Sunday Q&A

It's the last weekend of the month. Time for non-political questions!

We were also going to have letters today, but this is already 7,000 words, and those would push it to 12,000 or more. Too much, especially after the 11,000-word Friday post. We'll share some of the letters during the regular week, instead, and then we'll also have some of them next Sunday.

If you are still working on the headline theme, we'll say that if we wanted to keep things nice and airy, we would have written headlines that incorporated the letters "H," "O" and "N," just like we used "U" and "I."

Twenty (Non-Political) Questions

D.S. in Layton, UT, asks: For those of you to whom this applies, how did you prepare your Thanksgiving turkey? What kind of brine, etc.

(V) answers: We didn't do Thanksgiving.

(A) answers: We cooked some items, but I ordered turkey breasts from Sunbasket (incidentally, their cranberry cherry compote is fantastic). They came pre-brined and pre-seasoned. I used to make the entire meal from scratch, and there's a certain kind of fun in that, but there's also something to be said for taking it easy and kicking back.

(Z) answers: I was at (A)'s place, so her answer is also my answer, except that I didn't do the ordering. My contribution was stuffed mushrooms.

(L) answers: I didn't cook and we got a cooked turkey breast from Costco. I think it had a brine already on it.

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K.H. in Maryville, TN, asks: In the spirit of the season: "stuffing" or "dressing"?

As for me, it was, is, and shall ever be, stuffing. Whether it is actually stuffed or not.

(Z) answers: "Dressing" is largely a Southern term, which means... maybe you should rethink your position, as a Tennesseean. As to the four of us, none of us hails from the South, and so it's "stuffing" all around.

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R.S. in Ticonderoga, NY, asks: With the holidays here, I thought I'd ask about mincemeat pie filling, such as "None Such" brand and others. Granted, I'm the only one in my household who craves a nice slice of mincemeat pie at Thanksgiving and Christmas (and leftovers make a great breakfast), but finding the once-familiar jars in the supermarket has become difficult to impossible over the last few years. A jar that once cost about $8 goes for $20 on Amazon now, and I haven't seen mincemeat in our local supermarkets in three years. Is there a mincemeat shortage? Do so few folks these days like mincemeat that less is made? Is this a sign that Anglo-American holiday traditions are fading? Or is it just that mincemeat isn't most people's cup of tea?

Hoping everyone is having a great Thanksgiving weekend!

(Z) answers: The first problem is that mincemeat refers to two things; traditionalists want it the old-fashioned way, with the meat, while more modern-thinking folks find the meat off-putting, and just want the version that is something of a mix between a fruitcake and a pecan pie. That means that no matter what is on the shelves, some would-be customers are unhappy.

The second problem is that mincemeat, in whatever form, does not comport well with many peoples' ideas about fat intake or sugar intake.

As a consequence, mincemeat sales have been in decline for years. From roughly 2015 to 2022, after Christmas each year, I would see dozens of jars of mincemeat filling (non-meat version) on the bargain table at the local grocery store. Eventually, the store stopped carrying it, even at holiday season. And in the last several years, most of the primary mass producers of mincemeat filling (e.g, Borden's) stopped making it. So, it's now a speciality item, at least in the U.S.

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A.S. in Bedford, MA, asks: My son keeps asking me variations of "why are some countries big and some countries small?" I usually say "history" and sometimes "geography" (he's three). But are there general patterns that provide a better answer (for me, not for the three year old)?

(Z) answers: Geography is a big part of it, of course. Mountain ranges, oceans, large lakes, rivers, deserts, etc., tend to be barriers to expansion. Not always, but more often than not.

The other big part of the equation, broadly speaking, is the development of effective bureaucracy. Every nation in the world was once made up of much smaller polities. Those governments that could conquer or absorb their neighbors, and then make it stick through effective administration and use of military/political power, could expand and grow. Those that could not do that, could not.

The famously effective bureaucracies of the ancient world were to be found, first and foremost, in China and Rome. China managed to keep things together, more or less, from that era onward. Rome held on for a long time, then crumbled, in the 400s AD, although the Eastern Roman Empire lasted another 7 centuries or so, and then became the basis for the Ottoman Empire.

