Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9507030114
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A: Dr. Jack Kevorkian, 223 S. Main St., Royal Oak, Mich. 48067.
Q: Where can we send cards of encouragement to Christopher Reeve?
A: The actor is a patient at University of Virginia Medical Center, Jefferson Park Avenue, Charlottesville, Va. 22908.
Q: Is Hispanic a cultural or racial term? I understand that there are white, black and mixed groups within the Hispanic group.
A: It's cultural. The Spanish language and the Roman Catholic religion are among the oldest and most important cultural bonds that unite Hispanics. Within the Hispanic minority in the United States, people can represent various national and ethnic origins - mostly European, African and Indian.
Q: Where can I get more information on the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia
A: Write: Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, GPO Box 2000, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 20001. Or you can call 61-2-931-2000; or fax 61-2-931- 2020.
Q: Where does the term ``lukewarm'' come from?
A: ``Luke'' is the modern spelling of the Middle English louke, meaning ``tepid,'' which in turn came from the Dutch leuk. That makes it redundant, since tepid means ``barely warm.''
Q: What are the five tallest buildings in the country outside of New York and Chicago?
A: The Universal Almanac 1995 lists these: NationsBank Plaza, Atlanta, 1,023 feet, 55 stories; First Interstate World Center, Los Angeles, 1,018 feet, 75 stories; Texas Commerce Tower, Houston, 1,000 feet, 79 stories; Allied Bank Plaza, Houston, 972 feet, 71 stories; and Columbia Center, Seattle, 954 feet, 76 stories.
Q: How did the saying ``You don't have a Chinaman's chance'' originate?
A: The Chinese immigrants who built so many miles of America's railroads often tried to make their fortune by working old claims and streams abandoned by white prospectors during the California gold rush of 1849. They had an extremely poor chance of finding any gold in such abandoned claims, and thus ``a Chinaman's chance'' came to mean ``no chance at all.'' The poor lot of Chinese in a segregated society probably reinforced the phrase, because the Chinese had as poor a chance on the railroads and anywhere else as they did in the gold fields.
Q: What does it mean when a person refers to a ``first cousin, twice removed''?
A: In this context, ``removed'' means distant by a given number of degrees of descent or kinship. A first cousin is a son or daughter of one's uncle or aunt. A ``first cousin, once removed,'' is the child of one's first cousin. A ``first cousin, twice removed'' is the grandchild of one's first cousin. There's more: Children of first cousins are second cousins to each other, and children of second cousins are third cousins. The child of a second cousin is a person's ``second cousin, once removed.''
Q: How do I get into the lottery to receive an application for the Boston Marathon next year?
A: The 1996 Boston Marathon will start at noon April 15. Applications are available now. To obtain one, send a stamped, self-addressed business-size envelope to: BAA, P.O. Box 1996, Hopkinton, Mass. 01748. Entry closing date for qualified athletes who have completed a 26.2-mile race is Dec. 31. In celebration of the 100th Boston Marathon, a limited number of nonqualified athletes will be selected randomly for the race's open division. Applications must be completed and postmarked by Nov. 1. For recorded information, call 617-236-1652.
Q: Why do U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen always toss their hats into the air at graduation ceremonies? What happens to those hats?
A: The tradition dates to the academy's graduating class of 1912, the first in which graduating midshipmen received their commissions without having to train any further. Since they wouldn't be needing their hats (or ``covers,'' as they are called) any longer, they spontaneously threw them into the air. It has been done every year since. ``The covers that the midshipmen toss into the air are their old ones,'' an academy spokesman said. ``They are left for friends and family or different members of the audience to collect if they wish.'' The graduating midshipmen receive new covers as officers, either as a Navy ensign or Marine Corps second lieutenant.
Q: Spiro Agnew was honored with a bust of himself in Washington. Who paid for it - the government, Agnew, private sources?
A: Taxpayers paid the $50,000 cost of the marble bust of the 39th vice president. It was put on display just outside the Senate chamber, with Agnew - the vice president who resigned in disgrace in 1973 with a plea bargain for tax evasion - finally free to join all his vice presidential peers in history (except for Dan Quayle, who has not yet requested the honor).
Q: Now that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has broken up, is Canada the largest country in the world?
A: Canada was No. 2 before the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991; it still is. Russia, one of the former U.S.S.R.'s 15 republics, covers 6,592,850 square miles. Canada covers 3,849,674 square miles.
Q: Where can I write George Will?
A: George Will, 1208 30th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20007.
by CNB