Those of you who were planning to have gay sex in Uganda anytime soon, it would be better if you don’t. Under a law passed Tuesday, it’s a crime punishable by life in prison. Just trying to have it will get you a seven-year term. I’m not sure what “trying” means — the article in the NYT didn’t explain. In cases of “aggravated homosexuality,” e.g., if children are involved, the law calls for the death penalty.
The lawmaker who introduced the legislation said it was needed because there was a “public outcry” over a plot to recruit schoolchildren into homosexuality — an allegation that rights advocates have said is baseless. Also, last month, a high-ranking Ugandan military officer urged health officials not to treat homosexual people in government health centers. The article noted that the U.S. provides close to $1 billion in aid to Uganda annually.
The national symbol of Uganda is the grey-crowned crane, fabled for its gentle nature. It’s on the flag. Looks a little gay, no?
Moving from the horrific to the ridiculous, where Owl Chatter is much more comfortable, the puzzle today used the clue “apprehension” for the answer DREAD. It caused LMS some discomfiture:
I’m still not happy with any definition I see of the word DREAD. For me, it’s usually neither fear nor apprehension. It’s simply that I’m really, really not looking forward to doing something. I’m not afraid of checking Mom’s air conditioning filter. Not at all. Not apprehensive. I’m just not looking forward to her standing at the foot of the ladder scrutinizing my every move, offering suggestions. Honestly, I’ve started telling her that I’m happy to do whatever task (adjust sprinkler, put freeze guard thingies on outside spickets, change a fluorescent bulb), but I tell her that she’s not allowed to watch. Once she had me fix her Kia side mirrors so that they retracted when the engine was shut off. I told her she had to stay away while I did this. When I finished, I jumped out of my skin ‘cause she was peering around the wall of the vestibule in the carport. Watching. Cue Twilight Zone music.
Today’s constructor was David Kwong, who is not only a cruciverbalist (XW puzzle person), but is a magician. LMS shared this amazing magic trick video in which Kwong combines magic and XW puzzles. Plus, you get to meet Will Shortz.
The clue at 46A was “Crow known to sing,” and the answer, of course, was SHERYL. Here she is:
She turned 61 last month — ouch! — and has sold over 50 million records. She was nominated for Grammys 32 times and won 9. She’s from Kennett, Missouri. She received a degree in music education from the U. of Missouri. Go Tigers! Her mom was a piano teacher, and her dad a lawyer and trumpet player. Once when he was arguing a case in court a little too heatedly, the judge said to him, “Easy does it, Satchmo.” [No he didn’t.]
Sheryl hasn’t been married, but she dated Eric Clapton and Owen Wilson. She was also engaged to Lance Armstrong, but they split after a couple of years when he found out she couldn’t ride a bike. She lives in West Nashville, TN, with two adopted children. She had breast cancer back in 2006 and is being monitored for a benign brain tumor. Owl Chatter hopes she’s okay. Thanks for dropping in Crow!
According to a front page story in the NYT today, DNA evidence has determined that Beethoven was Jewish. Also that he was a woman. No joke! A lock of hair thought to have been clipped from Beethoven’s head during his final illness was tested and is indisputably the hair of an Ashkenazi Jewish woman. According to the Times, the only other possible explanation is that it wasn’t Beethoven’s hair, which seems preposterous. Beethoven died from liver disease at the age of 56, which, since he would have been dead by now anyway, turns out not to have mattered. Here’s her picture. She looks sort of Jewish, no? Jew-ish?
Congrats to the Japanese baseball team who beat us fair and square for the WBC title.
The center fielder for the J-Squad was Lars Nootbaar, an outfielder for St. Louis during the regular season. Lars was born and raised in California. Nootbaar is a Dutch name — his dad was an American of Dutch, German, and English descent. Lars qualified for the team because his mom was Japanese.
Lars is the great-grandson of businessman and philanthropist Herbert Nootbaar, an early benefactor of Honkbal Hoofdklasse. That’s not a person — it’s the highest level of competitive baseball in the Netherlands. There are nine teams in that league, including Quick Amersfoort, Twins Oosterhout, and the Hoofddorp Pioniers.
I’ll just let myself out now — no need to get up. See you tomorrow!
How wonderful — Owl Chatter Vermont-friend Lizzie tells us there was a big Hackberry tree in the front yard where she grew up and she can still picture it. Here’s one from down in Florida.
The hackberry is a deciduous tree, meaning it sheds its leaves in autumn. They are usually medium-sized, growing up to around 80 feet tall.
Small flowers appear in early spring while the leaves are still developing. Male flowers are longer and fuzzy. Female flowers are greenish and more rounded.
The fruit is a small drupe (fleshy with thin skin and a central pit) about a half-inch in diameter, edible in many species, with a dryish but sweet, sugary consistency, reminiscent of a date.
Drupe is a new word for me. It’s an anagram of prude, but with three of the letters retaining their position. On the issue of an anagram with all five letters changing their spot (like DECOR and CREDO, and DOULA and ALOUD), someone noted it shouldn’t be too rare since each five-letter word will have 44 permutations like that. Is that true? How do you get to that?