After Rome fell, Europeans largely forgot all the things the Romans had learned about bureaucracy and effective administration, with the result that the continent was extremely balkanized for a thousand years or so, from 500 AD to about 1500 AD. Then, the Europeans began to figure out how to manage large polities once again. That is when most of the western nations, as we know them today, began to come together. Some of them (e.g., England and its North American colonies; Spain and ITS North American colonies) overextended themselves. Others (e.g., Germany and Italy) were a bit late to the modern-nation-state party. But the rediscovery of effective bureaucracy was really the key (along with the geographical considerations, of course).

Again, though, when European nations began to finally pull themselves together (again), they were just catching up to what the Chinese and the Ottomans had already been doing for centuries.

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P.R. in Arvada, CO, asks: Hope you all had a good holiday. Rumor has it that there is a historian on the team. So, maybe (Z) will know the answer to this. Why gold? Ancient civilizations had a fascination for gold, but not because it was particularly useful but because it is a symbol of wealth. It doesn't matter which civilization you are talking about, they all wanted gold. Does this fascination go back to a time when the human population was small and the fascination migrated with the population, was there some other reason everyone picked gold and not silver, copper or something else? Maybe it was just coincidence or (more likely) is my understanding of the ancient civilizations fascination with gold distorted from reality?

(Z) answers: Gold has a few interesting properties that, in aggregate, make it unique.

First, it's found nearly everywhere, but it also exists in limited quantities everywhere. So, it's common enough to be known, but rare enough to be precious, in nearly all parts of the world.

Second, it does not rust or otherwise deteriorate.

Third, due to the previous two properties, it is an excellent way to store wealth.

Fourth, it's shiny. Humans are visual creatures.

Fifth, it's very malleable, and can be crafted into many different things, from crowns, to jewelry, to bowls, to doorknobs, to toilets. All of these things can be done with relatively low-tech tools.

Sixth, some cultures eventually came to recognize its scientific and industrial properties, like its high conductivity.

All of these things said, there is also probably some bias in this perception (as you yourself suspect). For all of the reasons above, including the scientific/industrial ones, the British—to take one example—came to place enormous value on gold. And when, for example, Lord Carnarvon and his tomb robbers found the treasures of Tut, they made much noise about all the cool gold stuff they'd found. They did not make such a big deal about the lapis lazuli, carnelian, and turquoise stuff they'd found. This undoubtedly made, and makes, the ancient Egyptians seem even more infatuated with gold than they actually were.

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R.C. in Eagleville, PA, asks: I faithfully watched Ken Burns' The American Revolution. Why did he omit The Continental Army taking over the airports?

(Z) answers: Burns is always about a generation behind on the scholarship.

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R.T. in Arlington, TX, asks: Back when the U.S. Constitution was being created, how confident do you think the founding parents were about the staying power of a democratic republic they invented? I suspect they would be surprised that we held it together for 237 years, considering the history of government in Europe and the failure of the Articles of Confederation. So, if the founding parents had been placing bets on how long they thought this would last, where would you put the over-under?

(Z) answers: I do not think they would be surprised at all that the Constitution managed to hold up for 200+ years. Remember, long-lasting governments, especially when backed by abundant resources (like the U.S. has) have been the historical norm, not the exception. Compared to the historical examples the Framers admired, like Athens, the Romans, the Gauls, the Holy Roman Empire, and yes, the Brits, 200 or 300 years was not a particularly ambitious goal.

However, they did write a document that was more of a broad framework, rather than a detailed, blow-by-blow blueprint for governance. They also took care to include several options for updating and reinterpreting that document. So, the one thing they would be astonished by is the notion that somehow their wisdom, like that of the Oracle of Delphi, or the Buddha, or Jesus of Nazareth, was eternal, and could be used forever as a hard-and-fast guideline for how to run the country, no matter how it might expand or change over the years.

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R.W. in Brooklyn, NY, asks: In regard to your statement that Doug Jones "will focus on painting [Tommy] Tuberville as a carpetbagger," I'm wondering when it became more common to use "carpetbagger" generically for anyone from out-of-state, rather than for northerners moving to and exploiting southern states. Do you have any sense of when this transition began?

