Happy birthday, Alex. On this date in 1755, Alexander Hamilton was born. He wrote: “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature by the hand of the divinity itself and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”
Well, that’s pretty much what we’re going to be testing these next few years, isn’t it? We’ll see what we can do. In the meantime, anyone got two tens for a twenty?
I started taking Zepbound recently and have lost 12 pounds since December 4. I feel good about it. So the obit of Dr. Joel Habener, who died in Newton, MA, at the age of 88 two weeks ago caught my eye. He discovered the stuff, but it’s one of the oddest-ass obits I’ve ever seen.
It spends a lot of time on the discovery, of course. It was almost by accident. (That seems to occur often. For example, Pringles were discovered by accident. They were trying to invent tennis balls.) He planned to work with rats, but found anglerfish to be much more suitable subjects. Happily, one of the folks in his lab had a brother who was a commercial fisherman.
When the key discovery was made, he joked to his wife: “I’m going to Stockholm.” In fact, his team and he won an assortment of prestigious awards, if not the Nobel.
And then the following appears:
In 2005, The Boston Globe reported that Dr. Habener had been accused of attacking his wife. He was indicted on charges of assault with intent to murder a victim over age 60, assault with a dangerous weapon of a victim over 60, and illegal possession of a firearm.
He waived his right to a jury trial and was found not guilty of assault with intent to murder, guilty but not criminally responsible for the other assault charge, and guilty of illegal firearms possession. He went on a medical leave of absence after the incident and returned in 2006 to continue his research.
Despite the above, the doc and his wife remained married. She died in 2017. His sole immediate survivor is his brother. And, of course, all of us fatties who are beyond thankful for his work. Rest in peace, doc.
Love the grid art in the puzzle today. That’s the Greek letter PHI, represented by an overlapping O and I. See it? — formed by the black squares in the center? ϕ.
Along with the art, eight times in the puzzle there was an answer pair with the letters PHI in one square going one way and the two letters I and O going the other way. For example, at 97A and 99D, Regis [PHI]LBIN was crossing FLIP-FLOP SANDALS (FL[I/O]P SANDALS). Very impressive construction, IMO, Dylan Schiff.
Stuff I learned from the puzzle today: 25A, “Sound from a ragdoll.” Answer PURR. What? A ragdoll is a breed of blue-eyed cat. So this doll is not Raggedy Ann (or Andy). Gorgeous.
Also learned that a division sign (in math) is not called a gozinta (as in five gozinta 20 four times). It’s called an obelus. You know, ÷.
The compound that ripens bananas is ETHENE. And as JonB3 explains: Ethene is a shortcut for ETHYLENE, H2C=CH2, a known plant growth regulator which hastens ripening.
Know what CONTES are? The clue was “Short adventure tales.” New to me. Conte is a literary genre of tales, often short, characterized by fantasy or wit. They were popular in the 17th and 18th centuries, until they merged with the short story in the 19th century.
Here’s a conte about NYC in which nothing profound happens, except that it does. It’s from today’s Met Diary and is by Malory Hom.
Dear Diary:
It was a Tuesday night, and I was headed home after teaching my adult literacy class.
I got on the subway at Wall Street. The man sitting across from me was noticeably dancing in his seat. When he got up to get off at his stop, he bumped fists with the man sitting next to him.
A few stops later, the second man asked if I wanted a bag of high-end hair products. He had just come from an event and didn’t need them because he was bald.
I accepted and asked if he knew the man who had fist-bumped him.
“No,” he said. “But he was grooving out.”
From The Onion:
DHS Releases Watchlist Of Mothers Driving Cars
“If you see a minivan with a ‘Baby on board’ sticker, do not engage—many of these women are armed with juice boxes and will not hesitate to use a wet wipe on your face. Maintain a safe distance from any compact SUVs playing Bluey on their entertainment systems.”
See you tomorrow! Thanks for dropping in.
The Wellington Files 