Sunday, October 28, 2018

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 28, 2018): One Singular Sensation

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 28, 2018): One Singular Sensation:
Q: Think of a famous Broadway musical in two words. Change one letter in it to the preceding letter of the alphabet — so B would become A, C would become B, etc. Remove the space so you have a solid word. The result will name something that all of us are part of. What is it?
I've never taken an acting or singing class so I'm probably not much help.

Edit: My hint was "class"
A: MAMMA MIA! --> MAMMALIA

143 comments:

  1. Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any hints that could lead directly to the answer (e.g. via a chain of thought, or an internet search) before the deadline of Thursday at 3pm ET. If you know the answer, click the link and submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.

    You may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't give the answer away. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the Thursday deadline. Thank you.

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  2. The source of the musical is found in a common vegetable.

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  3. Oy, vey, what an easy puzzle. I would have liked to see one about adding one letter to a single word musical title to describe what one might drink at the place described in the title.

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    1. Only if you change the correct spelling to Caberet - ouch - in order to add the n to get Cabernet. Or maybe you're thinking of some other single-word musical that hasn't occurred to me.

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  5. I'd have picked a different number from that show, Blaine...

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  7. It's something that all of us and our dogs are a part of...

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  8. I am not a dog lover, and certainly would not take a beagle on a long trip.

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  9. Many foreigners are also included. :D

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  10. I am less miserable having now solved it. Though I consider this a bad puzzle. Can’t wait to see who the on-air winner is this week.

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  11. I'm pretty sure it isn't Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

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    1. Speaking of Joseph, Joseph Young was working on some Riffing-Off-Shortz puzzles this morning for this Friday's edition of his Puzzleria! blog and came up with what he thought was pretty decent riff-off. Only later did Joseph realize that the musical he used in his riff-off was the same one that "Jersey Boy" Sam Ezersky used in the puzzle he submitted to Will as this week's NPR puzzle.

      LegoWhoAdmiresSnipper'sCleverCommentAboveButDisagreesThatThisPuzzleIsBad(UnlessLegoIsMissingSomeSubtleHintInSnipper'sPost...WhichWouldNotBeAFirst)

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    3. From Wikipedia:
      Lia is a feminine given name. In the Spanish-speaking world, it is accented Lía. In America, the name may be a variant of Leah or Lea.
      Jacob favored Joseph and Benjamin over his other sons because of his preference for their mamma, Rachel.

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  12. If a water main broke under Tenth Avenue in Manhattan, would the headline be Wet Side Story?

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  13. Wasn't there a musical called, Okra Aroma?

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  14. I wish my mother was still alive - she was always singing, and probably knew all the show tunes out there. --Margaret G.

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  15. Replies
    1. If you haven't clicked on the above link, don't waste your time.
      It's November 1, and the special tax cut for middle income people (aka the middle class) has not yet appeared. I don't know if it would be a good or bad thing if it ever does. I don't know much about taxonomics.

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    2. How about cladeonomics?

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clade

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  16. This is the fifth week in a row I have been unable to solve this puzzle and needed to be told the answer. I feel like such a boob.

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  18. Changing one letter The Jersey Bots: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter.

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  19. Bonus Puzzles!: (we know you've been waiting)

    1. Think of a famous Broadway musical in one word. Change one letter in it and reverse the result. The result will name something that all of us are. What is it?

    2. Think of a famous movie musical (less famous on Broadway) in one word. Change one letter in it to the preceding letter of the alphabet — so B would become A, C would become B, etc. The result will phonetically name a place which is located in the name of another famous Broadway musical, though the location was not part of that musical. What is it?

    3. Think of a famous Broadway musical in one word. Change one letter in it to the preceding letter of the alphabet — so B would become A, C would become B, etc. The result might describe these Bonus Puzzles. What is it?

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    1. Is the answer to #3 "Mine?" Meaning "yours," of course.

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    2. I have them all. Will post Thursday...

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    3. Still pondering #1, but, in the meantime, I can think of a musical that sounds like a country.
      I can also think of a song with the same vowels as the musical in #2 and the same consonants as the musical in #3. That ought to be good for something.

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    4. Interesting, Doxma, I didn't consider the musical Nine, mostly because I'd never heard of it. But it did win a Tony, so if I were WS I'd have to accept that as an alternative answer.

      But I'm not, so I don't! (smiley thing).