(Z) answers: The actual carpetbaggers were out of power by the mid-1870s. The carpetbags that inspired their (insulting) name were gone by the early years of the 20th century. And so, from 1880 through 1930 or so, the term "carpetbagger" was hardly used at all, outside of history books.

During the Great Depression, and then during and after World War II, there was much population movement in the United States. At that point, the term came roaring back to life, and went from appearing in print fewer than 1,000 times a year to appearing in print tens of thousands of times a year. It was at this time that it acquired its modern meaning, namely "a politician who moves from one place to another in search of opportunity," as opposed to specifically referring to a Northerner moving to the South. It was in wide enough use by the 1960s that in 1964, Sen. Kenneth Keating (R) made "He's a carpetbagger" his main line of attack against Robert F. Kennedy Sr. in that year's U.S. Senate election in New York. It did not work, obviously.

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S.H. in Duluth, MN, asks: I'd imagine that this question would most likely be for (Z). With the end of my college semester approaching, I've been very, very busy writing my 20-page term paper for my history class. While this number probably seems like rookie numbers, especially from the vantage point of one who regularly writes huge amounts of text nearly every day, since I'm a mere freshman, it's still way, way more than I've ever had to write before. My question is: Do you have any general advice for how to write a solid long-form paper, especially a history paper? Any insights would be greatly useful.

(Z) answers: All I can tell you is how I did it when I was a student (and how I still do it today, when I have to write at length).

First, develop a detailed outline, in which you figure out your basic argument, the sub-points/sub-arguments you will make, and the specific evidence you will use in service of those sub-points/sub-arguments.

Second, organize the outline in a fashion that is logical, but ideally that also places the best ideas you have at or near the beginning, and that places the weaker ideas you have at or near the end.

Third, turn the outline into prose. Write only a very rough intro, or no intro at all. That is one of the hardest things to write, and what you end up saying in an essay is often a little (or a lot) different from what you thought you were going to say. So, it's better to wait until the end to write the intro (and the conclusion). Instead, focus on the body of the paper. Try to really explore your ideas and your evidence. I can assure you, as someone who has graded tens of thousands of history essays (including a bunch today), one piece of evidence that is fully and thoughtfully analyzed is better than three pieces of evidence that are only analyzed in a cursory fashion.

Fourth, once you reach your target length (or, ideally, surpass it by a little bit), dump the parts of your outline you didn't get to. Ideally, this will mean you've put your strongest ideas into the paper, and you've left the weaker ones on the cutting-room floor.

Fifth, once you have a solid body for your essay, ideally one that you've revised a couple of times, then go back and do the intro, conclusion and footnotes/end notes/bibliography. Also, remember the intro is the "elevator pitch" version of the argument and the evidence, and should not be too long or too detailed. The conclusion is a recapitulation of what you said in the paper, and should not introduce any new ideas or evidence.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

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F.R. in Evergreen, CO, asks: Consider the following Turing test. Let AI generate all the content of your website for a week. One outcome is that you would find the site plausible and informative. This being the case, would you then step back and let AI run the site day-to-day? Has this already happened?

(Z) answers: You can't be serious.

First of all, we would not do that because it would be dishonest. We cannot tell our students not to let AI do their work for them, and then turn around and let AI do our work for us.

Second, we flatter ourselves that we have the occasional insight, or turn of phrase, that could only have come from us, and not from someone else, and certainly not from a computer. Perhaps even more than occasionally.

Third, as we have demonstrated several times, including yesterday, an LLM-based tool would be absolutely terrible at this particular task. They do not take in, and integrate, new information fast enough to meaningfully respond to the latest developments in the world of politics. In yesterday's example, the AI bot didn't even know Dick Cheney is dead. Almost all the links we give are to articles from the current week. AI bots don't update that fast.

Fourth, if we ever tried something like this, even for a single item (much less a whole day, or a whole week), we suspect the readership would be onto us like white on rice.

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R.M. in Pensacola, FL, asks: I've noticed that (V) has not been all that enthusiastic about AI and the current state of it. I, personally, have not been all that impressed either. It may be an ID10T error on my part, but the ChatGPTs of the world just straight up don't work for me. Same with any chatbots/voice assistants/whatever.

