BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm legendary anchorman Bill Kurtis...
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KURTIS: ...filling in for Carl Kasell. And here's your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. Thanks for filling in for Carl again.
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SAGAL: We've got a great show for you today. Arne Duncan, the nation's Secretary of Education will be here to answer our questions, including, well, why is it important to get an education in the first place.
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SAGAL: I mean, Bill, where did you go to school?
KURTIS: I dropped out of school when I discovered the effect my voice had on wealthy, lonely women.
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KURTIS: And I've done very well.
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SAGAL: But before we get to all of that, it'll be your turn. Give us a call, the number 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-88-924-8924. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
AMY ZIFFER: Hi, this is Amy Ziffer from Sherman, Connecticut.
KURTIS: Well, welcome Amy. Sherman, Connecticut is where exactly in that beautiful state?
ZIFFER: It's about two hours north/northeast of New York City.
SAGAL: Right. All of Connecticut is about two, two and a half hours...
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SAGAL: But that's all right. What do you do there?
ZIFFER: I'm actually a gardener by profession.
SAGAL: Really?
ZIFFER: Yeah.
SAGAL: That's fun.
ZIFFER: Yeah, it can be.
SAGAL: So in order to relax, do you putter around in an office?
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ZIFFER: I don't know how to - I don't know what to say.
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SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Amy. Let me introduce you to our panel. First, it is a comedian who will be performing at the Garde Arts Center, not far from you, in New London, Connecticut on April 5th, it's Paula Poundstone.
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SAGAL: Next, we welcome back to our show the author of "Funny in Farsi," it's Firoozeh Dumas.
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SAGAL: And finally, it's a humorist and author most recently of "Alpha better Juice: The Joy of Text," it's Mr. Roy Blount, Jr.
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SAGAL: So, Amy, welcome to the show. You're going to start us off, of course, with Who's Bill This Time. Bill Kurtis, filling in for Carl, is going to recreate for you three quotations from this week's news. Your job, of course, correctly identify or explain just two of them. Do that, you'll win our prize, Carl's voice on your home voicemail. Ready to go?
ZIFFER: Yes, I'm ready.
SAGAL: Let's hear your first quote.
KURTIS: I would go for the record but I've discovered that there are some limits to filibustering, and I'm going to go have to take care of one right now.
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SAGAL: That was someone explaining why he had to stop talking on the Senate floor, after almost 13 hours. Who was it?
ZIFFER: That would be Rand Paul.
SAGAL: It would be Rand Paul, the senator from Kentucky.
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SAGAL: Very well done.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: You know, if I were going to filibuster, I would strap on my Depends right in front of the Republicans.
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SAGAL: Just to let them know.
POUNDSTONE: Let them know I mean business.
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SAGAL: Well, actually, it was amazing, it was like Mr. Paul goes to Washington, an amazing act of political theater in which the senator argued from morning until past midnight that the president does not have the right to use drones on American citizens on American soil. It is a gutsy thing to do: to challenge the president's use of killer drones while standing in exactly the same spot for 13 hours.
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FIROOZEH DUMAS: See, I have to say as an immigrant...
SAGAL: Yeah.
DUMAS: ...this whole filibuster thing confuses me, because basically it's like I used to say my kids when they were little, "I'm going to count to three."
SAGAL: Right
DUMAS: So this is kind of like the adult version of I'm just going to count to one million and ten...
SAGAL: Right.
DUMAS: ...until I get what I want.
SAGAL: Right.
DUMAS: So who came up with this? Was it a mother?
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ROY BLOUNT JR.: They started out holding their breath, but then that didn't last long.
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BLOUNT: What is Farsi for filibuster?
DUMAS: Fatwah.
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POUNDSTONE: All right, we do do it better.
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SAGAL: Anyway, not everybody was thrilled. Most Democrats wouldn't support him against their own president, and John McCain complained about the 13-hour filibuster, because, look, he only has so many hours left, I mean.
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DUMAS: Ouch. Ouch.
