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I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: The Crowd Goes Wild... When We Skip a Posting

Posting every day, even for just a week or two, is... challenging, at times. And whenever we cancel a posting, particularly if we do it unexpectedly, we get letters in about a 2:1 ratio, for and against. That is to say, we generally get some very kind messages along the lines of, "Hate to be without anything to read this morning, but I'm glad to see you're taking care of yourselves." But for every two of those, there's one that says, "What the hell kind of site is this? Why do you take so many days off?"

We are not sure if these people really don't know what kind of site it is; some folks seem to have the curious idea that we're overseeing a sweatshop full of grad students, or something along those lines. In fact, outside of guest contributions (like the one we have today), all of the content is produced by (Z), (V), (L) and (A), and that is ranked in order starting with who writes the most words per week. We have also made no secret of the fact that if (Z), in particular, runs into a late obstacle, it can be hard to course-correct, by virtue of being in the Pacific Time Zone. We try to hammer out some version of a rough draft, earlier in the day, but that is often not possible.

There is also another issue, one that runs contrary to our nature to admit, but one that exists nonetheless. There certainly COULD have been a post today, if (Z) had just stayed up working until 8:00 a.m. PT. The problem is that all-nighters like that tend to produce below-average posts and they can also be difficult to recover from, up to and including falling ill due to overwork. We, and in particular (Z), have spent the last year or so working to accept that sometimes the loss of 1-2 days' postings means the 10 postings after that will be much better.

One more thing: We actually don't take that many days off. We once had a run of over 1,500 days without missing one. And we still average north of 6 postings a week. That's very unusual for any site like this, particularly one with such a small staff.

Anyhow, we had two hints last week: (1) "We almost wrote an item about Robert Kennedy Jr. with a headline about his quackery," and (2) "For the headline about Mike Banks, we almost included a reference to Madison Cawthorn..."

And here is the solution, courtesy of reader R.H. in Stow, MA:

This week's headlines all contain an animal sound hidden in a single word:

Paging Elbridge Gerry, Part III: Following Virginia Uproar, What's Next for Democrats?

Hope You Enjoyed Your Stay: Banks the Latest Trump Official to Disembark

The Fourth Estate: Green Shoots in the Media World, Part II

This Week in Schadenfreude: A Fool and His Moolah Are Soon Parted

This Week in Freudenfreude: And Here You Thought Books Were Uncool

As for the hints, we have: (1) We almost wrote an item about Robert Kennedy Jr. with a headline about his quackery, and (2) For the headline about Mike Banks, we almost included a reference to Madison Cawthorn.

My first thought on reading the theme description was that somehow a dead bear would be involved.

No dead bear, but otherwise correct! Also, Crowd from this headline.

Here are the first 60 readers to get it right:

M.M. in Charlottesville, VA
M.K. in Seattle, WA
S.G. in Durham, NC
J.N. in Zionsville, IN
G.M.K. in Mishawaka, IN
M.Z. in Sharon, MA
J.F. in Fayetteville, NC
D.D. in Bucks County, PA
M.H. in Ottawa, ON, Canada
G.S. in Basingstoke, England, UK
D.L. in Springfield, IL
D.L. in Uslar, Germany
T.K. in Half Moon Bay, St. Kitts
S.B. in Palm Harbor, FL
R.E. in Birmingham, AL
J.W. in Victoria, BC, Canada
M.H. in Altea, Spain
M.K. in Long Branch, NJ
J.T. in Philadelphia, PA
E.S. in Cincinnati, OH
D.D. in Highland Park, IL
A.E. in Cleveland, OH
S.K. in Ardmore, PA
J.C. in Johns Creek, GA
A.D. in Gaithersburg, MD
J.M. in Estes Park, CO
P.B.J. in Delaware, OH
M.T. in Simpsonville, SC
H.M. in Minneapolis, MN
T.T. in Conway, AR

H.B. in Santiago, Chile
T.K. in Manchester, MO
B.M. in Chico, CA
K.M. in Ypsilanti, MI
E.P. in Tillson, NY
K.R. in Austin, TX
M.S. in Canton, NY
M.W. in Frederick, MD
R.S. in Milan, OH
D.P. in Mt. Rainier, MD
A.W. in New York City, NY
P.H. in Bozeman, MT
B.F. in Nashville, TN
A.W. in Brooklyn, NY
D.K. in Bethesda, MD
P.H. in Ft. Lauderdale, FL
E.V. in Derry, NH
M.L. in Everett, WA
H.B. in Acton, MA
J.C.B. in Seattle, WA
W.V. in San Jacinto, CA
P.A. in Redwood City, CA
M.A. in Soquel, CA
M.V. in Oak Park, IL
D.B. in Pittsboro, NC
P.J. in Quakertown, PA
M.F. in Goshen, KY
N.T. in Le Perreux-sur-Marne, France
R.M. in Summerville, SC
M.C. in Falls Church, VA

The 60th correct response was received at 7:59 a.m. PT on Friday.

For this week's theme, it relies on one word per headline, and it's in the category Language, we suppose, although that's really not very helpful. For a hint, we'll say that you need zero external knowledge to solve this one. Everything you need is here.

If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com with subject line May 23 Headlines. (Z)

This item appeared on www.electoral-vote.com. Read it Monday through Friday for political and election news, Saturday for answers to reader's questions, and Sunday for letters from readers.

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