My question is twofold. How do I get better performance out of ChatGPT and such, and what does the future look like in the next 5-10 years for AI and that whole environment?

(V) answers: I do not use ChatGPT. It is not good enough to be trusted. Maybe some day, who knows, but not yet. On straightforward factual questions, like: "Who was Franklin Pierce's vice president?", where the answer can be found somewhere on the Internet, it does OK. On more complicated ones, so-so, with many misses. Having your doctor replace his or her physician's assistant who answers the phone with an AI bot that determines whether or not you are allowed to make an appointment with the doctor strikes me as a very bad idea.

As to getting better performance, maybe formulating the question as precisely as possible.

As to the future, no doubt AI will get better, unless it crashes and burns. Companies are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers for AI in the hope they can recover the money some day. Even if AI gets better, there is no guarantee that the investment can be recouped. The question there is not so much: "Does AI give me a good answer?" as "How much per month would you be willing to pay for an annual subscription to ChatGPT or some other AI bot?"

In some very specific areas, AI, or AI-adjacent things like self-driving cars, will probably do very well.

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L.E. in Santa Barbara, CA, asks: (V), considering your background, do you regularly look at NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD)? If yes, which are your favorite types of photos? (I most enjoy the ones that are not—or barely—retouched/Photoshopped, and least enjoy the videos.)

Your bio says you are a photographer. Does your interest extend to taking pictures of celestial bodies and atmospheric phenomena? If yes, have you ever submitted any of yours to APOD for publication?

(V) answers: I was an astrophysicist, not an astronomer. They are not fully interchangeable. My Ph.D. thesis was on why the solar corona is so hot (2M Kelvin) when the photosphere, which is much closer to the core of the sun, is only 5000° Kelvin. Thermodynamics says that this is impossible, but the sun doesn't seem to have passed Physics 101. While I like pretty pictures of celestial objects if one happens to float by, I don't look at APOD regularly.

In the Netherlands, it is so cloudy so much that even seeing the full moon isn't a given. Also, I live in the middle of a highly urban area, so street and other lighting makes this a less than ideal place for astrophotography.

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M.P in Leasburg, MO, asks: What is your favorite period in art history and who is your favorite artist? If you could go back in time and meet one of the greats, who would it be and why?

(Z) answers: I know this isn't a "named" period, but most of the art that I like comes from the roughly 75 years when more traditional types of art were colliding with abstraction, roughly the late 1800s to the mid-1900s. In other words, I gravitate toward stuff that has one foot in the realm of representation and one foot in the realm of abstraction, not too far in either direction.

The two artists I like the most are Gustav Klimt and M.C. Escher. Those two names have rarely, if ever, been mentioned in the same sentence, at least in part because one was a fine artist and the other was more popularly inclined. But their works are both very geometric, and read like puzzles, of a sort.

I also like artists who capture "everyday" scenes, especially urban scenes, like you might see if you just happened to be walking the streets of New York City or Chicago or Los Angeles. I'm thinking, in particular, of Edward Hopper here.

And finally, I like artists whose work is meant to be ironic or tongue-in-cheek. Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (who did those paintings of dogs playing poker), or René Magritte, Joseph Ducreux, or some of the stuff produced by Andy Warhol. Just this weekend, I spent some time looking at the work produced by Gilbert & George, much of which is very cheeky.

That said, if I could visit any artist (assuming the language barrier is somehow overcome), how can I pick anyone other than Leonardo da Vinci? I really wouldn't even want to talk to him about his art; I'd be much more interested in his thoughts about engineering and anatomy.

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K.H. in Albuquerque, NM, asks: My cousin-in-law is off to Vegas to see The Wizard of Oz at the Sphere. In her suitcase is a complete Dorothy cosplay outfit for the occasion. I thought I'd ask (Z) about his thoughts on this "movie" experience/attraction?

(Z) answers: I have not been to the Sphere yet. On the two or three occasions I have been to Las Vegas since it has been opened, it was given over to concerts, either by Eagles or by whatever the remaining members of the Grateful Dead are calling themselves these days. While I would like to see what the Sphere is like, and while I would not be opposed to seeing those bands, the roughly $600 get-in price was/is more than I am willing to pay. The list of musicians I would pay $600 to see is vanishingly small.

