Penn’s president is out

From The New York Times (gift link):

The president of the University of Pennsylvania, M. Elizabeth Magill, resigned on Saturday, four days after her testimony at a congressional hearing in which she seemed to evade the question of whether students who called for the genocide of Jews should be disciplined.

“Seemed to evade”? No, evaded.

In a comment on a related post, I suggested an appropriate answer. I’ll share it where it can be more visible:

“Congresswoman, of course calling for genocide is against the standards of what’s acceptable on our campus. And if our code of conduct doesn’t take into account that kind of hateful speech, we will revise it immediately so that it does.”

Rockin’ past, present, and future

NPR’s Scott Detrow spoke with Brenda Lee about “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” now the number-one song at the Billboard Hot 100: “65 Years After Release, a Rockin’ Christmas Classic Hits Number One.”

I like the way Brenda Lee gives props to the song’s composer Johnny Marks, the instrumentalists, and the Anita Kerr Singers. As Elaine likes to point out, the name on a record is not the only person responsible for that record. Astonishing fact: Lee was only thirteen when she recorded the song in 1958. Semi-astonishing fact: there’s a new video for the song.

In 2009, our fambly did an impromptu version of the song while playing holiday music for people in a memory-care residence: soprano ukulele, viola, slap-cello, and two voices. We rocked. But alas, no recording.

Elaine calls “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” the most persistent holiday earworm of all. In 2023, we have a granddaughter who calls the song “Walkin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” But soon enough, our granddaughter, too, will rock.

Center for Reproductive Rights

The Center for Reproductive Rights is in the news.

Here is the organization’s website.

Charity Navigator’s rating: 97%. Not a difficult decision to donate.

[“In the news”: a New York Times gift link.]

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is Brad Wilber’s first solo Stumper since July 2021. Welcome back, sir!

I found today’s puzzle easy, really easy. I started, unusually enough, with 1-A, seven letters, “Drinks favored by Hemingway” and 1-D, four letters, “Game-ending word,” and it seemed that every answer led to one or more other answers. Abundance of riches.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

9-A, three letters, “Ancient salutation.” As in a great ancient poem.

11-D, six letters, “Mass movement.” My first thought was EXODUS.

12-D, letters, “Thing secured with a post.” The oddest moment in the puzzle. I wondered if the answer could be right. (It was.)

25-A, nine letters, “Something worn on a hood.” Groan.

28-A, four letters, “Fudge alternative.” I was thinking candy. ROLO? SKOR?

34-A, seven letters, “Purchase before going to court.” Nice misdirection.

35-A, seven letters, “Dictionary directive.” Because I like dictionaries.

35-D, eight letters, “Some poker accumulations.” Unfamiliar to me, but I haven’t played poker in decades.

43-D, six letters, “Wheedler’s refrain.” I like the colloquialism. And it occurs to me that “The Wheedler” could have been a wonderful name for a TV-series Batman villian. Imagine someone in a mask and tights wheedling banks out of money bags.

57-A, eight letters, “Warning heading.” I’m not sure you’d see it any everyday context. I’m not even sure that it counts as a warning. It’s not like DANGER or POISON or DON’T EVEN THINK OF PARKING HERE.

My favorite in this puzzle: 24-D, seven letters, “Boxer’s destination.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Mailing a letter

Vladimir Nabokov, Despair (1966).

Four or five letter boxes in a single stroll? Gosh.

Related reading
All OCA Nabokov posts (Pinboard)

Early rocks

[“Triple Play.” Zippy, December 8, 2023. Click for a larger view.]

In today’s Zippy, an early lesson in geology.

Venn reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

On Willa Cather’s birthday

Willa Cather was born on this day in 1873.

From a letter to Cather’s lifelong friend Carrie Miner Sherwood, written on a Sunday, possibly December 11, 1932. The editors of the Selected Letters note that “many of Cather’s old friends in Webster County, Nebraska, were, like most Americans, facing economic hardship.”

Now will you be my Santa Claus? I want them to have a good Christmas dinner. I know they won’t buy prunes or dried apricots, they felt too poor to get them last year.

Please have Mrs. Burden pack a box:

2 dozen of the best oranges,
3 pounds of dates,
5 pounds best prunes
3 cans Texas figs
3 pounds cranberries
3 bunches celery
1 peck red apples

If there is any money left over after you get these things, get some Butternut coffee — I know they will cut the old lady down on her coffee, so put whatever is left into coffee.

