1 • If you know MST is the local bus service because it’s your ride to work, give yourself 10 Blue points, because it means you’re probably car-less for some reason, which means you might need some help, and the Republicans are not always so helpful to folks in need. Republicans don’t take the bus. If you thought it was a banned food additive you get five Blue points for being a gullible foodie. If you thought it was a theater or a tax you get ten Red points for being out-of-touch and on the golf course drinking gin and white wine.

2 • If you attended Spirit West, the Christian rock festival at Laguna Seca, as a fan, you lean GOP, so give yourself 10 Red points. If you saw the event as a vote-gaining opportunity you are a GOP operative and you get 20 Red points. If you thought the words “Spirit” and “West” meant “booze” and “California” you are a burned out loser who chain-smokes, hits on waitresses and sells bulk liquor to motel lounges. Give yourself five Red points. If you thought it was hang-gliding event you lost ten points for being clueless but willing to just make up something pathetically dreamy.

3 • This is a question about environmental values. Someone who would want to close off Big Sur might be a rich land baron, but if you want to leave it open to pilgrims, you’ve got some weird but cool medieval thing going on, so you’re beyond points. If you want to privatize the place, and could care less about the concept of public land if there’s money to be made—you get 10 Red points. If you want to drop a few canisters of napalm on Esalen then you think Woodstock was America’s moral/cultural Waterloo and you identify with the crazy Nazi who tries to blow up his own play in The Producers. Give yourself 20 Red points. If you think Big Sur is cool just the way it is take 10 Blue.

4 • Unless you live in Carmel, you probably don’t know or care much about it. Nice beach and all, but the rest is pretense. If you live there, you probably don’t look back on the Carter administration with fond memories. So if you thought they have a “sloshed fund,” you’ve clearly got some knowledge of the political-style, but are no longer a fan—give yourself 10 Blue points. Affirmative answers on the last three selections get you 10 points either way, for being either a Republican who thinks it’s all so grand, or just someone aware of local politics

5 • If you think local environmentalists are helpful to all the little creatures in the trees and bushes and deep holes in the ground, take 10 Blue points. If you think environmentalist antics in public meetings only play into the hands of developers, take 10 Red points. If you think environmentalists are in danger of becoming irrelevant, take 10 Blue points, because you recognize the problem. If you think they’re the only ones who care, you should no longer sit and be silent. Subtract 20 points for being lazy.

6 • Fort Ord, the wonderful wasteland of wonder. If you’ve found the trails, forget the politics, give yourself 10 points either way for enjoying the out-of-doors and not being a couch potato. If you see the rest of it as a failure of leadership and political will, you’re ignoring things like CSUMB, but you have a critical eye, so take 10 Blue points. Fort Ord strictly as a place to make money at public expense earns you a place with con artists and adulterers. Give yourself 10 Red points for being a morally bankrupt greedhead. If you miss the good old days of Fort Ord as a source of gullible soldiers and their easily gathered dollars, you are probably a felon, so you can’t vote anyway. Null set for you.

7 • If you know who the elusive Peter Newman really is, you get 10 Red points. If you’ve shaken his hand or been converted to the Party by him and his sidekick Paul Bruno, take 20 points. If you haven’t a clue and he might as well have been a seller of Rabbits, take 10 Blue.

8 • Ever seen a Pit Bull in the back of a Volvo? No, of course you haven’t. If you have such a dog, whether it’s a sweetheart or trained to attack the gonads, then the throat, take 10 Red. Labs and border collies can go either way, but the pound pup is emblematic of sympathy and sympathy is a Democrat emotion. Take 10 Blue if you own a dog that looks like Yoda and you got it for free.

9 • Everyone knows the cat is a Democrat animal. Only a Log Cabin Republican would bother. If you have more than one and you have a coffee mug or a sweatshirt that has a depiction of a cat on it, get a grip. Just a cat, 10 Blue. If you call other guys “cat,” you are trying way too hard to be cool. Subtract 10 points for being such a dork.

10 • Carmel Valley. This one is tricky, hence the “all of the above” choice. It can be seen from the Red or Blue perspective in several ways, but the incorporation thing is a dead giveaway. 10 Red points. Republicans can’t put the words “environmental tragedy” next to each other, so if you took that answer, take 10 Blue.

11 • Fresno to Pebble equals 10 Red. Fresno to Soledad equals 10 Blue. China to Monterey equals Red—without points—and that’s a whole different kind of “Red” if you get the drift. If you were born here, this one is a wash.

12 • OK, this question is a throwaway. No points except negative points. If you thought The Running Iron is a torture device or a movie or a fisherman’s tool, you’ve got issues. Take 10 points off your tally.

13 • If you don’t like KPIG’s politics, take 10 Red points. If you dig KPIG, take 10 Blue points. If you know why they always play the Stephen Stills song “Tree Top Flyer,” then call me at 394-5656 extension 106 and explain. I like the song, but if there’s some connection or it’s some kind of code or inside reference, please advise.

