My morning ritual used to be a time of peace and solitude. A sacred time in which I’d gather up the energy to face the day. I’d brew my coffee and eat my smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel. And then I’d open up the New York Times Games App.
I’d always start with the Spelling Bee. Personally, I like to find the pangram first and then hopefully find enough words for a respectable “Great” or “Amazing.” Not every morning is a “Genius!” morning—and that’s okay!
Then, I’d do the daily Crossword. Not the Mini, the Crossword. A delightful five-minute exercise on Mondays, an hour-long conquest on Sundays.
And if I still had time before my first meeting of the day (and sometimes I’ll admit, during my first meeting of the day), I’d do the sudokus. My personal goal was to solve the easy level in under three minutes and the medium in under four. Just for an extra little challenge, you know?
These puzzles were our brain ticklers, modern man’s solution to the sphinx’s riddle. But you got excited, maybe you got greedy.
You introduced Connections.
It was a simple enough concept. Sixteen words. Four categories. All we had to do was find the four groups of four words. You were merciful. You let us have a few chances to make mistakes and you’d even tell us if we were on the right track.
The first few games were fun. Seductive. Intriguing. Playful.
But then they got sneaky. Maybe you realized it wasn’t all that easy to come up with these puzzles and you decided to get a bit creative. I saw it happen over those first few weeks. And now, every day, I wake up and I see your tricks. The overlapping words across all four categories. The carefully arranged word placement forcing us to see your misleading phrases. I remember the time you gave us the names of three social media platforms and we racked our brains trying to find a fourth that simply didn’t exist. And let’s not forget about the category that was “Words that start with classic rock band names.” Who wouldn’t get that?
Sometimes, they’re not even words. Once, it was just sixteen pairs of letters. Another time, it was emojis.
When I work out two categories and have just eight words left, you’d think it’d be easy. But that’s still seventy possible combinations. Seventy! And do you know how many meanings words have in English? It’s not one of those hyper-precise languages like German where you can keep clumping words together. The word “run” has 645 different definitions on its own. I’m terrified of that word now.
Sure, when I solve the game on the first try, I’m elated. I’m basically bouncing off the walls. But on those days when I don’t solve it… well, let’s just say those are dark days. I don’t sleep properly anymore. I can’t eat. I haven’t had a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel in months. Those sixteen words haunt me.
So here’s a little puzzle for you, Ms Liu. Let’s see if you can guess the categories:
Yours truly, A discontented & disconnected puzzler
- - -
ANSWERS:
1. My mornings. 2. Things I’ve been called recently. 3. My wife is leaving—also the answer to ‘I; Am; Getting; Divorced’. 4. While we’re at it, words that should be recognized in the Spelling Bee, but aren’t (and these are just ones that start with the letter L). It would be great if you could fix that too.
Royal Jordanian Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft fighter pilots fly alongside a U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft while waiting to connect for fuel over Jordan Oct. 19, 2009, along with other F-16 pilots from the 157th Fighter Squadron at McEntire Joint National Guard Base, S.C., and Mwaffaq Salti Air Base in Azraq, Jordan. The air refueling is also being used as a training exercise on the safety and proper procedures for refueling while in flight. U.S. Airmen are in Jordan for the 2009 Eager Tiger 10, Falcon Air Meet, a friendly competition between the air forces of the U.S. and the Middle East, as well as other F-16 aircraft users from around the world. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Caycee Cook/Released)
The Iranian strike was largely defeated by Israeli, US, and Jordanian air defenses:
Iran mounted an immense aerial attack on Israel on Saturday night, launching more than 300 drones and missiles in retaliation for a deadly Israeli airstrike in Syria two weeks ago, and marking a significant escalation in hostilities between the two regional foes.
The strikes caused only minor damage to one Israeli military base, and most of the airborne threats were intercepted, Israeli military officials said. The United States said it had helped to shoot dozens of drones and missiles.
All of this reinforces the strategic assessment that Iran is not looking to escalate with Israel and is, in fact, working very hard to avoid escalation. Although Israel has hit Iran’s ally Hamas hard, the war in Gaza has gone very well for Tehran so far. Israel was badly wounded in Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023, plans for Israeli-Saudi normalization have been put on ice, and much of the Middle East and the wider world is blaming Israel and the United States for all of it. There is no reason for the Iranian leadership to jeopardize all that by giving Israel (or the United States) a justification to do massive damage to Iran, which could snatch defeat from the jaws of their victory.
