PETER SAGAL, HOST:
In just a minute, what rhymes with Bill Kurtis? Why, you do, in our Listener Limerick Challenge. If you'd like to play give us a call at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT - that's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Faith, as you know, California is in the midst of a water crisis, and citizens are being asked to conserve and ration their water. One group is fighting back, though, saying they have a special need. Who?
FAITH SALIE: They have a special need for water?
SAGAL: Water, yeah.
SALIE: Would it be a group that wants to bathe? Is this - do they need it for their bodies?
SAGAL: Well, they need it for all kinds of things. But they feel that they have a right to as much water as they want and they don't understand why other people are saying they can't have it.
SALIE: Are they rich?
SAGAL: They are rich.
SALIE: The rich.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: They are the rich, in fact. Rich people, in California, in the midst of a drought, are saying things like, quote, "What am I supposed to do, just have dirt around my house for four acres?" Actually, they're not saying things like that - that's one of the things they actually said...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...To the Washington Post. Also, quote, "People should not be forced to golf on brown courses."
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: Wow.
CHARLIE PIERCE: Or with brown people.
LUKE BURBANK: Yeah, my guess is they're not into that either.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: And her argument, as she was riding her horse around, was that she's actually conserving water because their land - this was her argument - big enough for 20 houses, but they only have one - think how much water that would be compared to water used by just her, her husband, her horses, her peacocks, her pack of specially bred yorkie-poos and, of course, her servants - although they, of course, are limited to one cup of water per day.
(LAUGHTER)
BURBANK: She's really a conservationist, if you think about it.
SAGAL: Really. This is why Californians have started a new initiative to save their state - watering their crops with the blood of the wealthy.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Luke, Mitt Romney knows a lot about running for president 'cause he spent about 10 years doing it. So, Hillary Clinton should take it to heart when Mitt criticized her what?
BURBANK: Let's see.
SAGAL: You're never fully dressed without it.
BURBANK: Her smiling.
SAGAL: Her smiling.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Mitt Romney appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to share his wisdom as a two-time loser in the race for the presidency.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: No, he's been through it. And he said of Clinton, quote, "When you see her on a stage - when she comes into a room full of people - she is smiling with her mouth, but her eyes are saying where's my latte," unquote. We're not sure if Mitt was criticizing her smile or her failure to have someone standing by with a latte at all times, as he has. Technically, he is, of course, criticizing her smizing, that's what we call smiling without the eyes, right.
SALIE: No, smizing is smiling with the eyes. Don't you watch "America's Next Top Model," Peter? That's - Tyra Banks coined that.
BURBANK: He's more of a...
SALIE: Just smiling with your eyes.
SAGAL: Nothing in the...
SALIE: The smiles and the eyes - the smize.
SAGAL: And what are you indicating?
BURBANK: It says, I'm approachable, I'm normal, and I've got a good plan for the Middle East.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Charlie, we have reported on all kinds of hipster trends - monocles, penny-farthings. Now, according to the Daily Telegraph newspaper in Britain, hipsters are bringing what to their favorite coffee shops?
PIERCE: Gherkins.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You mean, like, the pickles?
PIERCE: Bodkins.
SAGAL: No.
PIERCE: Flagons. Varlets.
SAGAL: Didn't rhyme.
PIERCE: I'm working my way through Dickens here.
SAGAL: No, no, no.
(LAUGHTER)
PIERCE: Can I have a hint, please?
SAGAL: They're also bringing carbon paper, we assume.
PIERCE: What, typewriters?
SAGAL: Yes, they're all bringing typewriters.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: 'Cause you know how - you know, all the hipsters - they show up at Starbucks or wherever and they use up all the free Wi-Fi. Now, apparently, in England, at least, they're showing up with typewriters and using up the free sunlight, we don't know. The Telegraph put together a slideshow of hipsters with typewriters in public - sitting there, typing away on their one-woman shows, maybe blog posts, which they then put on the Internet via vintage 1964 IBM punch cards.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: How do you procrastinate in your writing with a typewriter?
SAGAL: That is the...
PIERCE: Oh, I remember. Oh, absolutely.
SAGAL: How..
PIERCE: You get up and walk away from the typewriter.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yeah, I know.
BURBANK: Are they, like, relatively - I know this is an oxymoron - but are they relatively modern typewriters?
SAGAL: No, they're these little...
BURBANK: Or are they the, like, kind that have like, (making typewriter sounds)? That's what it sounds like, right?
SAGAL: From the pictures I've seen, it's like those little typewriters...
PIERCE: Like the little Olivetti deals?
SAGAL: Yeah, you'd see, like, Hemingway sitting there in Spain, typing with a cigar...
SALIE: I love that sound. I love the sound - you know, you don't hear that. It just...
BURBANK: Well, you do if you go to a coffee shop in England, apparently.
(LAUGHTER)
BURBANK: Unfortunately.
SALIE: It's very...
PIERCE: Yeah, I was about to say, I don't know if I want to listen to a battalion of them.
BURBANK: Yeah. It's like, oh good, I'm at Tin Pan Alley. Like, 30 people banging away on that.
SAGAL: I know, and you're sitting there - I mean, quiet conversation reading book and there's four guys with a typewriter, one guy with a fax machine. Great. Oh, look, that person brought in a cotton gin.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: Hold on, I'm getting a telegram.
PIERCE: Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
BURBANK: Stop. I'm trying to check Tinder on this ship to shore. She does not like you, stop. Thinks you look a little old, stop.
(APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.