      I've come to expect Ron to solve these.

      I think Paul has unusual vowel movements, we'll see on Thursday.

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    5. I recently had the honor of sharing a stage with one of the principals from the bonus round shows. My 6-letter solution to #3 depends on having answered the other two.

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    6. Now I'm even more curious to see the alternate answers.

      And I do see Paul's intent, he was going back in time with some code violations.

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    7. "Place located in the name" led me straight to Fiji in the South Pacific, which can be obtained from Gigi. Maurice sang about "good for nothing Mimi' to Jeanette. I would pronounce the J in Princesse Jeanette the same as the Gs in Gigi or the J in Jourdan or the ZH in Zhivago, but I'd pronounce the J in Jeanette MacDonald like the J in Fiji or the G in Genetics. Maybe that's just me. Anyway, change the Is in Mimi to an A and an E and you get Mame. I didn't think these puzzles were lame, but I appreciate eco's humility. Eventually I realized Evita is alive (before reading the answer below). Thinking about islands made me think of Greece / Grease, but I had no idea where Mamma Mia was filmed.
      My landlord's name is Maurice, which he pronounces "Morris", which makes sense as I have never heard him mention the pompetus of love.

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    8. Alternate #1: Before realizing Evita was the intended answer, I changed the n in Rent to an i to get "Tier"--German for "animal." You never specified English, and as WS went with a Latin coinage this week, it seemed in bounds.

      #2: I was in the chorus for SF Symphony's recent concert presentation of Stravinsky's Persephone, narrated by Leslie Caron of 1958 "Gigi" fame.

      Alternate #3: Being disinclined towards such lame self-deprecation, I instead congratulated myself that I had all three of eco's wicked puzzles licked.

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    9. Wicked / licked is brilliant!

      I notice I misspelled "pompətus".

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    10. Well, Wicked / licked would be brilliant if the letter change rule were more lenient.

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    11. Clever, though my fussy 8th grade music teacher would point out the musical is Animals, then my 9th grade German teacher would note the plural is Tiere, not Tier.

      Related, 27 across in this month's Harper's cryptic crossword has the clue: "Characters in Rent find a number of bugs (7)"

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    13. Oh... [thinks fast] Did I forget to mention that I stood on my head for #3, so that the W became an M?

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  20. This musical has a touch of class. None of that stuff about the birds and the bees.

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  21. What about a dancing class? What will the winner take?

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  22. Unused clues from the On-air challenge: Today we're going to go "rowing." Every answer is a word or name that has the accented syllable "row" somewhere inside it.
    Example: Savagely violent --> FEROCIOUS

    12. Mental disorder involving chronic distress. →

    14. Done in secret (two-word phrase that comes from Latin) →

    As usual don't post the answers so everyone has a chance to solve.

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    Replies
    1. I thought the mental disorder was neurosis and I never heard of "sub rosa" ... Googling now.

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    2. Do not ever use GOOGLE. Use duckduckgo.com or startpage.com, but NOT google.

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    3. It troubles me that I'm not as Googlephobic as I apparently ought to be.

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    4. Seven of nine Internet searches use Google, so, yeah, sounds about right...

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  23. This particular musical reminds me of a song from a new movie that's been getting rave reviews and some Oscar buzz lately. The song is from the same time period as the music from the musical.

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    1. That song reminds me of three songs by a variety of Athenians.

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    2. Cranberry is referring to Bohemian Rhapsody, released by Queen in 1975, the same year Abba gave us Mamma Mia. Galileo is referenced in Bohemian Rhapsody and in songs by two Athens, GA, bands: R.E.M. (Fall on Me and Saturn Returns) and Indigo Girls (Galileo).

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  24. Folks, for me right now it's too difficult to be light hearted because this thing we all belong to also includes antisemitic murderers and attempted pipe bombers.

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    1. On a hopeful note. Yesterday, my synagogue hosted a previously scheduled interfaith activity, assembling food packages for needy kids. We had well over 100 people there, the largest group of whom were Muslims who came to work with us and to demonstrate their support for the Jewish community. People of faith, acting out the principles of caring for the less fortunate. Many, came as families, bringing their children to teach them, by their actions, that we are all one.

      I was reminded of the words of Deuteronomy, “These words, which I give you this day.......teach them diligently to your children.”

      It was a healing, and uplifting, experience.