I asked the guy who wrote that (mathgent) how he got it. Apparently, it’s over my paygrade because he answered: “Permutations of an ordered string where no item is in the same position are called derangements. There’s a complicated formula for calculating it. It’s a summation of factorial expressions.”
Derangements! Cool. Does our official Owl Chatter mathematician have anything to add?
Our friend Joe recommended a book on Jewish Humor by Columbia prof Jeremy Dauber. It got off to a good start:
“You want to hear a joke? I’ll tell you a joke. What’s green, is nailed to the wall, and whistles?
I give up.
A herring.
But a herring’s not green!
Well, you can paint it green.
But it’s not nailed to the wall!
You could nail it to the wall. If you wanted to.
But a herring doesn’t whistle!
All right, fine, so it doesn’t whistle.”
He then asks if that’s a “Jewish” joke, and if so why? The syntax? The smart-ass sensibility? The subversive jab at the very form of a joke? The refusal to provide the closure of a punch line? Or is it just a joke about herring?
We’ll have to leave it there for now. Willis Reed died.
In the puzzle today, 10D was ZIPTIE, “plastic fastener.” Rex conceded there are many uses for them, but it gave him the willies since he associates them now with the Jan 6 insurrection and police action.
It led to this comment from JHC:
“Rex: My kids have a subscription to a monthly science kit. This month one of the projects was to build a homemade air rocket launcher. At one point the parts were secured together with a ZIPTIE. So there’s a much more innocuous image for you to associate with the product.
“With Passover coming up, I’m reminded of a sidebar in our Hagaddah that talks about how wine is used at the Seder as a symbol of freedom when so many have become enslaved to alcohol. The lesson is that no object is inherently good or bad; it’s the choices people make in using it that have moral value.”
OK, fair enough. But has anyone told Zelensky about that rocket launcher kit?
Headline in The Onion: Catholic High School Newsletter Has Updates On Which Alumni Are In Hell Now.
Willis Reed, Hall of Fame ballplayer for the Knicks, died yesterday. He was 80 and had heart disease. By all accounts — 100% — he was a real mensch. His death was confirmed by his teammate and U.S. Senator from NJ, Dollar Bill Bradley. I remember seeing Reed play in one of his first games as a rookie in Madison Square Garden when I was in high school. You could sense a new era beginning for the Knicks (even though they lost that night, d’oh!). They won two championships during Reed’s tenure (1969-70, and 72-73) and have not won any since. He was the league MVP in 69-70, Rookie of the Year in 1965, and an All-Star seven times.
Reed will always be remembered for his gritty, emotional appearance in Game 7 of the first championship run. He had torn a muscle in Game 5, and sat out Game 6. It wasn’t clear if the Knicks could beat the Chamberlain-led Lakers without him. He skipped the pre-game warmups getting treatments. But he limped onto the court to start the game to thunderous applause, and sank his first two shots. His teammates took over from there and carried the night. I remember listening to the game on the car radio as my brother drove us up to Boston.
In 1990, around the 20th anniversary of Game 7, Reed told The Times: “There isn’t a day in my life that people don’t remind me of that game.”
His #19 is the first number retired by the Knicks.
This is a story I hadn’t heard. On Oct. 18, 1966, at Madison Square Garden, Reed was embroiled in a battle with the Lakers’ Rudy LaRusso, a bruising 6-foot-7 forward. Throughout the game, Reed had been complaining to the officials about LaRusso’s tactics, but when his pleas were ignored he acted on his own.
Lined up at the free-throw line late in the third quarter, Reed elbowed LaRusso to the side of the head. On the way up court, LaRusso responded with a chopping punch. Reed, in a sudden fury, shook off Darrall Imhoff’s bear hug from behind and floored the 6-foot-10 Imhoff, cutting him near the eye; he broke the nose of John Block, a 6-foot-9 rookie, who had foolishly stepped into his space; and he finally chased LaRusso into the Lakers’ bench, throwing wild punches and sending several of the players fleeing.
Reed later took his teammates to task for not jumping in to help him. In his defense, Dick Barnett said, “Man, you were winning.”
Off the court, Reed was gentle and very generous, always taking rookies under his wing and lending them whatever they needed until they got established. He had a good heart.
I can understand the desire to recapture one’s youth, but I’m not sure I’d want to go through high school again. So what are we to make of the story in the NYT today of Hyejeong Shin? Shin, who is 29, came to the U.S. from South Korea to attend a boarding school in Massachusetts at age 16. She later graduated from Rutgers with a degree in Poli Sci and Chinese. She was divorced two years ago. In January, she used false documents to enroll in New Brunswick High School. She attended classes, met with counselors, and “wandered the hallways” for several days before the kimchi hit the fan. Harmless? She faces up to five years in prison if convicted of the falsified documents charges brought against her. Setting aside the question of what would be worse — five years in prison, or four years in high school — what the hell is going on?
One of her lawyers conceded it might be hard to understand but she was just trying to recreate the sense of safety she felt at the boarding school when she first arrived in the country. The pain of the divorce and the long separation from her family caused her to act “uncharacteristically.” The police stated there was no evidence she intended to bring harm or violence to anyone in the community. She had fallen behind by roughly $20,000 in her rent — there is that. But her lawyers said that was likely linked to the divorce.
