Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumperis by “Lester Ruff,” the puzzle’s editor, Stan Newman, composing under a pen name that signals an easier (less rough) puzzle. But this one was rough, and not in a way that sparked joy. Too much trivia: 18-A, six letters, “Blazing Saddles pol potrayer.” 12-D, nine letters, “Member of the Space Jam Tune Squad.” 57-A, eight letters, “Mel Gibson’s boss in What Women Want.” I have nothing against older movies (these are from 1974, 1996, and 2000), and the answers are gettable from crosses, but these clues tend to turn the puzzle into Trivia Night. Space Jam : really?

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-D, five letters, “Dalai Lama’s ‘best meditation.’” I suspect that this answer is better attributed to the Internet than to the Dalai Lama. I can find no genuine source.

6-D, six letters, “Top drawer.” Groan.

20-A, three letters, “Reduced-by-two ‘up to.’” Made me think of sale prices. Up to 50% off?

24-D, seven letters, “Yonder, to some New Yawkers.” Well, maybe.

28-D, ten letters, “Post office clerk’s call.” I’ve never heard it in a post office.

33-A, thirteen letters, “It takes your breath away.” I started here, thinking that the answer had to be STRANGULATION. (How cheerful.) Realizing that I had to abandon that guess did a lot to make the puzzle solvable.

38-A, three letters, “a.m. or p.m.” Never heard of it.

45-A, six letters, “Passes or portrays.” Nice to think about the multiple meanings of the answer.

52-A, three letters, “Arrive in.” I think at would make for a more reasonable clue.

My favorite in this puzzle: 33-D, eight letters, “NASDAQ two-time member.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

The New Grown-ups: “The Hills of Isle au Haut”

“Dad, you don’t have to post all of these.”

Yeah, I do.

Related posts
“Cumberland Gap” : “My Heart’s Own Love” : “The Devil’s Nine Questions” : “William Blake’s Dead” : “Lonesome Pine” : “Tom Paine’s Bones” : “You Were on My Mind This Morning” : The New Grown-Ups at Bandcamp

Chicago-style changes

From The Washington Post: “Nine important changes to The Chicago Manual of Style — and why they matter.”

I have the now-outdated seventeenth edition, and I think I just saved $75 by reading this article.

The change I find most interesting: Chicago-style now requires a capital letter for a complete sentence following a colon. No, thanks. I think Garner’s Modern English Usage has it right:

Although the uppercase convention is a signpost to the reader that a complete sentence is ahead, that signpost generally isn’t needed.

As GMEU suggests, a lowercase letter “more closely ties the two clauses together.” But when a colon introduces several sentences, each should begin with a capital. In that case, the capital is a useful signpost.

Related reading
All OCA Chicago Manual of Sryle posts : punctuation posts (Pinboard)

[This post replaces a nearly identical one with a godawful typo in the title.]

Prison for punctuation

From NPR:

An Iranian writer and activist has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after replying with a single dot, or period, in response to a post on the social platform X by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Hossein Shanbehzadeh, a longtime critic of Iran’s leadership, was active on social media, supporting political prisoners and the removal of mandatory headscarves for women.

Shanbehzadeh was arrested shortly after posting his response, which received many more likes than Khamenei’s tweet. The sentence:

Five years for alleged pro-Israel propaganda activity, four years for insulting Islamic sanctities, two years for spreading lies online and an additional year for anti-regime propaganda.

Despots and wanna-be despots everywhere hate being mocked, don’t they?

Saluting Face emoji

I don’t know what I was looking for when I found the Saluting Face emoji. (I think that should be Saluting Hand, or Person, no?) This emoji comes in variety of designs, at least two of which show only a half-face to make more room for the hand.

  [Apple and Twitter/X. Click either image for a larger view.]

That Twitter/X hand — I knew right away who/what I was seeing:

  [Twitter/X, Sluggo. Click either image for a larger view.]

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The New Grown-Ups: “You Were on My Mind This Morning”

Another one from The New Grown-Ups. Our son Ben Leddy is on mandolin.

Related posts
“Cumberland Gap” : “My Heart’s Own Love” : “The Devil’s Nine Questions” : “William Blake’s Dead” : “Lonesome Pine” : “Tom Paine’s Bones” : The New Grown-Ups at Bandcamp

In the windmills of his mind

Far longer and far more astonishing than the childcare answer is the answer to this question: “How are you going to bring down the cost of food and groceries?” Eight minutes of this ’n’ that.

The New Grown-Ups: “Tom Paine’s Bones”

Our son Ben Leddy is front and center for this one.

Related posts
“Cumberland Gap” : “My Heart’s Own Love” : “The Devil’s Nine Questions” : “William Blake’s Dead” : “Lonesome Pine” : The New Grown-Ups at Bandcamp

Stopping the Steal

A helpful aid to memory: the new documentary Stopping the Steal (dir. Dan Reed, 2024), about the Republican officials who refused to go along with Donald Trump’s depraved schemes.

But I wish those interviewed had been asked about what they’re going to do in the upcoming election.

Robert Reich has a list

An aid to memory, in the form of a short video from Robert Reich: “The 10 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency.”

Just ten? Just watch.