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    2. Clark, Super Z: Very sobering week but it's good to hear some encouraging words after this past week's events.

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    3. Clark raises a sad reality - the corruption, violence, and hate are making us inured to the direction we are heading, and it's easy to burn out - that's probably the intent of the corrupt violent haters.

      Not to mention the 600 zettaton gorilla of climate change..... I doubt our descendants will look kindly upon us.

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  25. SuperZee, I'm glad ours wasn't the only synagogue.

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  26. Do I have the solution to this puzzle? I already told you five times.

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  27. I've finally furnished an answer I'm comfortable with, and I'm relieved it's not "FunHole."

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  28. How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
    Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year!
    My hasting days fly on with full career
    But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.

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  29. Let us all hope and pray Secretary Mattis gets those 14,000 armed troops down to the border in time to save us from that advancing army of terrorists coming to slay us in our beds.

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    1. Can you believe that!!? (rhetorical question there) What a smoke screen!!!
      I guess it was yesterday that Trump mentioned, after getting off of Air Force One, that the wind mussed his hair. That was his main (mane) concern???

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    2. eco, I cannot open your link.

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    3. Wow, now I can see it, that's hilarious!!

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    4. Interesting, the file is no longer there, somehow it was removed from my Google Docs. And they won't let me upload again. I wonder if they really care that much? I better check my mail carefully....

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    5. I can still see it. . .woo woo woo woo. . .

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    6. Yeah, I now get a screen that starts out "can't display your image" and then it pops out. Before it simply pooped out.

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  30. SDB, I realize what you said is sarcastic, but if a Trumpista saw it,he/she would take it in the most literal of ways.

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    1. Clark,
      You give me way too much credit if you think there is anything I could possibly write or say that would influence a Trumpista.

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    2. Clark,

      This is not specifically directed at you, but I keep thinking this is the perfect place I should post my experience yesterday.

      My house is on a residential corner where yesterday and one day last week and the week before a large Seattle City Light crew has been replacing the wood utility poles. This project has been in the works for about a year now, and I have been paying close attention because the pole directly across the street to the West needed to be repositioned 8 feet farther South to prevent it from occasionally being grazed by a large truck attempting a turn, which can cause the phone line to my house to break.

      Because of this situation I had some one on one conversations with the crew chief outside. During one of these discussions we found out we are both extremely experienced skydivers. He is probably 30 years younger than I however, and he began very young as a paratrooper in the army. This got us into unrelated topics, such as skydivers we both know and the homeless situation in the city and why the city is having this problem.

      It soon became apparent he is a conservative Seattle native and we were not going to agree on anything political. When I replied to one of his comments that homelessness was not a local problem of cities or states, but a national problem and disgrace going way back to events such as Reagan closing mental health institutions and the country being constantly at war around the world, and all the money going into wars and nothing being done here at home things began to deteriorate in our short term relationship.

      He kept putting me on the spot with questions indicating to me that he is extremely ignorant of reality. When I mentioned that our country has the highest rate of incarceration of any country in the world he set out to prove me wrong by asking his cell phone verbally for the answer. When it came up I could not see it, but had to listen to him going on and on reading from some list of mostly third world countries that were far higher than our country which he said was way down near the bottom of the list. He said Switzerland had a per capita incarceration rate of thirty-one point one (31.1%) percent!

      This simply boggles the mind of anyone with an ounce of critical thinking ability. He could not understand that this meant that essentially one third of the population of Switzerland was incarcerated. I could see he didn’t comprehend what per capita meant and how it related to percentages of population.

      I ended our discussion and went inside to my computer and Googled to get accurate world incarceration statistics. Every one lists the U.S.A. at the very top of the list. Not even we have a full percentage point though. When I made a print out of one, easy to understand chart, and took it back outside to show him, he was not interested in it and went on a lecture of how it depends on what search engine I used, bla, bla, bla. I suggested he look for himself when he got home on his computer. He replied that he does not have a computer.

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    3. SDB: Great story! Good for you to try and give him a balanced perspective! I would bet though, that guy is a devoted AM radio listener. The problem with many of the types you just dealt with, is that sadly, you will never change their opinions.
      I will usually listen to the other side's arguments and check for their accuracy. But, I try to be open minded. 
      Glad you tried, though!

