How to improve writing (no. 126)

[The New York Times, September 14, 2024. Click for a larger view.]

I no longer subscribe to the Times, but I’m still willing to look at the paper. I hesitated to post this bit, but I ran it past Elaine, and she had the same — instantaneous — response:

Why but ?

The conjunction makes no sense, because there’s no contradiction. What might work better:

The Democratic vice-presidential nominee has lamented the angry splits within families over politics. Indeed, he and his Republican brother rarely speak.

But (ahem) if you read the article, it’s easy to understand that it’s Tim Walz’s brother Jeff who’s on the outs with siblings:

The breach in the Walz family has been painful, according to the men’s sister, Sandra Dietrich, who lives in Nebraska, where the siblings were raised. Jeff Walz has said he has not spoken with his brother, beyond a brief phone call, in years.

“They all have their own opinions, and I have mine,” Ms. Dietrich said. “They’re my brothers and I love them.” She added that she was a Democrat and planned to vote for her brother and Ms. Harris.

“We’ve always agreed to disagree,” she continued. “That’s where I’m at with Jeff. I just wish things were different — that it didn’t wreck people.”

A cousin is quoted as saying that in 2016 Ms. Dietrich and Jeff Walz were not on speaking terms.

I’m not sure how to rewrite to remove the suggestion that the enmity here is mutual. Perhaps it is. But the article strongly implies that it’s Jeff Walz who at one point or another has cut off contact with his siblings. Here’s a possible revision if that is the case:

The Democratic vice-presidential nominee has lamented the angry splits within families over politics. Indeed, in recent years his Republican brother has had little contact with his Democratic siblings.

Pinboard
All OCA How to improve writing posts (Pinboard)

[This post is no. 126 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of professional public prose.]

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Stella Zawistowski. I began with 1-D, four letters, “Intro to a classic dilemma,” which seemed to be a giveaway but gave away nothing. But the clue was indeed the intro to a classic dilemma, the dilemma of how to solve a Saturday Stumper. I chipped away, here, there, everywhere, to get the rest of the puzzle.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

10-A, five letters, “Spot strife.” This clue stretches the meaning of strife, but this is the Stumper.

13-D, six letters, “On a higher plane.” A little woo-woo.

17-A, nine letters, “Slight manscaping.” Oh, okay. (Sigh of relief.)

24-D, five letters, “Take a second.” Very Stumper-y.

25-D, eight letters, “Time for a throwaway line.” It took me some time to see the point of line.

33-A, eight letters, “Restraining order.” Nicely colloquial.

36-A, fifteen letters, “Vodka/coffee concoction.” No thank you.

38-D, eight letters, “‘No thank you’ follower, perhaps.” Silly.

40-D, three letters, “Graph add-on.” Yes!

52-A, three letters, “Preceder of up or down, in or out, off or on.” A value-added clue. At least four words fit.

59-D, three letters, “Money-making machine.” Raise your hand if you thought the answer would be ATM.

63-A, five letters, “What some 90% of all people possess.” The answer is definitely not “the answer to this clue.”

65-A, five letters, “Subject of the biography The Right Word.” Easy to guess, but I’ll take it.

My favorite in this puzzle: 46-A, three letters, “Dose, taken another way.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Blood libel redux

It occurred to me only this morning, reading a post by Daughter Number Three, that the eating-our-pets lunacy, is, like Pizzagate, a new version of the medieval blood libel. This time with Haitians, not Jews or Democrats; and with animals, not children.

It’s difficult to imagine that Donald Trump knows about the history of the blood libel. J.D. Vance, with his love of traditional Catholicism, likely does. The neo-Nazis who marched in Springfield, Ohio, likely do.

In his shambolic golf-course press conference this afternoon, Trump, ever the opportunist, declared that mass deportations would begin in Springfield and in Aurora, Colorado. What no reporter pointed out when Trump made that seemingly impromptu declaration is that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are there legally, as the city’s website makes clear.

Donald Trump has long been a stochastic terrorist. And now J.D. Vance is now one too. Springfield public schools and driver’s-license facilities are closed for a second day because of bomb threats.

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As DN3 suggests, calling your senators and asking them to censure Vance is appropriate.

The New Grown-Ups: “My Heart’s Own Love”

As these videos drop, I’m not going to hesitate to copy and paste:

Our son Ben Leddy is a member of The New Grown-Ups, who just took first in a new-band showcase at the Thomas Point Beach Bluegrass Festival in Brunswick, Maine. That’s a sample above.

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Oops — the song is “My Heart’s Own Love.” Post title now corrected.

Related posts
“Cumberland Gap” : The New Grown-Ups at Bandcamp

The zibaldone

The mid-fourteenth-century word zibaldone, a bit of Florentine slang, came to signify a personal notebook of miscellaneous contents. From Roland Allen’s The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper (New York: Biblioasis, 2024):

The basic principle was simple: when you found a piece of writing that you liked, or found useful, you copied it out into your personal notebook. You could copy out as much or as little as you wanted, neatly or not, and refer to it a little, or as much, as you wanted. The collection could be poetry or prose, fictional or factual, thematic or random, religious or profane, in Latin or Tuscan, or any mixture of any of these components; you could even draw pictures in it. The notebook itself could be large or small, luxurious or utilitarian....

Zibaldoni, although always idiosyncratic and personal to their owner, were not necessarily private, or intimate: you would share the highlights of your own with your friends, and if you saw something that you liked in theirs, you’d copy it over.

Sounds a lot like blogging to me.

I am seventy-one pages into this book, and it’s a joy.

Also from the book
Moleskine: seventy-five words

Rocks, unnoticed

An Atlantic crossword clue baffles

In today’s Atlantic mini-crossword, 5-A, three letters, “11-character fig. on a form.” The answer, of course, is SSN. But a Social Security number has nine digits.¹ And why does the clue read characters ? Am I missing something?

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Elaine, who does not do crosswords, just explained it to me: nine digits and two hyphens: eleven characters. Sneaky, sneaky clue. Good thing I'm married.

            
¹ Nine digits, unless you’re Ralph Kramden, whose number has only seven.

Parataxis (with cats and ducks)

[Drudge Report, September 12, 2024. Click for a larger view.]

I can’t imagine that the placement of the Adderall-psychosis-mania headline is accidental.

[Parataxis : juxtaposition without explicit connection. An organizing principle in modernist literature. There’s nothing certain but death and parataxis.]

Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

Leave your guesses in the comments. I’ll be on and off the computer this morning and will drop a hint when I can if one is needed.

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A hint, dropped: This actor is best known for a television role, reprised in film, playing a character with no known first name.

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I think this one is going to remain a mystery. I’ve put the answer in the comments.

More mystery actors (Collect them all)
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The Last Republican

The story behind The Last Republican, a documentary about Adam Kinzinger: “‘Do you have contempt for my views?’ How a leftwing film-maker and a Republican came together” (The Guardian ).