Musings of a Dead Parrot

THIS WEEK'S QUIZ
1. In Greek myth, whose son drowned in the Icarian Sea? Daedalus. Icarus was his son.
2. From what port city did the Mayflower pilgrims finally leave England on September 6, 1620? Portsmouth (I think); hence the town of Portsmouth, VA
3. What first line of Sam Cooke's song "Wonderful World" also names a 1990 bestseller about cultural literacy? "Don't know much about history"
4. Who are the five "Fuwa": Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini? are those the names of panda bears? Or sumo wrestlers?
5. What medical procedure is a type of keratomileusis, which lends it the 'K' in its name? Lasik
6. What name did Austrian-born draftsman Moses Teichman adopt in the 1920s when he devised a series of paper footprints he could sell by mail?
7. What unusual distinction is shared by all these newspaper comics strips? Apartment 3-G, Blondie, The Born Loser, The Captain and the Kids, Hagar the Horrible, Hi and Lois, Mary Worth, The Wizard of Id, and Ziggy.

LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1. What literary title character of 1992 was based on Hungarian aristocrat Laszlo Almasy, who received the Iron Cross from Rommel for his military missions in North Africa? The English Patient was based on a real guy. Who, needless to say, wasn't English. correct
2. Who was the only one of TV's "Friends" never Emmy-nominated for their work on the hit sitcom? Courtney Cox, with or without the Arquette. Maybe someday she'll get that honorary Emmy for the "Dancing in the Dark" video. which is more surprising - Courtney Cox was not nominated or Matt LeBlanc was?
3. What group of over 100,000 people did President Jimmy Carter pardon in January 1977? Vietnam-era draft dodgers. Not all of them went to Canada, of course. Somebody probably would have noticed 100,000 extra Canadians. I think it would have tripled their population. correct
4. Whose company is run by CEO Lucius Fox? Bruce Wayne's company. Fox is the mentor/Q figure played by Morgan Freeman in the recent Batman movies. I have seen Batman Begins but I never paid attention to the character's name.
5. Manolete and Juan Belmonte were among the world's most famous members of what profession? Bullfighting. correct
6. How many toes do most birds have on each foot? Four, just like The Simpsons. There are exceptions, though: emus have three, and ostriches have only two. incorrect
7. What unusual distinction is shared by these world capitals, and no others? Cairo, Lima, Montevideo, Rome, Sucre, Suva, Tokyo, Vaduz, and maybe Brazzaville. These are the world capitals that share no letters in common with the names of their countries: "Cairo" has none of the same letters as "Egypt," "Lima" has none of the same letters as "Peru," and so on. (The ambiguity with "Brazzaville" is whether it's the capital of just "Congo" or "the Republic of the Congo.") It's rare that I use a Question Seven based on wordplay--in fact, I think I've only done it once--but I rationalized to myself that there's a trivia element here as well, since you obviously have to know the countries involved to solve it. I do know the trivia of the US state capital with no letters in common with its state - Pierre, South Dakota.