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    4. I always remember how in 1992/93, I worked with a normally sharp minded person who had started drinking Kool-Aid on a regular basis. One day, we both started talking politics and no matter what I would counter argue, he always had these bizarre comebacks. That day he brought up the idea that the government was building secret detention camps all around the country. Evidently, they were meant to incarcerate free thinkers, like him. Supposedly, these could not be detected from the ground, only by high flying airplane pilots, who could see them. This was when the Rush Limbaugh era and his ilk was gaining traction. It was shortly after these strange "facts" were being tossed around that I never would talk politics with him again. If the opportunity ever came up, I would just tell him he was wrong and leave it at that, far easier said than done!

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    5. SDB: You hate America so much that you can't stand it when we're #1!

      USA! USA! USA! Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!

      Though North Korea may have a higher percentage of prisoners, maybe Agent Orange will tell us after he and Kim Jong Un have a pillow talk.

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    6. The Swiss are some dangerous mother fuckers....

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    7. It's those little knives, don't you think?

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  31. Replies
    1. One had me a bit perplexed, about 3/4 of the way down, by Jones of Claytoonz.com. The part where Ted Cruz says "I'm going to show Donald how we treat people who insult our families here in Texas" is clear enough, at first I didn't see that was Cruz' nose in the second panel.

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    2. ron: Thanks for this weekly feature. I have always loved cartoons, political and otherwise.
      I tried to find pro-Trump cartoons (Googled that term) this morning ans discovered that it is hard to do and it is probably my bias, but the ones that I did find seemed less clever.
      Are Trumpians and MAGA types just not that way?

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    3. Ted WAS in the right position in the second panel.

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    4. Is Ted's nose really Ted's nose, or another's body part?

      Reminded me of this Gary Larson cartoon which stirred some controversy, though it was heartily endorsed by NACCLA (The North American Canine Car Love Association).

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    5. Isn't it amazing that that cartoon is 30 years old? They are as funny now as the day they came out. 
      One of my favorites was the one regarding "early transportation"!

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  32. MAMMA MIA! >>> MAMMALIA

    “alo” refers to the Greek Island of Alonissos, an island in the Sporades Islands, close to Skopolos, where much of MAMMA MIA was filmed.

    “Fine” refers to the Abbess (ABBA reference) Fine of Kildare:

    http://omniumsanctorumhiberniae.blogspot.com/2013/01/saint-fine-abbess-of-kildare-january-9.html

    “King Erroneous, thank you for sharing that.” is a nod to “Cher-ing” and Cher who was in the recently released movie “Mamma Mia 2: Here we go again.”

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  34. MAMMA MIA! Change the M of MIA to an L to yield: MAMMALIA.

    We are all mammals of the Class MAMMALIA, as are DOGS (my hint).

    ECO's Bonus Puzzles:

    1.EVITA → We are all ALIVE.

    2.GIGIFIJI, located in the SOUTH PACIFIC.

    3.MAME → These Bonus Puzzles are, indeed, pretty LAME ! (The intended answer?)

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    Replies
    1. Lame, like those who participate?

      Paul noted combining the letters of #2 and #3 yields the song "Mimi", sung by Maurice Chevalier to Jeanette MacDonald in the 1932 movie "Love Me Tonight". This was before the infamous Hays Code; the lyrics were a bit suggestive.

      Curious about Paul's musical that sounds like a country and Adam Cole's linking all 3 puzzles, which sounds more creative than the original.

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    2. See above--nothing so creative as that!

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  35. "H'ud gzc hs to sn sgd fhkkr vhsg sgdrd otyykdr" translates to "I've had it up to the gills with these puzzles." In retrospect, it was not good red herring.

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  36. Mamma Mia --> Mammalia

    No magic in that body of work. Also based on ABBA songs, Abbacadabra was a French musical television show for children that proved the highly improbable theory that ABBA could be made even more cloying. It did not have the magical success
    of Mamma Mia, the British live musical version closed after 8 weeks.

    WW: was your alo (Allô?) in response?

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    1. No, it was to the beautiful Greek island of Alonissos (see above).

      Delete
  37. I wrote, “The source of the musical is found in a common vegetable.” Find ABBA in CABBAGE

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  38. MAMMA MIA! -> MAMMALIA

    > I'd have picked a different number from that show, Blaine...

