I’m dumber than ever, but still a winner, folks!

Things are increasingly weird over at the Slate News Quiz.

For the third week in a row, I have been declared a “winner” for having scored higher than the designated staff ringer. Each time, I have done this in spite of having scored below the reader average.

And this week, I outdid myself. I’m pretty sure I scored my worst grade ever, by a substantial margin — 182 points. Really. However, Senior Advice Editor Paola de Varona had, amazingly, only scored 139. I am not making this up, as Dave Barry would say. Meanwhile, the average slob out there had scored 302 points — pathetically low, but a genius level compared to Paola and yours truly.

And I had started out so well! I got all of the first three (out of 12) right, and done so very quickly. I felt I was on my way, maybe, to a record high…

And then I got only one of the next nine questions right! You’ve gotta be impressed by that, right?

I think it’s time Slate took a long, hard look at the quiz. Maybe they’ll realize that they need to start asking questions about things that reasonably observant people can be expected to know. Here are some of the questions I missed:

The U.K. government has granted permission for the sale of the Chelsea soccer team to Todd Boehly for more than $5 billion. Boehly is also the co-owner of which Major League Baseball team? Really? I’m supposed to not only know who is buying a British soccer team, but I need to know further trivia about him?
Which actress has been selected to receive the 2022 Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre at the June 12 awards ceremony? First, it’s an awards show, and I don’t follow those. Second, it’s the Tonys, and if I followed an awards show, it wouldn’t be that one. Third, and I stress this, it hasn’t even happened yet!
Researchers have developed which gene-edited plant that may provide a new vegan source of vitamin D? I don’t know about you, but I have a condition that causes my brain to turn off when I see the word, “vegan.”
Which petroleum company’s annual shareholder meeting was interrupted by dozens of climate protesters chanting slogans and holding banners? It could have been ANY of them, right? Is this not a routine occurrence when oil shareholders meet? This is so dog-bites-man, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the protest was on the official agenda of the meeting.

And so forth. I had kinda followed the news. But not this stuff. And obviously, based on everyone’s horrible scores, I’m not alone on this…