Musings of a Dead Parrot

THIS WEEK'S QUESTIONS
1.  What was the day job of Francis Scott Key at the time he wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner"?  Wasn't he a POW?  That's not really a day job though.  Maybe he wrote jingles for radio ads.
2.  What film franchise followed the character Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh?   Lethal Weapon
3.  What island's official language is Kalaallisut?  Greenland
4.  What recently became the first college football team to top the AP poll 100 times?  Oklahoma.  Boomer Sooner!
5.  What novel's second sentence is, "Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail a little and see the watery part of the world"?  sounds like something Robinson Crusoe or Gulliver might say.  I'll go with Gulliver.
6.  What is the only dwarf planet of the inner solar system?  Pluto or Eris?  but they are really in the outer solar system
7.  What unusual distinction is shared by all these albums?  Tori Amos's Little Earthquakes, Arcade Fire's Funeral, Elvis Costello's Trust, Bob Dylan's Desire, Field Mob's Light Poles and Pine Trees, the Grateful Dead's Shakedown Street, Roxy Music's Avalon, Sinatra's Come Fly with Me, James Taylor's Gorilla, Kim Wilde's Select.  All have a song that is the name of a country - China, Haiti, Luxembourg, Mozambique, France, India, Isle of Capri?, Mexico, Cambodia.

LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1.  In the United States, what are Leavenworth, Lewisburg, and Lompoc?  They're all prisons--U.S. federal penitentiaries, to be precise.  We also would have accepted "the pokey."  Lompoc can become Lompokey.
2.  What did Alfred Butts first call "Alph" and "Criss-Cross" when he invented it in 1948?  Scrabble!  We also would have accepted "the pokey," because that's a funny answer to just about any question.  I would like this as a quiz question if it read "what game did Alfred Butts . . . " That makes it about the level of difficulty of a Final Jeopardy clue.
3.  What major U.S. company that went out of business in December 1991 shares its name with a new ABC TV series?  Pan Am, a TV show about how awesome it used to be to fly Pan Am.  Until time travel is invented: most pointless product placement ever!  correct
4.  What industry was decimated in 2006 by a syndrome called colony collapse disorder?  Beekeeping.  Colony collapse disorder, whose cause is still not well understood, has killed about 34% of American bees a year since then.  correct
5.  The world's largest sperm bank has just announced it will no longer accept donations from men with what easily apparent physical characteristic?  Redheads!  This seems a little drastic to me.  Can't they just discount the redheaded sperm and put it at the back of the store so you're tempted to buy a lot of other, more expensive sperm on the way back there?  correct
6.  Joe Sumner, the bassist for the band Fiction Plane, is the son of what musician?  His dad is fellow bassist Gordon Sumner, better known as Sting.  Sad postscript: the bee for which Sting is named died last year due to colony collapse disorder.  correct
7.  What unusual distinction is shared by these people, both real and fictional?  George Bailey, Lewis Carroll, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Stephen Colbert, Holly Hunter, Jane Lynch, Yao Ming, Nico, the Wife of Bath, Brian Wilson.  All are deaf in one ear.  I said, ALL ARE DEAF IN ONE EAR!  correct!