Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Matthew Sewell. I think it’s on the easy side, with the right half being more immediately doable than the left. I started with — gulp — the fifteen-letter answer for 17-A, “Not before that specific moment.” That feels like a gimme to me. Was it meant to be?

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

4-D, thirteen letters, “Infomercial order.” I have watched many an infomercial for sick fun. (The Magic Bullet is our fambly’s favorite.) But this answer doesn’t ring true to me.

7-D, three letters, “Protective layer.” Short and sweet.

10-D, eleven letters, “Excursions with escorts.” Not that kind of escort. This answer fills me with nostalgia.

12-D, six letters, “Reached out electronically.” I haven’t thought it this verb in years.

20-A, six letters, “Word from Malay for “sheath.’” Lifelong learning!

23-D, eleven letters, “Unimaginative.” I think the humdrum answer is a meta joke.

29-D, four letters, “Start to trust.” Clever.

40-A, six letters, “Start back.” The kind of answer that I second-guess even when I’m sure it must be right.

44-D, six letters, “‘Stupidity is a ____ for misconception’: Poe.” Yep, investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop. That’s what the voters want you to do.

56-A, fifteen letters, “Turnoff before checking in.” I kept thinking about interstate exits.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

FTX fortunes

Many months ago our favorite restaurant (Thai) began handing out fortune cookies with FTX advertising on one side. Tonight’s fortune, or observation: “Sometimes it’s hard to imagine life before this.”

I wonder how long it’ll be before these fortunes disappear.

A letter to Dr. Laura Schlessinger

From Letters of Note, a letter from Kent Ashcraft, a musician, with some hilarious questions for Dr. Laura Schlessinger about biblical do s and don’t s. Here’s one question:

When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Leviticus 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. How should I deal with this?

Context, from Wikipedia:

Over the years, Schlessinger expressed opposition to homosexuality based on biblical scripture, at one point referring to homosexual behavior as “products of a biological disorder.” Her rhetoric eventually prompted an open letter penned in the year 2000 responding to her position that used text of Bible decrees.

I can think of at least one congressional representative to whom I’d like to send this letter, Illinois’s own Mary Miller. She’s already ranting about the Respect for Marriage Act, which she calls the “Anti-Marriage Act.”

[Whatever became of Laura Schlessinger? She’s on satellite radio. And she really has a doctorate, in physiology, from Columbia University. Holy smokes! No pun on the burning bull.]

Recently updated

Words of the year Now with homer.

Today’s Zippy ’s yesterday

“How much time do we spend remembering the past?” Today’s Zippy is one for the ages.

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All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

[Here’s why I added 12ft.io to the link.]

Walking blues

At the MIT Press Reader, Telmo Pievani, professor of biology, writes about “Bipedalism and Other Tales of Evolutionary Oddities”:

Archaeologist André Leroi-Gourhan was right in saying that the history of humanity began with good feet, before great brains. But it was an ordeal, particularly in the beginning.

Thank you

“Do thank-you notes still matter?” The New York Times says “Yes.”

Another Mary Miller vote

I should no longer be surprised that “my” representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, IL-15), takes the wrong position on everything. But I’m still sometimes surprised. She just voted against S. 4524, the Speak Out Act,

a bill to limit the judicial enforceability of predispute nondisclosure and nondisparagement contract clauses relating to disputes involving sexual assault and sexual harassment.

Voting yea: 215 Democrats and 100 Republicans. Voting nay: 109 Republicans. Not voting: 4 Democrats, 4 Republicans.

There’s something about Mary.

In better news, the Respect for Marriage Act is is on its way to becoming law.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

MSNBC, sheesh

A few minutes ago the chyron announced “humanity’s return to the moon.” It was smart to avoid man. But consider: other than human beings, who would be in a position to go back?

“A return to the moon” would be better.

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Encore?

From The Washington Post: “Has the encore left the building?”

Once a given in live concerts, the encore is now seen by some as an artifact of old-school showbiz, rather than an authentic exchange between performer and audience.

The best encores I’ve known:

~ Tom Waits, at the Orpheum Theater. A Waits website tells me that it was November 16, 1980. Waits came back on stage, sat down in an easy chair, and put on a record of (purportedly) the pope leaving Dodger Stadium. In other words, the sound of a crowd applauding and cheering. Earlier in the evening Waits had sat in the chair while changing channels on an old television, providing commentary on whatever he found.

~ Richard Goode, at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Urbana, March 10, 2016. After an all-Bach program, Goode came back on stage, said “More Bach,” and played one more piece.

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All OCA Tom Waits posts (Pinboard) : Bach, Goode