Enough tough questions, already; let's have answers

Say what you want about the sorry state of the mass media in these troubled times, but you've got to give credit to America's magazines: They're not afraid to ask the tough questions, the important questions, the cosmic questions that have perplexed the great sages of the ages. And they're not afraid to put those questions right on their covers for all to see:

What is spacetime?

Will humans last another 10,000 years?

Who's naughtier in bed: men or women?

Glance at a newsstand and you'll see so many magazine covers asking so many scintillating questions that you despair, knowing you'll never have the time to learn all the answers. But you're in luck: We've collected and digested these magazines and now, as a public service, we will reveal the best of these cover questions -- and the answers.

Q. Playboy: "Marilyn Monroe -- Was She Murdered?"

A. Maybe.

The official autopsy report listed the cause of Monroe's 1962 death from an overdose of Nembutal as "probable suicide." But Playboy thinks the real cause might have been, believe it or not, "murder by enema." Somebody could have given Monroe a sleeping pill that knocked her out and then "administered an enema filled with a toxic Nembutal solution."

The theory isn't particularly convincing, but it does raise another interesting question: Was this just an excuse to reprint some photos of Monroe naked?

Q. Men's Journal: "Tom Brady -- The Best Quarterback in NFL History?"

A. It's too early to tell.

As ex-coach Don Shula says in this article: "You can't say that yet. He's still relatively early in his career."

Q. American Photo: "Is Pam Art?"

A. Yes.

The Pam in question is not the popular aerosol cooking spray, it's Pamela Anderson, the "Baywatch" babe and former Playboy centerfold.

In 2000, Sante D'Orazio photographed Anderson for Playboy, but the photos never ran. Then D'Orazio injured his knee playing basketball and he got depressed and sat on his couch eating Doritos until he looked at his Pam photos and decided, "She was the earth goddess the Greeks called Demeter and the Romans called Ceres; she was Shekinah of Jewish mysticism; she was Eve and her apple; Mona Lisa and her smile."

That revelation got him up off his couch. He exhibited his Anderson photos in a gallery and published them in a book called "Pam: American Icon." An essay in the book asks, "Why did the Taliban blow up two colossal Buddhas in Bamiyan, Afghanistan?" The answer: "Because they couldn't get to Pamela Anderson." You read this article and you wonder: Is this just an excuse to run pictures of Pam naked?