SAGAL: I thought we all liked John McCain is all I'm trying to say.
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SAGAL: All right, moving on. Amy, your next quote is in appreciation of Kim Jong Un, the dictator of North Korea.
KURTIS: You can't believe what you hear in the media. He's always been real cool with me, so I'm cool with him, you know.
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SAGAL: So who's now besties with Kim Jong Un?
ZIFFER: Dennis Rodman.
SAGAL: Dennis Rodman, yes.
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SAGAL: So let's say you're an unstable lunatic, shunned by the world, and you've got a lust for attention. What do you do? Well, you go visit the dictator of North Korea.
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SAGAL: Dennis Rodman, who was kind of an idiot even when he played for the Bulls championship teams in the 1990s, decided that he should make a living now as a useful idiot. He's different than most people who hang with the Korean dictator in that he wasn't actually hanged.
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POUNDSTONE: Having just supported an idea of Rand Paul, I hate to also defend Dennis Rodman but...
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POUNDSTONE: But, you know what, maybe he's got the right idea. You know, how Obama had like the Republican senators to dinner and they say, well, the good thing about that is it's harder to demonize when you really know the people on a personal level. Maybe if we do this sort of one thing at a time, you know one individual going over to North Korea and hanging with Kim Jong Un...
SAGAL: All right, let me analyze your idea here. So the idea is that Kim Jong Un, he's isolated, he's part of the hermit kingdom, he doesn't know anything about the western world. And the idea is that if he only got to know an American, he'd understand that we're normal, we're non-threatening.
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SAGAL: And the American he meets is Dennis Rodman.
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POUNDSTONE: OK, but Dennis Rodman simply is the guy who chose to go. See, if we're upset by him representing us, then somebody a little bit more normal - myself.
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POUNDSTONE: Should step up to the plate.
SAGAL: You're volunteering to go to North Korea as a cultural ambassador.
POUNDSTONE: I would. I would, yes.
BLOUNT: We could do the show there. Pyongyang must have a broadcast.
SAGAL: Sure, it'd be great.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah. WAIT WAIT...DON'T HANG ME.
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POUNDSTONE: Do you want to write some of this down?
SAGAL: I should.
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SAGAL: Amy, all right, here we go. We have one last quote for you.
ZIFFER: OK.
KURTIS: I'm just wondering why a yogurt is more dangerous than a penknife or a golf club.
SAGAL: That was a woman referring to the fact that while you still can't take a yogurt with you, you can now take a little knife where?
ZIFFER: On airplanes.
SAGAL: Yes, indeed.
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SAGAL: Good news, travelers; now you can finally be packing when it comes to the battle for the armrest.
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SAGAL: The TSA is allowing pocketknives now on planes, as long as they are less than a inch wide or two and a half inches long. There is a rumor - the TSA denies this - there's a rumor that since it doesn't really make any sense that they're letting people with knives on, I guess, the TSA changed the rule, not because they decided it was safe but because they were just really bad at catching people with penknives.
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SAGAL: So just change the rule. It's like we weren't failing at our jobs, we were pre-doing it right.
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POUNDSTONE: Whereas, apparently, the yogurt they get like...
SAGAL: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, a yogurt bust. That's got to feel good as a man to go home.
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POUNDSTONE: Prevented the proliferation of yogurt.
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POUNDSTONE: I remember one time seeing a TSA guy in the Chicago airport at the McDonald's, a big huge guy, and he was putting lip balm on his lips. And I thought, my gosh, he must have a ton of that.
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POUNDSTONE: You know, if you go out with a guy from the TSA, I'll bet those are some supple lips.
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SAGAL: Bill, how did Amy do on our quiz?
KURTIS: It's clear that while Amy was planting her begonias, she was listening to the radio because she's perfect.
SAGAL: There you are, very well done.
POUNDSTONE: All right, Amy.
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SAGAL: Congratulations, Amy.
ZIFFER: Thank you.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
ZIFFER: Bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.