Timothy is a type of grass that is all over the f*ckin place in Europe and the U.S. but not in the Mediterranean region. It’s probably named after Timothy Hansen, the American farmer who introduced it into the southern states from New England.

And this is Indian Paintbrush:

This poem by Donald Hall, from yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac, is called “Old Roses.”

White roses, tiny and old, flare among thorns
by the barn door.
                                For a hundred years
under the June elm, under the gaze
of seven generations,
                                        they lived briefly
like this, in the month of roses,
                                                          by the fields
stout with corn, or with clover and timothy
making thick hay,
                                  grown over, now,
with milkweed, sumac, paintbrush.
                                                               Old
roses survive
winter drifts, the melt in April, August
parch,
             and men and women
who sniffed roses in spring and called them pretty
as we call them now,
                                       walking beside the barn
on a day that perishes.

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Despite having both legs amputated and being 85 years old, Lindsay Vonn told the press she is all set to go for Olympic gold. We are mostly interested in the Canadian Women’s Ice Hockey team this year (Go Sarah!), but we’ll be rooting for LV too. Lookin good, Babe! [Sorry to learn she crashed early in her run, and was airlifted out. Hope she’s okay.]

And our heroines on ice bested the Swiss yesterday, 4-0. Our Sarah (10) netted the key second goal (see below), and assisted on the first. We outshot the Cheese by around 50-5 (not exaggerating), but couldn’t really open it up until late. The Swiss goalie Maurer held tough for most of the game. We look forward to taking on the USA Tuesday, whose goalie Aerin Frankel (Hi Nance!) is a brick wall.

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Historian Heather Cox Richardson spent her entire newsletter today (2/7) on the network of concentration camps Stephen Miller is setting up around the country. There’s really no other term for them. Part of it covers the failure of the system to provide medical care to prisoners. But I want to share this piece of it, which is extraordinary.

ICE bought a building the size of seven football fields in [aptly named] Surprise, Arizona, outside Phoenix, for $70 million. Officials from Surprise stated: “The City was not aware that there were efforts underway to purchase the building, was not notified of the transaction, and has not been contacted by DHS or any federal agency about the intended use of the building. It’s important to note, Federal projects are not subject to local regulations, such as zoning.”

On Tuesday, February 3, more than a thousand people turned out for the Surprise City Council meeting to oppose the establishment of the concentration camp. One of the speakers reminded the council of Ohrdruf, the first Nazi camp liberated by U.S. troops, on April 4, 1945. He said:

“The U.S. Army brought the leading citizens of Ohrdruf to tour the facility, which turned out to be part of the Buchenwald network of concentration camps. A U.S. Army colonel told the German civilians who viewed the scenes without muttering a word that they were to blame. One of the Germans replied that what happened in the camp was ‘done by a few people,’ and ‘you cannot blame us all.’ And the American, who could have been any one of our grandfathers, said: ‘This was done by those that the German people chose to lead them, and all are responsible.’

“The morning after the tour, the mayor of Ohrdruf killed himself. And maybe he did not know the full extent of the outrages that were committed in his community, but he knew enough. And we don’t know exactly how ICE will use this warehouse. But we know enough. I ask you to consider what the mayor of Ohrdruf might have thought before he died. Maybe he felt like a victim. He might have thought, ‘How is this my fault? I had no jurisdiction over this.’ Maybe he would have said, ‘This site was not subject to local zoning, what could I do?’ But I think, when he reflected on the suffering that occurred at this camp, just outside of town, that those words would have sounded hollow even to him. Because in his heart he knew, as we do, that we are all responsible for what happens in our community.”

Amen to that, brother.

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Okay, let’s class up the joint a little. In yesterday’s puzzle, 37A posed a challenge that arises often. The clue this time was: “Instrument depicted in paintings by Hals and Caravaggio. So you know it’s an old-timey instrument, four letters. Sometimes you know it starts with an L and/or ends with an E. The problem: is it a LUTE or a LYRE? If you’re lucky, the crosses will resolve it. Yesterday it was a LUTE.

Today’s puzzle was a little ho-hum. Hidden words for boss in an Undercover Boss theme. Best one was SHOCKING PINK, hiding kingpin. See it?

At 50D the clue was “Drink from a tub?” and the answer was MOONSHINE.

At 77A, it was nice to see TIN MEN (“1987 Dreyfuss/DeVito comedy”), a movie I showed in my law class from time to time on the topic of fraud. It’s about aluminum siding salesmen and some of the scenes show their shady sales pitches. A Congressional home improvement commission investigates. Barbara Hershey was the female lead. Remember her?

Does she look Jewish to you? Half Jewish? Jew-ish, George? Her dad was Jewish. Now that I see her, she’d be well-cast if a movie were ever made about my sister Bonnie, aleha hashalom.

Barbara just turned 78 this week, kinehora. She was in a movie as recently as 2022 (9 Bullets). She has one child, a son whose dad is David Carradine. They named him Free, but he changed it to Tom when he was nine, for obvious reasons.

In Tin Men, as Hershey and Dreyfuss are falling in love, a Sinatra song is playing and Dreyfuss tells her that when he was younger he’d ask girls to hear Sinatra with him and he’d take them to the alley near the door to the theater where Sinatra was playing and they’d stand out there and listen. “Not very high-class,” Dreyfuss admitted. And Hershey said: “I’d stand in the alley with you.” [Sigh.]

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Work with leeks at all? I never have, but I learned something about them today. The clue at 8A was “Vegetables that should typically be sliced lengthwise before washing,” and the answer was LEEKS. Had no idea. This comes off Martha Stewart’s website:

Using a sharp chef’s knife, “cut the leek lengthwise, keeping the base or core intact and then gently opening the leek from the top and kind of fanning them out.” From there, since the leaves are still attached to the core, you are able to wash each layer well, under cold running water.

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From today’s Met Diary, by Janet Nelson.

Dear Diary:

I was walking on 77th Street to catch a bus up Amsterdam Avenue. And just before I got to the corner, I saw a bus sail away.

While I waited for the next one, an older woman joined me.

“We’ve just missed one,” I said. “Eight minutes to go.”

She said she was just taking a rest, not catching a bus.

Her accent was definitely British. Being British myself, I asked what had brought her here, and we began to chat.

I said I had married a fabulous American and had been happy for 56 years.

“I married a really dreadful American,” she said.

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My niece Tamar sent me a text yesterday wishing us a Happy Superb Owl Weekend. And that is what we at Owl Chatter wish for all of you! Thanks for dropping in. And Go Hawks! You got this, Sam.

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