Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is challenging. It begins on a baffling note: 1-Across, four letters, “Mississippi constituents.” It moves on to a couple of giveaways: 5-Across, three letters, “Roller coaster restraint”; 8-Across, six letters, “Leader of the Trojans.” And then it goes back to being difficult.

My favorite clue in today’s puzzle: 33-Across, fifteen letters, “Triple hedge.” When the answer fell into place, I smiled. In second place: 33-Down, eight letters, “Boom alternative.” When that answer fell into place, I smiled again. No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Kavanaugh loses the Jesuits

“For the good of the country and the future credibility of the Supreme Court in a world that is finally learning to take reports of harassment, assault and abuse seriously, it is time to find a nominee whose confirmation will not repudiate that lesson”: the Jesuit magazine America has rescinded its endorsement of Brett Kavanaugh.

“Do you think that Brett Kavanaugh is telling the truth?”

Watch and listen as two survivors of sexual assault, Maria Gallagher and Ana Maria Archila, confront Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ). An excerpt:

Archila: Senator Flake, do you think that Brett Kavanaugh is telling the truth?

Aide: Thank you.

Archila: Do you think that he’s able to hold the pain of this country and repair it? That is the work of justice. The way that justice works is you recognize hurt, you take responsibility for it, and then you begin to repair it. You are allowing someone who is unwilling to take responsibility for his own actions, unwilling to hold the harm that he has done to one woman, actually three women, and repair it. You are allowing someone who is unwilling to take responsibility for his own actions —

Reporter: Do you want to respond?

Archila: — to sit in the highest court of the country and to have the role of repairing the harm that has been done in this country to many people.

Flake: Thank you.

I’m disgusted. I’ve admired Jeff Flake for some time, especially after listening to This American Life’s 2017 story and 2018 episode about him. Not anymore. As one of the women who confronted him says, “Saying ‘Thank you’ is not an answer.”

*

And now: “Senate Panel Approves Kavanaugh, but Flake Wants F.B.I. Investigation Before Final Vote” (The New York Times.

[I’ve made small corrections to the Times transcript. The protesters have been identified, and the Times has added their names to the story.]

Purees and spelling lessons

[Zippy, September 28, 2018.]

At first I smiled. Because Talia! (Purees.) And then I thought, “Shouldn’t that be liquify ?” No, it should not. Merriam-Webster calls liquify a variant. But Garner’s Modern English Usage says that “*liquify , which predominated till about 1750, is now considered a misspelling.” Garner gives the liquefy–liquify ratio as 8:1.

Comics are not just purees and spelling lessons. I also noticed the wet tray, bottom right. Realism!

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

[The asterisk marks an inferior form.]

At the Department of Agriculture

An excerpt from Michael Lewis’s forthcoming book The Fifth Risk. Life at the U.S. Department of Agriculture:

Among other things, the department essentially maintained rural America, and also ensured that the American poor and the elderly did not starve. Much of its work was complicated and technical — and yet for the months between the election and the inauguration, Trump people never turned up to learn about it. Only on inauguration day did they flood into the building, but the people who showed up had no idea why they were there or what they were meant to do. Trump sent, among others, a long-haul truck driver, a telephone company clerk, a gas company meter reader, a country club cabana attendant, a Republican National Committee intern and the owner of a scented candle company. One of the CVs listed the new appointee’s only skill as “a pleasant demeanor.”

All these people had two things in common. They were Trump loyalists. And they knew nothing whatsoever about the job they suddenly found themselves in.

July 1

A compelling analysis by Philip Bump The Washington Post: “Kavanaugh is pressed on the key July 1 entry in his calendar. But only to a point.” Dammit, why couldn’t a senator have put these pieces together?

I suspect that even if Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed, the story will be far from over. Someone, somewhere, will figure out the location of the house. Someone, somewhere, will figure out who was living there in 1982. Someone, somewhere, will remember something about what happened on July 1, 1982, or perhaps on some other day.

Three points that should have been made

1. Contra the assertions of some Republican senators: It’s not a victim’s responsibility to gather and present evidence of a crime. Think about it: If that were a victim’s responsibility, no one could ever be convicted of murder.

2. Contra Brett Kavanaugh’s breezy claims about three witnesses refuting Christine Blasey Ford’s story: For one thing, they weren’t witnesses. Those who would have been downstairs would not have witnessed what was happening. And if Mark Judge was in the room, he was a participant, not a witness.

3. Contra Brett Kavanaugh’s breezy claims that these (non-) witnesses have refuted Christine Blasey Ford’s story: No. Not remembering ≠ refuting. The three people named as present in the house in 1982 all say that they don’t remember the gathering. There is no reason to think that those who would have been downstairs would have any reason to remember it. And there is no reason to expect that Mark Judge would incriminate himself by acknowledging that he was upstairs in a room with Ford and Kavanaugh.

Too many beers

Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, questioning Brett Kavanaugh:

“What do you consider to be too many beers?”

“I don’t know. Uh, you know, we — whatever the chart says. Blood-alcohol chart.”

Exceedingly strange stuff. Kinda seems that Kavanaugh never quite left high school. Kinda seems that he’s an angry drunk, even when sober.

Wishful thinking

I wish that every member of the United States Senate understood civic duty — and courage — as well as Christine Blasey Ford does.

Word of the day: úhtcearu

I learned about this Anglo-Saxon word yesterday while listening to an episode of Word of Mouth. It’s from Mark Forsyth, connoisseur of forgotten and obscure words: úhtcearu. The word means “care that comes in the early morning.” Or as Forsyth says, “lying awake early in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep because you’re worried about the day to come.” Or as Leroy Carr sang, “the blues before sunrise.” The word úhtcearu is especially appropriate today.



[The pronunciation seems to go something like this: “oot-kee-arr-oo.” Definition from the Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1898). Uhtcearu is also the name of a band.]