PJ Media

Many years ago, there was a popular radio quiz show called “20 Questions.” The challenge faced by the panelists was to come up with the identity of a person, place or object. All they were told in advance was whether that something was animal, vegetable or mineral.

I have my own list of questions that I suspect would have stumped even the resident experts, Fred Van De Venter, Florence Rinard, Johnnie McPhee and Herb Polesie.

“Why do basketball fans go berserk whenever a player dunks a basketball?” Considering that the height of the basket has remained 10 feet off the ground even though today’s players are typically one-and-a-half or even two feet taller than they were when the game was invented, the chorus of “oohs” and “ahs” makes no sense at all.

“Why are the utterances of such people as Rosie O’Donnell, Sean Penn and Donald Trump, are given such wide dissemination?” I mean, even if you found yourself agreeing with any of their banal observations, they never even attempt to say anything in an interesting or amusing manner. In days gone by, you had to be Shakespeare, Twain or Oscar Wilde, now you merely have to appear on “The View.”

“Why does singer-song writer Sheryl Crow, who insists, for the sake of the environment, people should limit themselves to using a single sheet of toilet paper per bathroom visit, continue doing concert tours?” After all, having made a fortune off her music, it’s not as Crow needs dough. One would think that the woman who claimed “paper napkins represent the height of wastefulness,” and just so happens to have created a clothing line with what she calls “dining sleeves” — dress sleeves that are detachable and can be used in lieu of napkins — would use her sleeve for a brainwipe before putting a half dozen diesel trucks and buses on the tarmac, but I guess for Crow, “Every thought takes a winding road.”

At next year’s Grammy awards, where America’s creme de la boozers, druggies and sex addicts take the stage wearing ribbons meant to impress us with caring consciences, how many will show up with little golden toilet rolls on their lapels, letting us know that they’re dedicated single-sheeters? And will Barbra Streisand dare to take the pledge?

How is that none of the patron saints of polar bears has dared speak out against Nascar races? Every weekend, you not only have dozens of these cars burning up fuel like there’s no tomorrow, but you have hundreds of thousands of the Nascar faithful showing up in their trucks and SUVs. As a friend of mine said, wouldn’t you think there would at least be a move on to change the Daytona 500 to the Daytona 400?

How is it we have come to worship self-esteem so much that to even suggest that it’s supposed to be based on decent behavior and actual accomplishment is taboo in our society? The first inkling I got of this was when young people in Japan and the industrialized nations of the West were polled, and it was the Americans, the very kids who scored the very lowest marks in science and math, who were found to have the highest opinion of themselves. I guess that’s the only thing they can count on.

But to be fair, it’s not just our youngsters who are self-deluded.

If you read much of the pap that Hollywood celebrities say it’s all too apparent that they also regard themselves as the biggest brainiacs since, well, Max Headroom. I know that these odd people — treated like royalty for no other reason than that they look pretty or can act goofy in front of the camera — grow egos bigger than their ranches in Montana. However, when these folks, whose reading material consists pretty much of movie scripts and their own P.R. releases, start spouting off about “global warming,” “Constitutional law” and “America’s foreign policy,” one can’t help but long for the good old days when the studios provided the stars with their talking points, limited, for the most part, to singing the praises of their kids, their spouses and their latest movie.

Why, if the United States is as racist as black bigots insist it is, how is it that Asians manage to fare so well in this country? I think even Jesse Jackson would have a tough time explaining why evil whites would expend all this time and energy keeping urban blacks poor and uneducated while allowing millions of people who were yellow and brown to achieve the American dream. And how come the media, even Fox News, will regularly have such race hustlers as Al Sharpton and Charles Rangel spouting off, but I can’t ever recall seeing the likes of Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams sitting between Hannity and Colmes or across the table from Bill O’Reilly, discussing race relations.

“How is it that in the wake of Seung-hui Cho’s murderous rampage at Virginia Tech, there was widespread remorse expressed by the Korean-American community, but American Muslims so rarely condemn the world-wide butchery committed in the name of Allah that when one actually speaks out, it becomes a newsworthy event?” No easy answers here. Vows of silence all around.

Finally, I’d like to know why, when they created the tradition of the Tooth Fairy’s leaving money under the pillow, they didn’t also come up with the Hair Fairy? Today, I’d be a millionaire.