In a personal statement she wrote a while ago she said she practiced meditation and enjoyed singing “when no one is around. I can be very quiet, but I do slowly open up and start talking more as I become more comfortable.” She is in the U.S. legally and hopes to return to her homeland when the case concludes.
What a sad and unusual story. Owl Chatter hopes things start taking good turns for the troubled woman. Here she is with her lawyer, right before running off for an algebra test.
The puzzle today was a delicious pile of nonsensical wordplay. The theme called for phrases that repeated the last part of a word three times. Here are the four theme answers:
1. Injury that’s so embarrassing no one is allowed to mention it?
TABOO BOOBOO
2. Result of forgetting to pack a toothbrush for a Doha vacation?
QATAR TARTAR
3. Cuban dance performed at a Russian villa?
DACHA CHA CHA
(BTW, “dacha” is pronounced with the ch as in cheese, not with a K sound. I took Russian for a few years but don’t remember that. Don’t remember anything, actually.)
4. Indistinct muttering from a ring-tailed primate?
LEMUR MURMUR
Commenters suggested others:
VISCOUS COUSCOUS wasn’t bad.
Same for the colorful bird dance: TOUCAN CAN CAN
And these three:
Malian ballerina’s attire? TIMBUKTU TUTU Nebraskan’s response to a joke? OMAHA HAHA One who fails to pick up on sly hints? INNUENDO DODO
My favorite was:
“Barrier constructed in the style of a city in Washington.”
Answer: WALL ALA WALLA WALLA
Here’s a shot of that DODO:
Wordle came up in the commentary. The word yesterday was CREDO and someone mentioned he guessed DECOR, thus getting all five letters, but all out of position. The two words are anagrams where none of the letters share the same position. He wondered if there was a term for that, but no one came up with one. I’m guessing there isn’t. Someone else noted that a puzzle answer today forms another duo like that. The answer was DOULA, and you can anagram it to ALOUD.
Endlessly fascinating and brain-numbingly boring at the same time — how does that happen?
Rex’s take on the puzzles is often way different from most people’s. It’s part of his charm, or terribly annoying. (Owl Chatter is in the former camp. We are fans.) Anyway, on Sunday, commenter Joaquin put it nicely, thus:
“I almost never agree with @Rex (about anything). But you know what they say: ‘Crosswords make strange bedfellows.’ And here Rex and I are today – fighting over the covers.”
Rex posted the following recently. If you are a puzzle person, you may enjoy following up (by clicking on the link). I did so last year and it was fun.
“The ultra-successful “These Puzzles Fund Abortion” fundraiser is back for another round with “These Puzzl3s Fund Abortion” (This Time, There’s a “3” In The Title). As before, the idea is that you donate at least $15 to one (or more) of the five abortion funds they’re supporting, and you get 16 puzzles from top-flight constructors like Ada Nicolle (who made yesterday’s stellar puzzle) as well as Brooke Husic, Rafael Musa, Natan Last, Rebecca Goldstein, and many more.”
It all comes down to one game tonight — the U.S. vs Japan for the World Baseball Championship. This pretty cheerleader will be rooting for her countrymen, no doubt.
According to UNESCO, it’s World Poetry Day today. Let’s see if Owl Chatter’s poet laureate, Ted Kooser, has something for us.
This is from Winter Morning Walks.
Fifty or sixty small gray birds with crests in a bare hackberry tree this morning early, not one of them making a sound or even the neat black silhouette of a sound against the rising sun. They let me walk up close, then one by one they leapt from their perches and dropped and caught the air and swung away into the north, becoming a ribbon first, and then, in the distance, confetti, as they sprinkled their breathtaking silence into another bare tree.
With Stephanie Gregory “Stormy Daniels” Clifford back in the news, Owl Chatter is taking a look at sides of her that the public hasn’t gotten to see. First, she’s a mom to her beautiful daughter Caiden, who is now 12.
Second, did you know she was a declared candidate for the U.S. Senate from Louisiana back in 2010? That’s a good 8 years before we heard about her for the sordid Trump business. She had been a Democrat for most of her life, but was drawn to the libertarian aspects of the GOP, so she ran as a Republican, seeking David Vitter’s seat. She made several listening tours around Louisiana to focus on the economy, as well as women in business and child protection. She said she’d retire from the adult industry if elected. But she dropped out of the race saying she could not afford to undertake it, and complaining that the media never took her candidacy seriously. Someone must have been taking it seriously — her campaign manager’s car was blown up at one point — Yikes! No one was hurt.
In May of 2018, she appeared on Saturday Night Live, and she appeared as a dancer in the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up. Hang in there Daniels!
