Bluff The Listener
NPR
Saturday, November 21, 2015
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Our panelists tell three stories of selfies doing something good for once.
Transcript
BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We are playing this week with Faith Salie, P.J. O'Rourke and Alonzo Bodden. And here again is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Right now it's time for the WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
JOE PUMA: Hey there. This is Joe Puma from Norman, Okla.
SAGAL: Hey, Joe Puma. You sound like a corporate mascot.
PUMA: (Laughter) No, I'm here studying meteorology at the University of Oklahoma.
SAGAL: Really? Are you going to be a TV weatherman?
PUMA: Yes, that's the plan right now. Yep
SAGAL: Well, you clearly have the voice.
FAITH SALIE: Yeah.
SAGAL: You obviously have the name. And now here's Joe Puma with the weather. I can see it already.
O'ROURKE: How good are you at being completely wrong about rain?
(LAUGHTER)
PUMA: You know, we just had a quiz on that today, actually.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, it's good to have you with us, Joe. You're going to play the in which you must tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Joe's topic?
KURTIS: Selfie-gratification.
SAGAL: Selfies have done their share of evil in this world. They've made us more superficial. They brought us Kim Kardashian, and they took away Anthony Weiner. But this week...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...We learned about selfies doing some good for once. Our panelists are going to tell you about it. Pick the real story, you'll win our prize - Carl Kasell making duck face on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?
PUMA: I'm ready.
SAGAL: First, let's hear from Faith Salie.
SALIE: Elijah Bacal could've been living his dreams right if he'd been a little more selfie-less. You see, Bacal, wearing a ski mask, entered the People's United Bank in Underhill, Vt., and held up the loan teller by suggesting he had a gun inside his hoodie pocket. All went well for Bacal as the terrified teller promptly offered him stacks of hundred-dollar bills, which she stuffed into the Whole Foods tote he provided. But just before making what would've been a clean getaway, Bacal, whose only prior criminal record was a college arrest for disturbing the peace when his a cappella group got drunk, couldn't resist celebrating his heist with a selfie - selfie-brating, if you will. Pulling up his mask and brandishing some Benjamins, he smiled for himself on his iPhone 6 Plus. As he paused to add a filter, he heard sirens - extremely loud and incredibly close. He dropped his phone and ran, essentially leaving behind a high-resolution, megapixelled most wanted poster. Police found Elijah at the Apple Store in Burlington, logging into an iPad using the find my iPhone phone app. He looked almost as good as his selfie. Bacal's lawyer says her client will plead guilty but wants the world to know that he did it to fund his documentary on corporate greed.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: A selfie leads to the arrest of a bank robber. Your next story of a selfie we can all love comes from P.J. O'Rourke.
O'ROURKE: Good news - selfies make us healthies (ph). The National Institutes of Health are using selfies to study the symptoms and prevalence of America's health problems. Researchers - they observe selfies posted on Facebook. There's a special algorithm that sorts the selfies by age, gender, ethnicity and location of Facebook postings - to produce a statistical cross-section of the U.S. population. Using high-resolution photographic analysis, the researchers are able to examine the whole country, looking for signs - of selfie signs of obesity, malnutrition, symptoms of vitamin deficiencies, skin disorders, gum disease, dental decay, even by analyzing pupil dilation drug abuse. And there may be another benefit to this. We are learning a lot about idiocy. And maybe there's a hope for a vaccine, you know? And maybe someday, thanks to selfies, we won't be saying you can't cure stupid.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Selfies as a health diagnosis tool. And your last story of an unselfish selfie comes from Alonzo Bodden.
ALONZO BODDEN: In an age of high-tech training in MMA fighting, we now have MPD fighting. What's MPD? Monopod fighting, the classic strategy of hit him with a stick - a selfie stick to be precise.
(LAUGHTER)
BODDEN: Tourism is a big industry. Unfortunately, robbing tourists is also a big industry. M-PROFI Combat Sports Center in Moscow felt it was time tourists learn to protect themselves. Now tourists can't carry concealed weapons, but people want to feel secure while traveling - in comes the selfie stick. With proper training, selfie stick can take out an attacker of any size, says instructor Vlad Mensk (ph). And as a bonus, you can get a picture of your would-be assailant writhing in pain.
(LAUGHTER)
BODDEN: The training is approved by the Association of Safe Selfies. And after the training, students say they feel safer and more confident in their travels. So be careful next time you see a group of Russian teenage girls taking selfies. You might want to give them a wide berth, and know whatever you do, don't try creeping up on them.
SAGAL: All right.
(APPLAUSE)
PUMA: All right.
SAGAL: Nobody likes selfies, but one of our panelists is telling the truth about something good that could come from them - from Faith Salie - how a bank robber was caught by making his own selfie and then dropping his phone, from P.J. O'Rourke - how science researchers are using the proliferation of selfies across Facebook to diagnose problems with Americans, presumably such as spinach getting caught in their teeth, or from Alonzo Bodden - how the selfie stick has become an effective weapon of self-defense, as taught in one studio in Moscow. Which one is the real story?
PUMA: I'm going to have to go with the bank robber one.
SAGAL: The bank robber one - you mean Faith's story of the bank robber who took a selfie of himself robbing the bank, then dropped his phone.
PUMA: Yes.
SAGAL: You believe that's the sort of thing a bank robber would do.
PUMA: Yep.
SAGAL: Clearly, you've been listening to the show. All right...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...Well, to bring you the real story, we did, as always, speak to someone very familiar with it.
FREDA GARZA: The martial arts center is offering self-defense classes where tourists can actually learn how to use selfie sticks. Anyone can learn it, and it just takes five classes.
SAGAL: That was Freda Garza. She's a reporter at Quartz, talking about the selfie stick self-defense course being taught in Moscow. Sadly, you did not win our game, but you did earn a point for Faith.
SALIE: Thank you, Joe.
SAGAL: And thank you so much for playing.
PUMA: Yeah, thank you guys.
SAGAL: All right, bye-bye.
KURTIS: See you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PICTURES OF YOU")
THE CURE: (Singing) I've been looking so long at these pictures of you that I almost believed that they're real. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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