I’ve already sent Mrs. Lambrecht a Christmas box, a lovely sweater and a lot of toys, but that was before I got Lydia’s letter.

I’m sitting in the middle of a pile of trunks, dear Carrie. We move today. I think the new apartment will be lovely, but I’d have waited another year if I’d known so many of my old friends were going to be hard hit. I do want to help.

                                                Lovingly
                                                 Willie

From The Selected Letters of Willa Cather, ed. Andrew Jewell and Janis Stout (New York: Knopf, 2013).

I know of at least one other resident of the blog-o-sphere marking Cather’s birthday today, Heber Taylor.

Related reading
All OCA Cather posts (Pinboard) : All OCA posts from Cather’s letters

[The inconsistent punctuation in the list is Cather’s. I would never mess up when transcribing Willa Cather.]

The Christmas sardine

From Zingerman’s Delicatessen, “The Legend of the Christmas Sardine,” by Brad Hedeman:

[Click for a much larger view.]

You can find the story on page 10 of the November–December installment of Zingerman’s News.

Thanks to Kevin Hart for sending the story in my direction.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

[From Medium: “Brad Hedeman is the Head of Marketing & Products Selection at Zingerman’s Mail Order.”]

Speech and conduct

The New York Times reports on calls for the resignation of University of Pennsylvania president Elizabeth Magill (gift link):

Alumni, students and donors of the University of Pennsylvania called on Wednesday for Elizabeth Magill to resign as president of the school, a day after she testified at a contentious congressional hearing about campus antisemitism and evaded questions about whether students calling for the genocide of Jews violated Penn’s code of conduct.

It was Elise Stefanik who asked Magill to answer yes or no: does calling for the genocide of Jews violate the university’s rules or code of conduct? Magill’s answer: “If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment.” She then allowed that calling for genocide “can be harassment.” Claudine Gay, Harvard’s president, drew the same distinction between speech and conduct, referring to speech that “crosses into conduct that violates our policies.”

It’s difficult to imagine a call for genocide against some other group eliciting such nuanced responses. But whatever: it’s specious to draw a line that divides speech from conduct. As speech-act theory reminds us, there are many contexts in which to speak is to act. (Think of a former president’s pre-January 6 tweets.) And conduct need not constitute harassment to be out of bounds on a college campus.

[I find Elise Stefanik’s politics abhorrent. But the answer to the question should be yes, no matter who’s asking.]

Florida fail, Illinois fail

I had a surprise in the mail last week: what appeared to be an invoice from the Florida Department of Transportation for unpaid tolls. Years ago I received an e-mail with a fake speeding ticket. And I’ve been called by “the IRS.” Was this invoice, too, a scam? No, I looked online and found that the address and toll-free number on the invoice were legitimate.

The invoice included a photograph — a black rectangle with a tiny image of a license plate, 5/16″ × 2/16″. I looked with a loupe and saw the numbers of my license plate. Yikes. But next to the numbers were the letters FP, signifying fleet plate, the kind of plate issued to rental car companies.

The toll-free number offered no possibility of speaking to another human. So I went online again and found a form for disputing the charges. I explained the difference between my plates and the plate in the photograph. I attached photographs of my plates, front and rear. A little overkill never hurts. I added that I have never been to Florida.

Today I received an e-mail saying that “the case” is closed: “It was a plate misread.” But before getting that e-mail, I called the Illinois Secretary of State’s office to inquire if the state indeed issues regular plates and fleet plates with the same numbers. I spoke with someone in the Record Inquiry Section who told me to download, fill out, and mail in a form requesting a document (free) that I could then send to Florida to prove that the plate in the invoice photograph wasn’t mine. “But I’ve already sent them photos of my license plates,” said I. No matter, the guy said. They might not be accepted.

When I asked if Illinois indeed issues regular plates and fleet plates with the same numbers, I was told that it happens all the time. “Then at least I know I’m not alone,” I said, and I thanked him for his help. “Sir,” the guy said, followed by silence, and I ended the call. Was he expecting me to call him “sir”? What the actual.

I went back to the Secretary of State website and filled out another form to suggest a brilliant solution to these problems: don’t issue regular plates and FP plates with the same numbers. Imagine the hours of pointless effort that might be saved by not doing so.

Meanwhile, someone’s driving around who owes Florida $4.88 in tolls.