Today’s puzzle’s theme was Dine and Dash, which is what it’s called when you dine at a restaurant and then dash off without paying. It’s more serious than the mere social “crime” Eat and Run. It inspired a few tales:
From egsforbreakfast:
One year during college, my brother worked as a short order cook at the Duck In drive in, as did Steve Prefontaine. For those not in the know, Pre was one of the premier middle distance runners in the country and, eventually, internationally. One day a guy did the DINEANDDASH thing, so Pre took off after him and ran him down. To this day I chuckle when I think of that hard-luck, would-be thief looking back and seeing the hopelessness of outrunning his pursuer.
And from GILL I:
I did it once.
Right after graduating high school from the American School of Madrid, my two girlfriends and I decided we’d go on a southern trip to Gibraltar and a little boat ride HOP to Tangier.
We were dirt poor and relied on some hitchhiking to get us to our destination. Although you didn’t see many “Americanas” standing on “out-of-the-way” roads, trying to hitch a free ride, we always got some sweet farmer to give us a lift. We’d flip a peseta to see who’d get the back of the truck usually filled with a goat or two. Those were the days, my friend.
Anyway, by the time we got to Granada, we were dirty and hungry. We found a cheap little pension in the center of the city that had a shower (shared by about 20 other men) and two small beds. It was clean and it had the view of the town square so we were content. But we were also hungry.
After getting cleaned up we headed to a local tapas bar to nibble on bread and mejillones and maybe a little tortilla. Four (ahem) older men came up to the bar and started flirting with us. They insisted on paying for our tapas and then insisted we have dinner with them in a restaurant near the Alhambra. I guess you could say we were desperate because we accepted. Up, up, and up we went through charming cobblestone paths, passing Gypsy flamingo dances enticing us to enter their caves and watch. Only vente duros they would shout… but we were on another quest.
We got to the restaurant and the ordering began. I even remember what we ate this long time ago. Pheasant!
Our “dates” were becoming drunker and more (shall I say) aggressive. We were young but not yet stupid. The bill arrived and my TWO girlfriends and I told them we needed to use el WC. They politely got up from their seats to let us go. Once alone, we decided to DASH. We actually SPLIT. We left around the back and started running down the cobblestone street. The men decided to run after us shouting much worse than any F WORD you’ve ever heard. I remember laughing so hard that I probably soiled myself. The gypsies were standing outside their caves clapping, dogs were barking. My friend Robyn lost her shoe and a dog bit Erica’s dress and ripped some of her skirt off. The men were still shouting at us but we were younger and spryer. We finally made it to our pension. We just stood there in a daze then began laughing madly. We actually laughed for days after our ne’er do well soiree.
I’ve told this story a thousand times because recalling that night brings me nothing but joy. I have never done another DINE and DASH since; it would never be the same but hot damn it was fun.
J. Caramanica’s review in the NYT today of Taylor Swift’s current Eras tour was serious and engaging. It focused on two songs: “The most meaningful TS recording of the past few years is almost certainly ‘All Too Well (10 Minute Version)(Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault),’ as layered and provocative as its title is unwieldy. A revision and expansion of one of her most gutting songs, it dissects a problematic, lopsided and ultimately scarring relationship with forensic detail.” It says this version of the song is enriched by Swift’s understanding of herself today that she couldn’t have seen when she first wrote it over ten years ago. She performed it about halfway through the three-hour show “at the center of the long runway stage, elevated on a platform, holding 70,000 people rapt with this tale of righteous fury and anguish. Plenty were singing along with her, but somehow, the accumulated voices sounded like one huge hush, students in awe of the master class.”
Later in the review, he mentions a series of songs towards the end of the show, and says “But something far more meaningful had come just before. During an acoustic segment, she came out to the very farthest point of the stage, sat at a small piano and played her very first single, ‘Tim McGraw.’ It was the night’s other pillar performance. It’s a song about memory and the ways in which people fail each other, and she sang it heavy with regret and tinged with sweetness.
“But unlike ‘All Too Well,’ which now benefits from the wisdom that time affords, ‘Tim McGraw’ remained as raw as the day it was recorded. No real tweaks, no rejoinder from the new Swift to the old one — just a searing take on the sort of love that makes for a better song than relationship. There are some things Swift simply has understood all along.”
Good night readers! Glad you could pop in today — thanks! Owl Chatter surpassed its 150th post this week. Ridiculous.
Men who have become bald can participate in suction cup tug-of-war. It’s a sport hosted annually by the Japanese town of Tsuruta.
Operating under the motto “The light of baldness is the light of peace, illuminating the dark world brightly,” the Tsuruta Hagemasu Association has been trying to shed a positive light on baldness. Baldness can cause some men to lose self-esteem, go into depression or develop anxiety. And those are the good side effects. But Hagemasu wants its members to know that they can brighten the world with their baldness through positivity. Amen to that, Hagemasu!
In the competition, suction cups connected by a string are attached to the heads of the competitors and the tugging begins. The first to have his cup pop off loses.
A Mr. Ota won this year for the third consecutive time, making him one of the most successful participants in the history of the sport. I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of him. He has a rather flat crown of the head, which may be an advantage. Tricks participants sometimes use include polishing their heads or slightly altering the force with which they pull in order to force the opponent’s mistake.
Suction cup tug-of-war can be played by men with hair, and even women who attach the suction cups to their foreheads, but baldies dominate the sport. The smoother and flatter the surface, the better the suction.
