Pupils, POWs and Pellicano

We have winners! Check out the results of the contest here.

Welcome to the first Opinion L.A. News Contest, an informal test of your media-spinning skills.

Today we have three juicy (or at least chewy) parts to our contest.

The first is a one-question trivia quiz in which the collective mental muscle of the readers will be tested against ours. (In other words, only two out of the 10 members of the Times editorial board got this week’s question right. Let’s see if you can do better.)

The second is a limerick contest. We’ll judge, and the best entry will win its composer some authentic L.A. Times swag.

Last of all we have everybody’s favorite, a caption contest. Give us your choice of caption for a strangely mesmerizing news photo. Again, judging will be done and swag will be awarded.

Let’s get started.

Trivia question:
If elected, John McCain would be the nation’s second president to have been a prisoner of war. Who was the first?

Send your answer to opinionla@latimes.com. We’ll post results later this week.

Limerick competition:
We’re already having trouble following the ins and outs of the Anthony Pellicano case. Can you boil the whole convoluted saga down to five lines with an A-A-B-B-A rhyme scheme? Of course you can.

Send your limerick to opinionla@latimes.com. We’ll announce a winner later this week.

Caption contest:
Here’s a photo from the L.A. Times staff that made us sit up and, uh, take notice:

Got a caption idea? Send it to opinionla@latimes.com. We’ll announce a winner, and the actual caption later this week.

Good luck, and thanks for reading.