    Blaine took the title for this week’s blog from the number “One”, from “A Chorus Line”. I’d go with the line from “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three” that starts, “Tits [and ass]”. Defining characteristic of mammalia.

    > How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
    Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year!
    My hasting days fly on with full career
    But my late spring no bud or blossom

    Milton’s “Sonnet VII” has an ABBA rhyme scheme.

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    Replies
    1. Sorry, dropped the last word: "shew'th".

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    2. That may have been the inspiration for Shew’ths and Ladders ;-).

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  39. MAMMA MIA! -> MAMMALIA

    My Hint:

    "I am not a dog lover, and certainly would not take a beagle on a long trip."

    The Voyage Of The Beagle" is the book describing how Darwin began his discoveries on mammals.

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  40. It took me a while to get this one and it was so obvious when I saw the answer.
    I still thought it was clever!

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  41. Ugh, now I understand why this Broadway super fan could not figure out this puzzle. I read the clue wrong! I was trying to change EVERY LETTER to the letter before in the alphabet.....could not for the life of me figure it out. And I have seen so many of the two word (and one word and three word and more.....) shows!

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  42. I was tempted to say it's nice to have such a heartwarming puzzle this time of year, or that it made my blood boil, but that seemed too direct.

    My eventual hint was an add-on to another comment about foreigners: "one Foreigner in particular," "one singular Foreigner" being too obvious again--one of the band's hit singles was "Hot-Blooded".

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  43. MAMMA MIA!, MAMMALIA
    My hint involved the Queen song "Bohemian Rhapsody", which uses the phrase "MAMMA MIA" three times in a lyric. The Freddie Mercury biopic is named after the song, and has been getting rave reviews from the critics to the point they've even said it may do very well come Oscar time. Both ABBA's and Queen's songs were hits in the 1970s. Besmillah, whatever that means!

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  44. I was thinking of a "spicy meatball" clue, but figured it would get deleted.

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  45. Replies
    1. Uggh, Walker Stapleton in CO. Polling numbers locally show Jared Polis ahead. But, who knows about polling accuracy any more?

      And where is Diana DeGette, Congressional District 1, on this map?

      Thanks for sharing, jan.

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    2. The map only includes challengers. DeGette is the incumbent.

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    3. Stapleton's a big name in Denver. His great-grandfather was mayor, a muckety-muck in the Ku Klux Klan, and namesake of your old airport. Another great-grandfather was George Herbert Walker, grandfather of 41 (and great-grandfather of 43, of course).

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    4. Fivethirtyeight gives Polis a 94% chance of winning.

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    5. Ah, jan, I see. It was disconcerting to see that big old red name.

      Stapleton has run some very negative ads which are outright lies and truth-twisting extraordinaire.

      After Polis wins, we can focus on our outgoing governor, John Hickenlooper, and his plans for a 2020 Presidential run.

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    6. Hickenlooper's good, but my wife has her heart set on Amy Klobuchar. Have to get a car with a bigger bumper if they run together.

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    7. Please don't fall for the trope about polls getting it wrong - yes, circumstances can change and invalidate poll results before elections, but since 2000 or so we've also had exit polling (after folks cast their ballots) be "wrong."

      Statisticians note this is exceedingly unlikely, and in fact we use exit polling as a measure for accepting results in other countries. The 2000 and 2004 exit polls were so far off in several key states like Florida and Ohio that the State Department would not have accepted those results from other countries.

      Interestingly, exit polls have favored Democrats and the results have magically flipped to Republicans, but never the other way around.

      Republicans have offered a few explanations:
      - the methodology is inaccurate (very unlikely, it's been incredibly accurate for decades)
      - polling bias (again, very unlikely)
      - people leaving the polling booths don't remember who they voted for (hmmmm, maybe for a down-ticket office, but for President?)
      - people lied about voting for Bush or Trump because they're embarrassed (theoretically possible in liberal enclaves, but Florida and Ohio had a healthy Repub lawn sign population)
      - people think their votes were actually counted, especially true in states with Republican Secretaries of States, where a very high percentage of provisional ballots are issued in minority communities (and then deemed invalid), and large numbers of ballots are considered spoiled, especially, for example, around Cleveland.
      - electronic voting machines "misinterpret" the voters' intention. This has been documented in previous elections, where Gore or Kerry votes magically flipped to Bush. And the NAACP has issued a warning that if you choose the "straight Demoocrat" option in Texas somehow (magically) you cast a vote for Ted Cruz. Again, this has never happened the other way.

