star Miguel and we remember a musical legend, Ravi Shankar. That's all ahead on TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Michel Martin.

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