I tend to agree with this… Iran attacked in a manner that conveyed how serious it was, while at the same time taking clear steps to limit damage to Israeli targets. This is negotiation with long-range missiles; Iran saves face and preserves its revolutionary cred, while Israel can laugh the attacks off as not worthy of responding. Of course whether it will work out that way is open to question…
Two Israeli officials said some war cabinet members had urged a retaliatory strike, but that was called off after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel spoke by phone with President Biden on Saturday, and because the strikes caused relatively minor damage. The officials did not elaborate on the contents of the call between the leaders. Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said early Sunday that the confrontation with Iran was “not over yet.”
Born in 1887 near Prague, Oklahoma, Thorpe grew up on the Sac and Fox Nation on what was once Indian Territory (basically the idea was a gigantic ghetto to throw the Indians and hopefully forget about them) and then Oklahoma when whites decided they wanted that land too. As a kid, like so many Native kids, he was stolen by the federal government and forced into the Indian Schools, in this case the infamous one at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Here, he like others, was forced to cut his hair, were beaten or starved if they spoke their own language, coerced into accepting Christianity (though in this particular case, Thorpe’s parents were already Catholic and thus so was he). Kill the Indian and save the man, said Carlisle head Richard Henry Pratt.
This would be traumatic for anyone, or at least anyone who survived since many did not. He initially went to the Haskell Indian School in Kansas, but kept running away. so off to Carlisle for him! He was in and out of school for quite awhile. In 1907, he found a path forward–sports. Thorpe was of course a phenomenal athlete, one of the greatest in the history of this country. He walked out onto the track in his street clothes and out-jumped everyone else at the school in the high jump. This got the attention of the track coach, a certain fellow named Pop Warner. Thorpe was already competing in track, basketball, and ballroom dancing. In fact, he would win the 1912 national college title in ballroom dancing! Warner was putting together his great football teams, launching his own career as one of the great early coaches, but he wasn’t sure he wanted Thorpe, not because of his ability but because the physicality of football might impact the other sports, which Warner also coached. Thorpe convinced him to give him a shot and he was so good that Warner caved.
Thorpe became the greatest player college football had seen to this time. He played running back, defensive back, and did the kicking. Carlisle won the 1912 national championship thanks to Thorpe and Warner, including kicking Army’s ass, an Army team with Dwight Eisenhower on it for that matter. He loved football more than anything else and stopped competing in track for awhile, but then decided to train for the 1912 Olympics. He competed in the pentathlon and decathlon, which are still really the most athletically astounding events. It’s one thing to be competitive in one event, but in like 10???? He had never even competed in a decathlon before! So naturally he won the gold in both!!!
Thorpe became a huge star in the United States. This was the precise moment in which Americans were already romanticizing the West, developing its sports culture, and creating celebrity culture. Thorpe hit the Venn diagram for all of these. So he got a ticker-tape parade on Broadway. But the ridiculous culture of amateurism came back to haunt Thorpe. Needing money and just liking to compete, in 1913, it came out of that Thorpe had played some low-level pro baseball. NOT THAT! He had received a couple of bucks a game in 1909 and 1910 to play for a team in North Carolina. This was super common, but most college players used an alias when doing so. Thorpe didn’t take that precaution. He admitted it and tried to get around it by playing the Dumb Indian. Like, literally. His letter stating his case read, in part,
I hope I will be partly excused by the fact that I was simply an Indian schoolboy and did not know all about such things. In fact, I did not know that I was doing wrong, because I was doing what I knew several other college men had done, except that they did not use their own names …
Good try, but it didn’t work. Now, the Olympics had a rule about amateurism that any claims had to be made within 30 days of the end of the games. It waived its own rule to strip Thorpe of all his medals.
So Thorpe ended up in professional sports. He signed with the New York Giants in baseball and played a few games here and there, but the only time he played more than 100 games was in 1917, most of them after being traded to the Cincinnati Reds. He never hit much and over 698 at bats between 1913 and 1919, he hit .252/286/362. He played some professional football too. In 1915, he signed with the Canton Bulldogs, which became an original founder of the National Football League in 1920. He then created his own all-Native NFL team, the Oorang Indians out of LaRue, Ohio, which was a franchise in 1922 and 1923. They weren’t very good, but did win a few games and Thorpe was named to the NFL All-Pro Team in 1923. He retired from the NFL in 1928, now 41 years old. He also played a little bit of hoops and even dabbled in hockey.