      The voting machines, made by a few companies like Diebold, are controlled by staunch Republicans, who do not release the computer codes, and often do not have paper backups. Independent testing by universities have repeatedly shown that votes can be altered or not counted, and results can be significantly manipulated.

      Meanwhile the media message is that the polling is wrong.

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    8. jan, I would vote for that ticket in a heartbeat, with either one in the top spot.

      eco, very disturbing warning from the NAACP about voting in Texas. We have all paper ballots by mail or ballot box so they can be easily rechecked. A paper trail is a must.

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    9. In NJ, we have electronic voting machines with no receipt, nor even any display verification of whom your votes were cast for. You push buttons for your candidates, which causes lights next to the names to light, but once you hit the CAST VOTE button, everything goes dark, and you must take it on faith that your vote was properly recorded.

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    10. I think you can obtain those machines at Christie's.

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    11. jan, is there a move to a paper ballot in NJ in the works? I like that I can take a few hours to study the issues, mark my ballot, and drop it off with email confirmation that it arrived.

      <
      ^
      ^
      ^This year’s ballot was 6 four-fold pages of amendments and propositions, in addition to all the political seats and judges.

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    12. No move to paper ballot as far as I know.

      I'm in NJ's 11th Congressional District, which has been owned since 1995 by the useless Rodney Frelinghuysen. After Trump's election, the backlash was fierce enough that Rodney announced his retirement. At the moment, Democrat Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor, is leading Republican Jay Webber in the polls. But my favorite lawn signs belong to an independent, Robert Crook. He has no chance, of course, but I find "Crook for Congress" refreshingly honest.

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    13. But Jan, you're in New Jersey, what could possibly go wrong?

      We have paper ballots, you draw a line to connect two arrows, which is a little weird. The numerous ballot pages get fed into a tabulating machine; we get no receipt (other than a tear-off edge) or printout, but at least the bin holds real paper. I think the machine barfs out your ballot if you've voted for two candidates for the same position, but not if you don't vote on an item.

      I think they also have electronic machines for visually or physically impaired. Or those that really hate drawing!

      We also have ranked choice for local elections, but state wide positions are now the top two vote recipients from the primary.

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    14. In Russia they still use voting booths with doors so they are completely enclosed. When the voter pulls the lever for Putin he hears his vote being registered. If he votes for the opposition candidate he hears the cyanide tablet dropping into the solution as the door locks.

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    15. For the last Primary vote in our county, they went to a new electronic voting machine. It seemed OK except for a software problem that caused EXTREMELY slow reporting speeds. One ray of hope though, was that it printed out a copy of your cast ballot that you must review. It seems a little odd, though, that we have to turn it back in for the vote to be tallied. I'd like to have some way to verify that it is actually counted.
      The big test will be this Tuesday, to see how fast the results are totalled & reported.
       We also have early voting and my wife and I voted last week. I would like to know how many other people have already voted, making the latest TV ads a waste of my time and their money.

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    16. For a consensus study report on this topic from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, see Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy (2018).

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  46. Is it to late to submit an answer and can someone explain how to do that ?

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    Replies
    1. Yes.

      Next week, submit here by 3 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday:

      https://help.npr.org/customer/portal/emails/new?i=7

      Delete
  47. My hint was when I said I "furnished an answer," --> furniture ---> IKEA --> Swedish --> ABBA. I hope that's not too vague a connection.

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  48. My clues -“Though I consider this a bad puzzle. Can’t wait to see who the on-air winner is this week.”. ‘A bad” was clue for abba. Reference to on air winner was for ABBA hit The Winner Takes It All.

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  49. Mama Mia! I've never heard of "Mamma Mia" and I just mow played the song by ABBA and I've never heard it either.
    Mammalia came to mind in my first run through the back half of the puzzle, but it did me no good.

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  50. This week's challenge: This challenge comes from listener Dominick Talvacchio of Chicago. Think of an article of apparel in eight letters. Drop the last 2 letters. Move what are the now the last 2 letters to the front. You'll get an article of apparel in 6 letters. What is it?

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    Replies
    1. This puzzle reminds me of one from the not-so-distant past. --Margaret G.

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  51. It would be hard to top this puzzle.

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  52. Better late than never movie clue for 10/28 puzzle
    Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

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