The Answers! (trust me.)

1. Question 1 asks who Highland Park's U.S. Congressional Representative is. Most of my answers were various state officials - our real Federal Rep is John Porter (R). As with all congressmen, he is up for reelection every two years, and thus will be on Election Day this year.

2. Illinois's current U.S. senators are Paul Simon (D) and, (no, not Art Garfunkle, like so many said) but Carol Mosley Braun (D). Simon's seat is up for elelction like the question said, but he is retiring, so the Democratic and Republican candidates are Dick Durbin and Al Salvi, respectively.

3. Everyone should have gotten this one. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The vice presidential candidates are Al Gore (D) (he's our current VP, people!) and Jack Kemp (R). This last part is the real killer. In response to "Who is President of the Senate?" I got many indignant replies that Dole retired, I should know that! Of course, I did know that. But they seem to be overlooking the fact that Dole never was President of the Senate, only Senate Majority Leader. As anyone fresh out of eighth grade Constitution and Government could tell you, the President of the Senate is always the VP of the U.S., and thus Al Gore. I purposely did not ask the question "Who is the President of the U.S. because I probably would have wanted to leave the country when I saw the number who got that wrong, too. Just kidding, of course. I never would. Oh, beautiful for spacious skies...

4. Well, nobody got this wrong ("What periodicals do you read?") except maybe for those who wrote in Penthouse, Playboy, Rolling Stone, etc. These are not, in the most frequently used form of the word, political magazines. (Though I'm sure one could find a nice supply of these around the offices of many of our governmental leaders!) Sorry, I digress again. My country, 'tis of thee...

5. Sorry, folks, but 90210 does not count as national news. Though I'm sure that several of its story lines roughly parallel the doings of Mr...(slap) Oh, say, can you see...

Send e-mail to: RogerW7979@earthlink.net