Where else but in Owl Chatter can you find material like this? I ask you.
The puzzle today drew on Romeo and Juliet. At 37A, the clue was “Response to thumb-biting in ‘Romeo and Juliet,’” and the answer was DO YOU QUARREL SIR?
As you should know from high school English, to bite one’s thumb at someone is an act of insolence, akin to giving one the finger today. Here’s the scene:
“I will bite my thumb at them, which is disgrace to them if they bear it.”
“Do to bite your thumb at us, sir?”
“I do bite my thumb, sir.”
“Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?”
“No, sir. I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir.”
“Do you quarrel, sir?”
“Quarrel, sir? No, sir.”
“But if you do, sir, I am for you. I serve as good a man as you.”
“No better?”
“Well, sir. “
Whew. Close one.
Here’s Olivia Hussey, who played J in the Zefferelli film version.
The Israeli national baseball team was overmatched after its exciting win over Nicaragua. They lost to the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela, and the competition is over for them. There was a lot of good feelings from the experience though, and they are guaranteed a spot in the next World Baseball Classic in 2026.
In a special ceremony, Israel and the Dominican Republic signed a memorandum of understanding to emphasize the friendship between the two countries. The event was a follow-up to a trip to Israel some DR players took last fall. And later this year, there will be a charity softball game in the DR between Dominican and Jewish-American players.
There is history here. Back in 1938, the Dominican Republic was the only country that took in Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis.
Nelson Cruz, an 18-year MLB veteran with almost 500 career home runs who played for the Nats last year, spoke about the importance of spreading love. “Right now, what’s connecting us is baseball, and a love of baseball,” he said, addressing kids from a Jewish youth group. “God created us all equal, it doesn’t matter what color, what gender you’re coming from. We should all stay together.”
You tell ’em, Nellie.
Speaking of Jews in sports, Owl Chatter just learned that Jon Scheyer, the first-year basketball coach at Duke, replacing legendary Coach K, is Jewish. He’s 35, born in Illinois, and had a bar-mitzvah. He played college ball at Duke and was on the coaching staff since 2013. He’s getting paid $8 million a year. (Yow!)
Scheyer’s wife Marcelle and he have a daughter, Noa, and a son, Jett. No one beats the OC photographers at getting kids to laugh. What did you do this time, Philly, you big nut?
What a nice image to end with tonight! See you tomorrow.
Hard to come up with a better headline than the one AOL News just threw at me: “Family Feud Contestant Charged With Murdering Wife.” I guess the feud got a little out of hand.
And so can sports celebrations: Ouch! The Mets lost their ace reliever Edwin Diaz for the season on Wednesday when he tore a tendon in his right knee celebrating Puerto Rico’s victory over the Dominican Republic. He pitched the ninth inning, hugged his brother who is also on the team, and started bouncing up and down with his teammates in what the NYT described as a fairly tame celebration. But something happened and he crumpled to the ground.
At least no one got killed there, like in Georgia. That’s what happened in January after U. of Georgia won the National Championship (in football). A day after the victory parade, Jalen Carter, a defensive tackle for the Bulldogs competed in a drag race with Chandler LeCroy, a recruiting analyst for the team, who had been drinking. Both cars were going about 100 miles an hour and darted into oncoming traffic. LeCroy’s car left the road and hit a pole, killing him and Devin Willock, a team member.
The Diaz injury is devastating for the Mets. He was pretty much unhittable the past two years, and they had just signed him to a $105 million contract. Yadi Molina, the manager of the Puerto Rican team, said it was God’s will. That makes sense. It’s not clear if that goes for the two dead people in Georgia too, but probably, right?
You know those little Drake’s cakes, with the crumbly stuff on top? They’re delicious. Let’s give one to every member of every winning sports team from now on and that can be enough celebration. You can get them individually wrapped so if there are extras they won’t go to waste. Problem solved.
In its 1943 holding in Barnette, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that schools can’t force kids to recite the pledge of allegiance. Justice Reggie Jackson wrote the opinion. [Note: It was Robert Jackson, but I like the thought of Reggie on the Court.] It states: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
In Pamela’s Paul’s Op-Ed piece today in the NYT, she wrote about Marisa Barnwell, a 15-year-old Black honor student in Lexington, South Carolina, who was inspired by Colin Kaepernick, and is refusing to participate in the Pledge. Her parents are suing the school because she was assaulted by a teacher over it. And on Facebook a comment urged her to “go back to her monkey cage in Africa if she doesn’t like to recite the pledge to the country that’s doing her and her retarded family a favor by letting them live among decent humans.”
And, speaking of decent human beings, Simone Segouin died on February 21, at age 97, in Courville-sur-Eure, France. Her nom de guerre was Nicole Minet, and she was a simple, pretty farm girl, 17 years old, who learned how to use a submachine gun, joined the Resistance, and killed Germans.
Nicole was introduced to the Resistance by Roland Boursier, a lieutenant and local Resistance leader, with whom she later had six children. She started out with small jobs, e.g., serving as a messenger, but soon was involved in major operations like blowing up trains. She was one of a trio of partisans who personally killed a pair of German soldiers in an ambush. She was featured in an article in the Sept. 4, 1944 issue of Life magazine.