One day, probably sooner rather than later, I most certainly will attend a show at the Sphere. And a more regular, less pricy, show, like one of the re-imagined movies, will likely be what I will see. Indeed, it is very plausible I will see The Wizard of Oz, since they have reportedly done remarkable things to enhance the movie and the experience. If not The Wizard of Oz, then maybe another movie. The rumor is that the original Star Wars will be the next film to get the Sphere treatment.

As to the cosplay, I am not a participant in such things, but I do like observing. One of the most memorable filmgoing experiences I've had was at opening night of the first film in the second Star Wars trilogy, The Phantom Menace. That was the first new film in the franchise in something like 20 years, and I managed to get tickets for the premier premiere venue, namely the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. About 95% of the crowd was in some sort of costume, and it was quite a scene, with a lot of good energy.

In general, opportunities like that don't come along very often. If the Sphere has found a way to give people a chance to experience that kind of thing on a regular basis, then good for them, and good for your cousin-in-law.

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R.M.S. in Lebanon, CT, asks: I am sure I am not the only reader who agrees with this, but I think so far the 2020s have been an awful decade for American films in terms of quality. A look at the list of the top 50 films of the decade shows the industry is dominated by superhero action franchises, children's films, and a handful of dramas. Most of these films are very formulaic. The only two films on the list I have seen are Wicked and Dune 2. Nothing else here interests me.

It feels like forever since there has been a blockbuster comedy or romance film in the U.S. There are no huge comedies produced in the U.S. anymore; no American Pie, no Wedding Crashers, no Hangover. I cannot remember the last time there was a huge romantic film, like Titanic or Fifty Shades of Grey released.

Why have the quality and variety of American films fallen so much this decade? Is it because of the pandemic? Is it because American tastes have changed? Or is it something else?

(Z) answers: To start, the entertainment business is a copycat business. They tend to try to duplicate whatever has been successful recently. So, once a particular genre gets going, it tends to keep going until it peters out. From comic book movies now, to buddy cop movies in the 1980s and 1990s, to sci-fi in the 1960s and 1970s, to Westerns for over half a century.

On top of that, in part due to the pandemic, and in even greater part due to streaming and other technological innovations, most movie theaters are in trouble. The people who buy most of the tickets are either younger people who want action/comic-book stuff, or parents with young kids who want to get everyone out of the house for a few hours. So, these demographics get catered to, in an effort to keep the theaters at least somewhat full. To try to lure in at least some of the other potential customers, the studios tend to do a lot of two-fer films. By that, I mean that instead of releasing a straight comedy, they release, say, a superhero film with significant comedic elements (e.g., Deadpool).

And finally, another key way that they keep the books balanced is to send movies abroad, to be released in foreign markets. And the most important foreign market is China. Certain things, like action, translate well to other cultures and languages. Other things, like comedy and romantic relationships, don't translate as well. If you look at the ten highest-grossing films of 2025 so far, only two—Superman and Fantastic Four: First Steps—brought in more money in the U.S. than they did internationally.

There are still some films in the now-unfavored genres that get general releases, but rarely do they "hit." More commonly, such films tend to be on streaming services, since their target audience prefers convenience (and value) over the movie-theater experience. For example, the #1 film on Netflix this week is Champagne Problems, a rom-com.

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J.A. in Monterey, CA, asks: Something that has never sat well with me is how professional team athletes are traded without their approval. This could be to a team that would be bad for their career or a location they wouldn't want to live in... I'd never want to live in a deeply-MAGA state. Plus, these trades can upend players' lives, particularly those with families.

My discomfort with this seems more prominent in the NBA. With more trades per player than the other major sports, mostly Black players, and mostly white owners, the extensiveness of trades just seems too similar to slave-trading. I do not accept the justification for such trades, in the very frequent mentions of this I have seen, that the players are paid enough that team owners should "own" the players. Do you have a sense for why this isn't discussed more? And why wouldn't player unions push more for no-trade clauses to be the standard unless waived by a player or other measures that could limit trades?