But Thorpe was really not ready for sports to end. It was his only income and he spent too much and his Carlisle education, to say the least, had not provided any actual skills. Like so many graduates of these schools, he faded into poverty, alcoholism, and early death in a society that rejected them. He ended up out in Hollywood, get jobs playing silly Indians in westerns, once playing himself teaching kids to kick in some comedy. He would occasionally work in the movies through the 50s and lived to see his own biopic, where he was played by Burt Lancaster in redface (though at Lancaster could look good as an athlete). But none of this made him much money. He worked as a bouncer, joined the Merchant Marine for a hot minute in 1945, dug ditches, and drank. He was diagnosed with lip cancer in 1950 and survived it, but was a charity case for the hospital. His heart was going too and he died in 1953 of his third attack, out in his California home. He was 65 years old.
Jim Thorpe is buried at the Jim Thorpe Memorial, Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
Wait, what?
Yep, the racism Thorpe faced throughout his life continued in his death. The 1950s was a silly time in some ways. Cities would rename themselves for publicity sake. The town of Hot Springs, New Mexico renamed itself Truth or Consequences as a game show stunt. At least that was harmless, if dumb. This was different. The town of Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, a place Thorpe had never been, sent a message to his widow and offered her a bunch of cash for the body. Desperate for money, she agreed. They built this ridiculous monument to him and then renamed their town for him, as a publicity stunt to increase tourism.
This remains quite controversial today. Thorpe’s descendants have sued to get the remains back. But in 2013, in one of the most twisted interpretations of American law I have heard in a long time, Judge Richard Caputo, a Clinton appointee for that matter, ruled that to move his body back to Oklahoma to be with his family would be a violation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. That is like the opposite of what NAGPRA is supposed to here. That was overturned by the 3rd Circuit, but that didn’t solve the body issue and he remains in Pennsylvania today after the Supreme Court refused to hear the case in 2015.
If you would like this series to visit other Native American athletes, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Chief Bender is in Roslyn, Pennsylvania and Moses Yellowhorse is in Pawnee, Oklahoma. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.
Jim Thorpe is buried at the Jim Thorpe Memorial, Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
Wait, what?
Yep, the racism Thorpe faced throughout his life continued in his death. The 1950s was a silly time in some ways. Cities would rename themselves for publicity sake. The town of Hot Springs, New Mexico renamed itself Truth or Consequences as a game show stunt. At least that was harmless, if dumb. This was different. The town of Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, a place Thorpe had never been, sent a message to his widow and offered her a bunch of cash for the body. Desperate for money, she agreed. They built this ridiculous monument to him and then renamed their town for him, as a publicity stunt to increase tourism.
This remains quite controversial today. Thorpe’s descendants have sued to get the remains back. But in 2013, in one of the most twisted interpretations of American law I have heard in a long time, Judge Richard Caputo, a Clinton appointee for that matter, ruled that to move his body back to Oklahoma to be with his family would be a violation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. That is like the opposite of what NAGPRA is supposed to here. That was overturned by the 3rd Circuit, but that didn’t solve the body issue and he remains in Pennsylvania today after the Supreme Court refused to hear the case in 2015.
JERUSALEM — Iran launched a massive attack fleet of missiles and more than 100 drones toward Israel late Saturday, a stunning assault that put the Israeli military on high alert and threatened to unleash more violence in an already turbulent region. Interceptions by Israel’s sophisticated air and missile defense systems began early Sunday, causing loud booms over Jerusalem and air raid sirens to sound across the country.
The military warned citizens to brace for an attack of undetermined scale, as combat aircraft filled the sky over much of Israel. Officials closed schools and banned large gatherings as some airports in the region halted operations. U.S. forces also took down Iranian attack drones, said U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
And Israel Defense Forces spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said in brief remarks that it would take several hours for the drones to reach Israel, leaving citizens to endure a dread-filled countdown until the early hours of Sunday. Many families had already heeded warning to equip safe rooms and shelters with water and food. The military said it had lifted a shield of fighter planes and air-defense systems over Israel and intended to intercept as many of the aircraft as it could before they entered Israeli airspace.