After the war, she received the Croix de Guerre, a military honor for heroism in combat. She worked as a pediatric nurse. A street in Courville-sur-Eure was named after her.
Rest in peace, pretty farm girl.
Today’s puzzle was a first for constructor Carter Cobb and it was terrific. Everybody’s favorite was at 17A: “Join a boxer rebellion?” It had nothing to do with boxing or dogs. The boxer is underwear, and the answer was GO COMMANDO, which is a term that means to not wear underwear. Joey gave it some notoriety on Friends but it actually derives from the military. Commandos in the field for great lengths of time just couldn’t always take care to have fresh (or even tolerable) underwear so often did without. It applies to both men and women.
At 40A, “Ones calling across the ocean?” was BLUE WHALES, the largest animals ever known to have lived on earth. They can be 100 feet long and weigh 200 tons. They are carnivores and live 80 to 90 years. Our intrepid Owl Chatter photographers really went the extra nautical mile to get this shot:
This was cute too: “Retirement plan whose prospects are looking good?” The answer was BEAUTY REST. Get it? — retirement plan.
And “Staples of horror movies?” was JUMP SCARES. Remember that great one in Wait Until Dark? Audrey Hepburn. Alan Arkin.
“Slangy lunch fare,” was a SAMMICH.
Good puzzle!
Thanks for wasting some time with us! We’re celebrating friend Dan’s birthday tomorrow with dinner in Somerville. Can’t wait!
Special Owl Chatter cheers for Jacob Steinmetz of the Israeli National Baseball Team. Jake is the first ever Orthodox Jew to be drafted by a Major League team — the Arizona Diamondbacks. He was the starting pitcher for Israel against DR on Tuesday (the Dominican Republic) and gave up one run and two hits in an inning and a third while facing the entire DR lineup. He struck out Manny Machado, one of the best hitters in the game, and Jeremy Pena, last year’s World Series MVP. After several pitches got by Juan Soto, he gave Jake a “pretty impressive” face look.
Whatever his mom gave him, he ate. Steinmetz is 6’5″ and weighs 220. He’s 19, was born in Queens, and raised on Long Island. He is willing to play ball on the Sabbath as long as he can walk to and from the stadium. He says he’s only felt warm support so far from teammates and fans. No anti-Semitism.
Cheers as well for Owl Chatter fave Ana de Armas who wowed them at the Oscars last Sunday in her bid to snare the award for Best Actress for her performance in Blonde. She was beaten out by Michelle Yeow, but no hard feelings. Here she is in the gown she wore, followed by a more relaxed, if no less devastating, pose.
Congresswoman Pat Schroeder died in Florida on Monday. She was 82. Oliver North called her one of the nation’s 25 most dangerous politicians. She was a pilot herself, and fought for women to have the right to fly combat missions. She was elected to Congress in 1972 out of Colorado, as an opponent of the Vietnam War. She helped pass the law that bars employers from firing women because they are pregnant and from denying maternity benefits. That reminds me, when I was working for the notoriously cheap Journal of Taxation, I once asked the bookkeeper if the company offered maternity benefits, and she said “Yeah — you get to keep the baby.”
Schroeder was one of only 14 women in the House when she was elected and she confronted extraordinary hostility. She was the first woman to sit on the Armed Services Committee, and at the first committee meeting she was forced to sit in the same chair with Rep. Ron Dellums, a Black committee member. You may have to read that last sentence again — it’s hard to believe. As Schroeder tells it in her book, she and Dellums had to sit “cheek to cheek” because the Chairman “said that women and blacks were worth only half of one regular member.” (The Chairman was F. Edward Hebert, of Louisiana.) The NYT states it is not clear whether he actually uttered those words, but the seating arrangement is not in dispute. Hard to imagine AOC being told to squoosh her tush into half a seat today without it registering on a seismograph.
Schroeder won her seat by ousting a Republican incumbent in the face of the Nixon landslide in 1972. Years later, when she requested her F.B.I. file, Schroeder found out that the bureau had placed her under surveillance during that race, breaking into her home and even recruiting her husband’s barber as an informant. She was re-elected eleven times with little opposition.
She is survived by her son, her brother, four grandchildren, her husband, and her husband’s barber.
I learned something new today, indirectly, from the puzzle. Rex said he felt the spelling of one of the answers seemed “jury-rigged.” I thought he meant “jerry rigged,” and I was going to politely correct him. But I’m glad I checked first. I mistakenly thought jury rigged was a legal thing — when you buy off a member of the jury. But it isn’t — Rex used the term correctly. It’s from the “jury mast” on a ship. The jury mast is used in an emergency to replace a damaged mast – it’s a hasty and temporary repair. And “jerry rigged” just means put together badly. That would have been correct too in this case.