14 • Let’s see, Sam Farr at Woodstock? Nah. The real Sam Farr was in the Peace Corps, as anyone who’s heard him speak for more then three minutes knows. Local political hero? Take 10 Blue. Don’t like Sam, take 10 Red.

15 • If you know what Mary Jane’z is, you are not a weekend moocher. Take 10 Blue. Anything else is 10 Red.

16 • Anyone who knows Jonah and the Whalewatchers is a reggae band gets 10 Blue. Otherwise you need to stop drinking earlier and earlier in the day, because your life is so stultifying and dreadful. Any answer without “reggae” gets you 10 Red points.

17 • To consider the bar at the Mission Ranch, with the piano lounge act as a regular part of your social schedule gets you, hmmmm, let’s see, 10 Red points. If you go there because it’s Clint’s place, take 20 Red.

18 • This is a lay up. If you miss the former NPR Morning Edition host, take an easy 20 Blue. Never heard of him? 10 Red.

19 • OK, fine, Rush used to rock pretty hard. No points there. If you see that word and think “Voice of reason, voice of the right,” add 20 Red. If you laughed til you peed in your pants when Limbaugh got outed as a druggie, take 10 Blue.

20 • Do you find the supermarket depressing? Oh forget it, that’s an entirely separate topic. Canvas or hemp gets you an obvious 20 Blue points. Plastic means 10 Red. It should be penalty points since those bags are actually made out of petroleum. Paper is problematic because brown paper bags are very useful and it gets messy because you can’t ignore the fact that it’s a paper product. And if you get plastic bags because you have to clean up after your pound pup, well maybe getting plastic bags isn’t always so awful…sorry…bad question.

21 • If you are taking the family to dinner at Round Table, you haven’t been trickled down on enough. Take 10 Blue points.

22 • Sorry if this one is snobby, but a clear 10 points Blue if Sunday is your chance to find out whether Seymour Hersh’s newest piece got slammed for being poorly written or praised for being revelatory. When Sunday is synonymous with football and beer and pizzas that have cheese inside the crust and other weird gimmicks, you are right where the capitalists of the GOP want you—fat and drunk. Take 20 Red points. Non-NFL worship—take 10 points either way.

23 • Call a private town home, and you got 20 Blue points, but you probably don’t give a fig about this liberal media quiz. If you work there, you can’t possibly vote for the same guy whose golf clubs you’re cleaning or whose bed you’re making. Take 10 Blue. Take 20 Blue if you fell for the class warfare answer.

24 • When the mere mention of George W. Bush makes your stomach tie itself in a knot and your temples start pulsing like kettle drums, you get 20 Blue points. If you’re lukewarm or forgiving, take 20 Red.

25 • Should red beans and rice ever become your staple diet, you have lost in the grand economic scheme and you must, must take 10 Blue points. If you know it’s a band that’s also 10 Blue. Consider it what the kitchen staff eats, and you need to depart the 19th century, but take 20 Red points on the way.

26 • This one is obvious. Lump Kerry in with Kennedy and take 10 Red. If you want Kerry because you hate Bush or actually believe in Kerry, take 10 Blue. If you’d rather write-in Evel Knievel on your ballot because you are so fed up with the phony distinctions between Democrats and Republicans and you believe our political system has become a rotten, mystifying mess, you have to take a pass on this question.

27 • Ten Red points if you look north and only see rainbow flags. If San Francisco is your pied-a-terre, you’ve got Red-style money but you might be a limousine liberal. Score accordingly. Pissed that you can’t live there because it’s so expensive, and you actually can’t live here either, take 10 Blue.

28 • Ten Blue points if you think Moss Landing is yucky or if you study protoplasm or operate a mini-submarine there. Everyone knows marine biologists are too smart to vote for a dummy like Bush. Ten Red points if you consider it your yacht club.

29 • Another easy one. Red meat equals dinner or strength and you’ve got 10 points Red, plus future heart trouble and possible Mad Cow Disease. Think red meat is icky, or if you are familiar with the cartoon, and you’ve got 10 Blue.

30 • Work at T&A and you have to vote Democrat, so have 10 Blue. Get in all that agribusiness/politics monkey business and you’ve got 10 Red. On the same hand, you’ve got a good Puritan streak in you if you think today’s young female fashions show too much cheesecake, so take 10 points Red or Blue. Yes, Tattoo You was a decent album, especially since it has one of the best songs ever, “Waiting on a Friend,” but if you saw “T&A” and thought of Mick and Keith, you need to put down the bong and stop pretending you’re cool. You’re not. You’re a cyst on society. You’re 45-years-old and drinking in a sports bar on a Wednesday afternoon. Get a job, sir! Then mark it zero. Mark it zero.

31 • Any negative emotional response to Seaside Highlands gets you 20 Blue. If you think it’s the promised land, you waste a lot of your God-given time watching inane television programs about overweight, emasculated American men and their overbearing wives.

32 • If you think we bash Bush, you’re right. He’d be a dangerous man as dog catcher, much less the leader of the free world. Take 10 Red if you think we’re an anti-Buffoon media bastion. Otherwise, take 10 Blue.