(Z) answers: If you are hired by Dunder Mifflin in their Scranton, PA, office, and they say they are transferring your job to Utica, NY, then you can go where the job is or you can quit. If you join the U.S. military, particularly as a careerist, and they tell you that your duty station is no longer San Diego, it's Berlin, Germany, you must go, and if you don't like it, you can separate when your enlistment is up. If you are a Chicago-based installer of computer networks, and your company lands a big contract to spend 9 months setting up a network in Phoenix, you relocate to Phoenix for the better part of a year, or you find a new job.

In short, there are lots of jobs where workers are transferred without their consent. No matter where an NBA player plays, they are still part of the same corporate entity, namely the National Basketball Association. And if they have to switch from what is, in effect, the Los Angeles branch office to the Dallas branch office, that is part of the business. They knew that from the moment they joined the league, and if they do not like it, they are free to quit. This is why this issue is not discussed more.

And no-trade clauses are already available in all of the major pro sports leagues (though they are only standard in Major League Baseball, and even then, only under specific circumstances). On the whole, owners are not eager to grant them because they don't like to have their hands tied. And, on the whole, players are generally not willing to fight for them. In part, this is because they have other things that are more of a priority. And in part, it is because if the team wants to trade a player, the player generally doesn't want to remain. After all, the team has made clear it does not want him or her, for whatever reason.

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J.H. in Sturbridge, MA, asks: Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred recently spoke about his desire to see two expansion franchises named before his term runs out in 2029.

It is going to be Nashville and Salt Lake City, isn't it? Both are rapidly growing markets and would provide geographic balance, allowing for the eventual realignment of the American and National Leagues to Eastern and Western Conferences, like we see in basketball and hockey. The only other likely contenders are Portland, Vancouver or Montreal, but I can't envision the Commissioner wanting to agitate his buddy in the White House by allowing Portland ("Burning to the ground", per Trump) or Vancouver or Montreal (even worse in Trump's eyes—they're in Canada!) to get the nod over cities in two red states.

(Z) answers: First of all, I do not think baseball would take such short-term considerations into mind when making such a long-term decision. Donald Trump is a lame duck, the timer is running on his presidency, and what exactly is he going to do if he disapproves the choice of expansion location?

Second, I do not know exactly what considerations baseball will prioritize when it does expand. Certainly it cares about the potential base of viewers/ticket buyers and also corporate sponsors. It also cares about picking a market that's growing, rather than one that is shrinking. It also does not want to aggravate the players, if that can be avoided.

I tend to think Salt Lake City is a bit of a dark horse, rather than a favorite. That city has zero nightlife, which is no fun for players or out-of-town fans. The airport basically shuts down at 9:00 p.m., which is another problem for out-of-town fans. And the elevation of the city would pose problems similar to the ones the Colorado Rockies have, making it nearly impossible to attract top pitching talent.

Nashville is certainly possible, though I would guess there are a few other Southern cities that would get a long look. Charlotte has the fanbase and definitely the corporate base. So do San Antonio and Orlando.

Portland would basically be Seattle south. That is to say, there isn't quite as much population or corporate money there as in some other places, but the fans would be fanatical. And there's a long history of non-MLB baseball in that area.

The largest metro area in the U.S. that does not already have a team is... Riverside. The Dodgers, Angels and Padres would probably resist putting a fourth team in Southern California. However, it is definitely the case that for many people in the Inland Empire, those three teams' stadiums are not really accessible. The drive from Riverside to downtown L.A., given traffic, requires leaving at 3:00 p.m. for a 7:00 p.m. start time.

Of the Canadian markets, Montreal is probably off the table, since they already had their chance and it did not work out. Vancouver seems most likely, because that would become the "Western Canada" team. Though the Mariners would not be happy to have a new competitor for dollars and eyeballs right in their backyard.

The most lucrative potential market is Mexico City. That team would become the de facto national team of a culture that very much loves baseball. And there are ALL KINDS of eyeballs and corporate dollars to be had in the largest city in North America. However, the travel would be a problem for players. So too would the elevation, the pollution, and fears about potential crime.

If I had to pick, I would guess the two new markets end up being Charlotte and Nashville, with Portland and San Antonio on deck if those two fall by the wayside.

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M.M.F. in Nagoya, Japan, asks: If we want to include links or other formatting in messages, what is most convenient for your production process? Just HTML email, or some other format like Markdown?