There was some grumbling about MIDGUT as an answer for “intestines place.” Rex didn’t accept the term as real, and felt one’s gut is one’s intestines. But medical people quickly weighed in and all agreed it is a valid anatomical term, e.g., “I am a physician and midgut is sort of a word. It’s usually used in association with the condition ‘Midgut Volvulus.’ It’s more of an embryologic term, in which there is a foregut, midgut and hindgut and they develop into different things. the midgut develops into the intestines and if something goes wrong, you get a twisting called a Volvulus which can be life threatening and needs to be recognized quickly after birth.”
One person shared this story: “My younger son was born on December 20, 1989 and developed life threatening health issues three days later, leading to a helicopter flight from Central Louisiana to New Orleans (without mom or dad) for a tiny baby, and what I have and will always describe as emergency surgery–Sunday afternoon, Christmas Eve!! The life threatening issue was a MIDGUT Volvulus (so I have no problem with MIDGUT as a legit medical term). Thanks to a gracious and skilled pediatric surgeon, we received our son from the pediatric NICU at the Ochsner Clinic on Christmas morning. He’s thirty-three now, and married.” [I assume he means the son, not the surgeon.]
Henny Youngman: “Every time I ask what time it is, I get a different answer.”
Mort SAHL was in the puzzle again. Here’s what he said about Reagan: “Washington couldn’t tell a lie, Nixon couldn’t tell the truth, and Reagan couldn’t tell the difference. Reagan won because he ran against Jimmy Carter. If he ran unopposed he would have lost.”
Here’s a poem by Ted Kooser from Winter Morning Walks.
All through the night, the deeply troubled, sighing furnace has tried to console one whimpering floorboard that wants to return to its tree.
Beyond the walls, milky, translucent snow, brushed into drifts by the long blue fingers of shadow.
The snow has gathered as much of the light as it can from the stars, but that’s not enough warmth to kindle the eyes of even one rabbit, frozen still as a stone at the corner of morning.
Too tired to chatter tonight. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.
Trevor Bauer, who was suspended by Major League Baseball for abusing women, was released by the Dodgers last year and no other club showed any interest in him despite his winning the NL Cy Young award in 2020. The suspension cost him $37.5 million, the highest figure lost by a player under Baseball’s domestic abuse policies. He signed a contract to play for the Yokohama Baystars of Nippon Pro Baseball in Japan this year.
“I can’t tell you how excited I am to be playing for the Baystars this year. Playing in the NPB has always been a dream of mine,” said Bauer, in a statement that set new records for bullshit, according to researchers at Cal Tech.
Fresh off of their stunning victory over Nicaragua on Sunday, the Israeli national baseball team took the day off on Monday. Unfortunately, they were playing Puerto Rico at the time. So they lost 10-0 and failed to get any player to first base. Ouch! Even hugging The Mensch on the Bench didn’t help. Observers have noted the Mensch is the only team mascot who wears a tallis. Hope they do better against the Dominican Republic today.
I have good memories of Joe Pepitone, who died yesterday at age 82, but Mickey Mantle, who was very funny, may have summed him up well when he quipped, “I wish I could buy you for what you’re really worth, then sell you for what you think you’re worth.”
[As a side note on Mantle, there is a very funny scene in which Casey Stengel and Mantle have been called to testify before a Congressional hearing on baseball. Rather than me describing it, take a listen — it’s under two minutes. Casey engages in his usual doubletalk, and Mantle’s response is on point.]
Pepitone’s career got off to a fine start, with three All-Star appearances, three gold gloves, and two World Series. (The Yanks lost to the Dodgers in 1963, and the Cards in 1964. Joe hit a grand-slam homerun in Game Six in 1964.) But his life-style and bad habits got the better of him and he slipped badly on the field and in life.
He was serious about his hair. Jim Bouton said Pepitone went nowhere without a large bag full of hair products. He was the first player to bring a hair dryer into the Yankee clubhouse, and he wore an assortment of toupees. One flew off of his head along with his cap one time when he was running from second to third, and when play stopped and he turned around to look for it, he saw it sitting on second base. The umpire ruled it was part of him and called him out when it was tagged. [No he didn’t.]
When his MLB days were over, he signed a lucrative contract to play in Japan, but that was a disaster. He hated the rigid team rules and long practices. He played only 14 games in Japan, batting .163 with just one home run. His notoriety for hanging out in discos at night and then calling in sick to skip a game caused “pepitone” to become a Japanese term for “goof off.” [I’m not joking.]
In 1975, Joe published a memoir that was open and honest about his difficulties. He also posed nude for Foxy Lady magazine that year, continuing the open and honest theme, I guess. At his lowest, he spent four months in Riker’s Island in 1988, for two misdemeanor drug charges. I imagine the RI baseball team kicked ass in the Prison League that year.
He was popular enough culturally for his name to be mentioned in episodes of “The Golden Girls,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “The Sopranos” and “Seinfeld.” In one Seinfeld episode, Kramer explains to some tourists that Joe Pepitone designed New York’s Central Park.
Joe was married three times, but went O for 3. He is survived by five children, several grandchildren, at least one great-grandchild, two hits, and no men left on base. He had recently moved from Long Island to Kansas City to be closer to his daughter Cara.
Here he is, in happier days, with Maris and Mantle. They’re all gone now, but not forgotten. At least not in Owl Chatter. Rest in peace Joe.
