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I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Wrestling with Wesley vs. Westley

We gave two hints for last week's theme: (1) "we were stuck with 'Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA)' as one of the headlines we had to work with. There aren't TOO many things you can do with that" and (2) "while we were able to find a language (Welsh) in which 'Troi' is a word, we could not find a language in which 'Worf' is a word. Even the language where you might THINK it would be a word, it's not."

And here is the solution, courtesy of reader D.E. in Lancaster, PA:

OMG I can't believe I didn't get the headline clues. They'll take away my Starfleet membership card!

It's characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation!

The Maine Debacle: A Lot of People Are Fighting to Be the Captain of this Ship—Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Political Bytes: The Data Isn't Looking Good for the Republicans—Lt. Cmdr. Data

Democratic Presidential Candidate of the Week, #23: Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA)—Lt. Ro Laren

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Go West (and Be Ready to Walk Many Miles)—Helsman/Transporter Chief/Operations Chief on DS9 Miles O'Brian

This Week in Schadenfreude: As They Say in Wales, "Chwarae Troi Chwerw, Wrth Chwarae Gyda Than"—Commander Deanna Troi

This Week in Freudenfreude: Rob Reiner Will End His Career on a Very Appropriate Note—Commander Will Riker

And the Saturday clue is "Worf" as in Lt. Worf, everyone's favorite Klingon.

What makes me slap myself is when you gave the clue that "Ro" was the starting point, I thought to myself, "I only know one Ro and that's Ro Laren."

Here are all characters listed, except Miles, in LEGO form, underneath a LEGO Enterprise-D!

Boy, LEGO doesn't do bald very well, does it? Anyhow, because we had a Rob Reiner piece last week, we strongly considered using "Wesley" in a headline, but decided it was too sloppy, since the character name in The Princess Bride is "Westley." Hence the headline of this item. Oh, and "Worf" is apparently NOT a word in Klingon.

We accepted any version of "Star Trek characters." However, to be precise, all of these people were bridge officers on the Enterprise-D for at least one episode.

Here are the first 60 readers to get it right:

J.S. in Huntington Station, NY
D.P. in Mount Rainier, MD
B.P. in Arlington Heights, IL
M.B. in Menlo Park, CA
Z.K. in Albany, NY
S.K. in Ardmore, PA
C.B. in Lakeville, MN
J.N. in Zionsville, IN
P.Q. in Metuchen, NJ
S.T. in Asbury Park, NJ
A.C. in Kingston MA
M.M. in Charlottesville, VA
R.S. in Landing, NJ
J.W. in Victoria, BC, Canada
M.T. in Simpsonville, SC
D.B. in Glendale, CA
R.S. in Milan, OH
A.A. in Branchport, NY
M.K. in Long Branch, NJ
E.P. in Plainville, CT
M.L. in Simpsonville, SC
T.K. in Half Moon Bay, St. Kitts
T.K. in Manchester, MO
M.W. in Altea, Spain
D.B. in Pittsboro, NC
B.R. in Arlington, MA
F.H. in Pacific Grove, CA
D.B. in Tokyo, Japan, Sector 001
G.M.K. in Mishawaka, IN
K.R. is Austin, TX

J.T. in Philadelphia, PA
M.H. in Nepean, ON, Canada
N.H. in London, England, UK
J.A. in Austin, TX
E.S. in Providence RI
R.A.G. in Seattle, WA
M.A. in West Windsor, NJ
M.M. in Dunellen, NJ
J.H. in Wintersville, OH
K.G.W. in Lafayette, IN
J.H. in Lake Forest, CA
C.D.K. in Yorkshire, England, UK
T.B. in Santa Clara, CA
G.W. in Avon, CT
P.A. in Redwood City, CA
S.F. in Pemberton Borough, NJ
A.G. in Plano, TX
D.D. in Bucks County, PA
R.E. in Birmingham, AL
P.R. in Havertown, PA
J.C.B. in Seattle, WA
G.M. in Arlington, VA
E.B. in North Liberty, IA
R.M. in Summerville, SC
R.S. in Pittsgrove, NJ
D.V. in Plymouth, MA
J.T. in San Diego, CA
T.R. in London, England, UK
W.A. in Red Lion, PA
T.D. in Chicago, IL

The 60th correct response was received at 8:11 a.m. PT on Friday.

For this week's theme, it relies on one word in some headlines, multiple words in others, and it's in the category Language. For a hint, we'll point out that we absolutely intended to have the presidential candidates' profile of #22 Elissa Slotkin today, and had to hold it because it's late and we're already pushing 10,000 words. But we built the whole headline theme around that, before we knew the piece would be held, and we'll tell you there's even less to work with there than with "Ro Khanna." We pondered putting a name with the initials E.S. in every headline, and we pondered using words where you have to add a letter to get a common woman's name (e.g., 'Elissa' + 'M' = 'Melissa'), and we concluded there is NOTHING that works well with "Elissa" or "Slotkin." Which leaves...

If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com with subject line July 17 Headlines. (Z)

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