“Continue to act responsibly and calmly, as you have done so far, and be sure to follow the guidelines,” Hagari said. “The IDF is prepared and ready across all its defensive and offensive systems; we have prepared for a variety of scenarios in advance.”
Hagari later said Iran had launched missiles from its territory. “You may hear explosions from interceptions or debris falling,” he warned.
A military official said the IDF was monitoring for additional waves of airborne attacks.
President Biden was helicoptered from his Delaware beach house to Washington, where he convened his national security team and was receiving regular updates in the White House situation room, the White House said.
Intelligence reports had swelled for days with warnings that Tehran was poised to retaliate for a deadly airstrike on an Iranian embassy complex in Syria presumed to have been carried out by Israel. The administration, fearing that U.S. troops might also be targeted, began last week to dispatch more ships and warplanes to the region.
After six months of war in Gaza and fire from Iran-backed militants in Lebanon and Yemen, leaders and analysts from Washington to Cairo have warned that an attack from Tehran, especially one launched directly from Iran on Israel, could spark an even wider conflagration. Numerous top administration figures warned Iran in recent days that the United States’ support for Israel’s security was “ironclad.”
“The United States will stand with the people of Israel and support their defense against these threats from Iran,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in statement.
But earlier Saturday, Iran appeared to brush aside the cautions when Revolutionary Guard naval forces stormed the MSC Aries, an Israel-affiliated ship near the Strait of Hormuz, and diverted the vessel to Iranian territorial waters.
Shortly after the launch of “dozens” of drones, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the airborne attack was aimed at “specific targets” in Israel. Iranian state media said the swarm of attack drones was meant avenge the seven people, including two senior members of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, who were killed in the Damascus airstrike.
Israel’s war cabinet went into an emergency session at midnight Saturday, and the Pentagon said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had spoken with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Officials in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq closed airports and restricted airspace.
“There is no question this is an escalation. There is no question that the Iranians have now given Israel the legitimacy to attack on Iranian soil,” Yaakov Amidror, a former Israeli brigadier general and national security adviser, said in an interview.
Tensions in the region quickly spiked to perhaps their highest levels since the Oct. 7 attack on Israeli towns by Hamas and the ensuing war in Gaza.
Israel has exchanged fire across its border almost daily with Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon, and officials directed residents of some northern towns to seek shelter after air raid sirens sounded early Sunday. Yemen-based Houthi rebels, another Iranian proxy group, have launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Red Sea shipping and toward Israel.
But until now, a full-fledged attack by any of the Tehran-backed forces — which Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar called for — had not materialized.
“We don’t want to fight multiple major wars at once, and so far, we haven’t had to,” an Israeli official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters. “But we are ready tot, and maybe that is where we are.”
Military experts said Israeli multilevel air defense networks, along with U.S.-built F-35 fighter jets, have proved effective against a range of airborne threats. Israel’s well-known Iron Dome system has frequently shown an interception rate of well over 90 percent during rocket attacks from Islamist militants in Gaza.
But with the scale and duration of the attack still unclear, they warned that Iran was capable of deploying a fearsome arsenal.
“With a combination of drones, cruise missiles and likely ballistic missiles to come, what they are trying to do is to overwhelm the system,” Amidror said. “Each is problematic by itself, but together they are more challenging. This is unprecedented. It means Iran opened a new chapter in the war.”
The IDF said it was immediately focused on defending against the attacks and would determine its response at a later time. Officials said they intended to intercept as many of the drones as possible before they reached Israeli airspace.
“If we’re not successful, then we will do what we do and what we have been doing for the last six months over Israeli skies,” the IDF official said.
Iran’s U.N. mission in New York said on X that the attack should be taken as its promised response to the strike on its diplomatic compound and that the “matter can be deemed concluded.”
But the post continued, “Should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!”
Lior Soroka and Alon Rom in Tel Aviv; Loveday Morris in Berlin and Susannah George in Muscat, Oman, contributed to this report.
Having much of the United States government either under the direct control of, or considerably influenced by, religious lunatics in the grip of apocalyptic fantasies, is a bad thing.
Especially given the similar dynamics in the Middle East.
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