When Sam was at UMich, he kept up with his viola by joining a student orchestra for non-music majors. He shared his music stand with a beautiful girl with whom he was friendly, but not dating. She took the orchestra very seriously. She was always on time, always remembered to bring the music, always practiced the pieces at home — you know, how you’re supposed to be. Sam was pretty much the opposite. But he showed up and took it seriously while he was there, so he was good enough, by Owl Chatter standards.
One day, the rehearsal was about to begin and Sam’s partner wasn’t there. This was unheard of. Unthinkable! She was always way early. So Sam, and others, started wondering what was up. It came time to start, so they started. But as the minutes ticked by, people started worrying more and more. Then, after about 45 minutes she showed up — all frazzled, all upset, clearly not herself. She dashed to her seat, flashed an OMG look all around, and started in on the music. They would have to wait until the break to get the story.
It finally came and everyone gathered around to hear what happened. She was walking up State Street towards the bus stop to get to the rehearsal. And she just glanced at one of the cars driving by. Right at that moment, the driver happened to glance over at her too. Being courteous, she smiled at him. He smiled back and didn’t see that the car in front of him had stopped short. So he slammed the hell out of it, wrenching his neck in the process. Cop cars and tow trucks and ambulances raced to the scene, with their sirens blaring, and a cop asked her to make a statement as to what happened. Of course, she felt terrible about this poor guy who got hurt, and all the cars that got damaged, and everything took forever which is why she was so late, and it was all one big nightmare that she was still shaking from, a little bit.
So all of her friends started in to provide the appropriate comfort and sympathy, except for Sam. Sam had a different take on it, as he often does. Sam said to her, “Are you kidding me? That must be every girl’s dream — to be so beautiful that when you walk down the street cars start crashing into each other.”
Now I have to complain about my tax students, but to do it right I’ll need to cover some material with you first. Don’t be scared. It’s quite painless. You won’t even need novacaine.
If you get life insurance as a benefit at work, the first $50,000 of coverage is tax-free, but you are taxed on the value of any coverage above $50,000. The value is determined based on a table. The table gives you the value of $1,000 of coverage for one month. That’s it — that’s the whole topic. This example will show you how it works.
Tom Taxpayer has $130,000 of life insurance as a benefit from his job all year. The table tells him (for his age) to use 23 cents.
Step one. Figure out how much coverage he has over the $50,000 tax-free amount. $130,000 minus $50,000 = $80,000.
Step two. If 23 cents is for one month, multiply it by 12 for the whole year. So .23 x 12 = $2.76.
Step three. If $2.76 is for $1,000, multiply it by 80, because we are valuing $80,000. So $2.76 x 80 = $220.80. He includes this amount in his taxable income.
That’s it. That’s your answer. That’s all that’s involved. I went over it carefully in class. Took questions, and went over it again. I gave the exact problem in a homework set and went over it with them when we reviewed the homework set. I posted the answers to the homework set. I posted a handout (supplementing the textbook) which went over it.
Before I tell you how the class did on that question, let me note that my granddaughter Lianna has math homework in 7th grade that is ten times harder than that. Fractions and polynomials and stuff you’ve never seen before. Thank God she knows better than to ask for my help.
Anyway, back to my tax students. So I told them they could bring notes to the exam — one page, both sides, write as small as they want. And I put that exact question on the test, thinking it was a free shot at a couple of easy points — who could possibly have trouble with it among a group of upper class accounting majors?
Nineteen out of 46 got it wrong. That’s over 40%. 16 students scored below 60% on the exam, which is failing. The average grade was 68%.
It was never nearly this bad before the pandemic. Something happened. It’s a mystery to me. Good thing I’m not the type to complain.
Erasing any remaining doubts as to his moral standing, Ron DeSantis said yesterday the U.S. has no vital interest in supporting Ukraine, and referred to Russia’s relentless and brutal commission of horrific war crimes as a “territorial dispute.” I’ll tell you, folks — that’s one hell of a territorial dispute. Seems a bit like the dispute Germany had with Poland a while ago.
There was a cute clue in today’s New Yorker puzzle: “Like some victories and chocolate bunnies.” [You got it, right? Six letters.]
Today’s puzzle had a March Madness theme. Commenter Weezie noted: My father, despite being 6’7”, never played. When people asked him if he played basketball, he would say, “No, do you play miniature golf?”
At 63A, the clue was “Who’s solving this puzzle?” and the answer was YOU (meaning, the solver). Some folks thought it should be I AM, instead of YOU. One comment noted:
This reminds me of a classic bit on The Simpsons. Bart interacts with a talking statue of Smokey the Bear, which has a sign in front of it reading “Only WHO can prevent forest fires?” and two buttons, one labeled “You” and the other labeled “Me.” Bart pushes the “You” button. “Wrong!” says the bear. “You chose “You,” as in me. The correct answer is “Me,” as in… YOU.”
Let’s end with Kerry Condon at the Oscars last night in her yellow gown. She didn’t win there, but she’s a clear winner here at Owl Chatter. Hi Kerry!
The Wellington Files 