(Z) answers: The less formatting the better. We almost certainly have to redo the html anyhow, so better to work with raw, unformatted links and other material.

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D.R. in Oakland, CA, asks: As a reader from the formative era, I recognize that each of you are well educated in your respective fields (CS, History, Law).

But when it comes to the wide variety of topics or questions that come up on this site, while forming a response, do you ever ponder "Am I just suffering from the Dunning-Kruger Effect?"

(Z) answers: No. When you get advanced degrees, part of what they are teaching you is the subject. But the main thing they are teaching you is how to think critically, how to assess information, how to organize that information, and how to express your thinking in written form. So, even when we are a little (or a lot) outside our subject areas, we still rely on skills we have that are very applicable. It is for this same reason that you rarely see someone who has a Ph.D. in two different disciplines. The training would be too redundant, even if the subject matter is different.

We also have another advantage that works for us when it comes to this particular issue. We choose what we write about. We choose what questions we answer. So, if we encounter something that is just too far outside our abilities, we just take a pass.

Of course, part of the dynamic with Dunning-Kruger is that the person is not aware of what is going on. That's why it's called a cognitive bias. So, it could be that we are fooling ourselves here, and that we are, in fact, poster children for the Dunning-Kruger Effect. But I don't think so, and I have two reasons for saying that. First, when we feel we must write on a subject that is on the periphery of our expertise (e.g., Israel), we generally say something like "This isn't really our area..." Generally, people falling victim to the Dunning-Kruger Effect don't demonstrate that kind of self-awareness.

Second, we have a very, very knowledgeable reader base. And if we write something that is off the mark, we will hear about it. It is very rare that someone writes in, and it turns out we were completely and entirely wrong about something. And even when that does happen, it is almost always because we misread a particular bit of information, not because we simply didn't understand the subject we were writing about. More commonly, when one or more readers writes in to object to our presentation, what happened was: (1) We just didn't write very clearly or we didn't explain ourselves very well; (2) We gave a brief explanation of a complicated point, and our explanation did not pass muster with some readers; (3) We looked at the same basic information the reader(s) did, and just came to different conclusions.

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S.S.L. in Battle Creek, MI, asks: Thanks for all the work you put into bringing us joy as well as knowledge. Can you teach us a bit about how you make games/puzzles, or how you learned to, if that's easier?

(Z) answers: I am going to try to answer your question; I don't know if I will succeed.

With the weekly headline theme, I already know what the game is, I just have to figure out the theme. Almost always, I have one headline that I'm kind of stuck with, and that I know I have to work with, and so I use that as the inspiration/basis for the theme. This week, for example, I was stuck with "Thank U, Part II," and I stared at that for 4-5 minutes to figure out how I could squeeze a theme out of that. Next week, I will be stuck with "Thank U, Part III," and will have to do the same thing, coming up with a DIFFERENT overall theme.

For other game-type stuff, it generally begins with something less concrete. The recent Thanksgiving game, for example, came about because I knew I couldn't do another "Thanksgiving trivia" item, so I had to come up with something else. I thought about Thanksgiving "stuff" like pumpkins and turkey, and then I thought of the British game show Only Connect, and there was the idea. I thought up the pumpkin mini-puzzle first, which worked as proof of concept. Then, I found several lists of Thanksgiving-related stuff, and I figured out which ones could be made to work with the concept.

To get a little bit into the nitty-gritty, I couldn't come up with a good idea for yams or mashed potatoes or stuffing or the Macy's parade. I thought the pie one would be a little difficult (Is that a pie? Or is it specifically an apple pie? Is it some other kind of pie?), plus I wanted to make the joke about Tommy Tuberville, so I used that as the sample. The hardest one was the football one. I tried hard to make "things that have tackle/tackles" work, but there aren't four things for that, only three (football, fishing, ships). I also tried "things with centers" and "things with passes" and "things with backs," but all of those did not work, for various reasons. Oh, and of all the 10 mini-puzzles, the one I was happiest with was "euphemisms for bonuses."

We asked for suggestions for how we should commemorate Christmas, and a couple of readers wrote in and said we should do a different game every day, leading up to the 25th, like an advent calendar. If readers have thoughts on this idea, let us know at comments@electoral-vote.com.

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