Welcome to Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up, a weekly series for people who enjoy mental exercise spiced with politics, humor, odd bits of trivia, and the occasional feline voter.
The theme for the past few months, and the next 3 weeks, is Candidates Worth Supporting.
Some of the candidates featured in past weeks have included Daily Kos members Angela Marx, Tim Canova, Zephyr Teachout, Kim Weaver, Russ Feingold, Jim Keady, Wade Norris, Adam Sackrin, and Alina Valdes (who posts under the username alijim89).
Non-DK members have included Peter DeFazio, Maggie Hassan, Diana Hird, Pramila Jayapal, Susannah Randolph, Tammy Duckworth, Eileen Bedell, Angie Craig, Beth Tuura, Bob Poe, Tom Wakely, Ann Kirkpatrick, Emily Cain, Jim Mowrer. Ted Lieu, David Kent, Sarah Lloyd, Adrian Fontes, Chase Iron Eyes, Barbara Lee, Marvin Nelson, and Deborah Ross.
The answer to last week's puzzle was Denise Juneau. Find out more about why she's a great candidate, and find the name of another great candidate when you solve tonight's puzzle — all in tonight's Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up.
First, a quick quote from Denise Juneau:
I believe that every student in Montana, regardless of who they are or where they’re from, deserves a top-notch public education, free of bullying, prejudice, or hate. That’s something I’ve worked toward my entire adult life — first as a teacher, then as a lawyer, and now as Montana’s top education official.
… I’m proud to say that since being elected superintendent, more students are graduating than ever before in Montana, a third fewer American Indian students are dropping out, we now have a bully-free law in place that gives families more ways to stand up to hate, and my Student Advisory Board is making sure kids have a seat at the table in shaping their public school system.
Plenty more about Denise Juneau coming up in tonight’s diary, but before I get too carried away with that, here’s tonight's puzzle.
This is a JulieCrostic (named after Sunday Puzzle founder Julie Waters). If you’re familiar with how JulieCrostics work you can jump right in; if you don’t know how JulieCrostics work, you can find complete instructions (with diagrams and everything!) at the bottom of this diary.
Tonight’s puzzle has 10 rows, with 3 answers per row. (Yes, that's a bit longer than usual for a Saturday night. What can I say? Tonight's featured candidate has a longer than usual name.)
Here are the clues:
- 1. genuine
- 2. domain
- 3. group spirit
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- 4. Good Queen's follower
- 5. found in a diamond
- 6. handles inappropriately
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- 7. California fruit
- 8. kind of community
- 9. put on a performance
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- 10. mend
- 11. big and beautiful
- 12. big male bird
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- 13. becomes darker
- 14. skirts
- 15. colorful expressions
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- 16. something to go with
- 17. mysterious Nero
- 18. guy
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- 19. be a passenger
- 20. attempted
- 21. more neat and orderly
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- 22. eyeglass part
- 23. Christmas carols
- 24. books of fiction
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- 25. mites
- 26. capital of a North African country
- 27. joins together
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- 28. Spiegelman comic
- 29. heavy hammers
- 30. big pictures
All right, let’s get serious about Denise Juneau now!
Denise Juneau is running for Montana’s at large congressional seat against Republican incumbent Ryan Zinke. Here's a little about who Denise Juneau is:
Denise Juneau grew up in rural Montana and her family’s roots date back to before it was a state. She didn’t start out with much, but hasn’t let that stop her from accomplishing so much for Montana. From Head Start in Billings all the way to Harvard, from a classroom in Browning to leading Montana’s public schools, Denise has made job training a priority and increased graduation rates to the highest level in state history, boosting Montana’s economy by millions. In Congress, she’ll put her toughness to work for Montana by getting more Montanans into great jobs, growing our economy and fiercely protecting our cherished public lands from any attempts to transfer or sell them off.
Her campaign website has a very good issues section. Here's some of what Denise Juneau says about the economy:
Denise Juneau supports an economy that works for all families, especially the middle class. Denise will fight for policies that help working families better make ends meet. That includes supporting affordable child care, access to paid family leave, and improved access to college and workforce training.
(She also says a lot of good things about education, about veterans, and about fair treatment for American Indians.)
In addition to reading what Denise Juneau says about what she plans to do if elected, I recommend reading what other people have said about her. For instance, here's some of what the Bozeman Daily Chronicle said in their endorsement of Denise Juneau:
With just one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, Montanans need to think carefully about whom they send to Washington to fill this role.
This year, voters should send Denise Juneau to replace Ryan Zinke.
Juneau has an outstanding record as state superintendent of public instruction, where she has had significant success in increasing statewide graduation rates. She has an exemplary resume that includes a law degree from the University of Montana and a graduate degree in education from Harvard. And despite that outstanding academic pedigree — which could have vaulted her to success in any number of areas on the national level — she returned to Montana to work to improve lives in her home state.
Her experience as an educator and as superintendent has served Montana well and, we believe, would complement the strengths of the state’s two sitting senators.
Montana has been lucky to have such a thoughtful, accomplished person as part of our state government. Sending her to Washington is the right move.
[After this explanation of why they feel Juneau is a good choice, they go on to explain why they feel Zinke is a bad choice. That’s also well worth reading, so click the link above and read more of what they said (after you’ve finished solving tonight’s puzzle).]
Here’s what Emily’s List president (and Montana native) Stephanie Schriock said about Denise Juneau:
Denise Juneau is a lifelong public servant who has fought to increase educational and economic opportunities for all Montanans. As Montana’s superintendent of public instruction, Denise has been a champion for quality schools and for policies that give all students a fair shot. Our country has never before elected an American Indian woman to serve in Congress, and Denise is determined to break that glass ceiling to advocate for women and families whose voices aren’t heard in Washington. A century after Montanan Jeannette Rankin became the first woman ever elected to Congress, my home state continues a proud tradition of electing strong women leaders – but has yet to send another woman to Washington. Denise Juneau is ready to change that, and the EMILY’s List community of over three million members is proud to support her campaign to make history in Montana.
And here’s one more important reason to support Denise Juneau in our efforts to improve congress:
By some accounts, the sexual orientation of Montana’s superintendent of schools, Denise Juneau, was an open secret.
Juneau’s sexuality was already common knowledge within Montana’s political circles, and it was hardly a topic of conversation during her two previous campaigns for the Office of Public Instruction.
But her sexual orientation became a topic for public fodder in her bid for U.S. Congress when she introduced her female partner to an assembly of Democrats at a Bozeman political fundraiser on Saturday. By doing so, Juneau became the state’s first openly lesbian candidate for Congress...
Rep. Mary Ann Dunwell, a Democratic member of the state House who was at the fundraiser, said she was “surprised and impressed” by Juneau’s decision to introduce her partner.
“Sadly, today it is still a big deal. Maybe someday it won’t be a big deal. That day isn’t here yet,” said Dunwell. “Making it make public on Saturday was a huge step toward realizing that day when it won’t be a big deal.”
Why is this so important? Because, as most of you know, the current crop of congressional Republicans has shown itself to be emotionally incapable of working productively with straight male Democrats. (Many Tea Partiers have demonstrated that they are only able to tolerate the thought of a straight male like Obama being in the white house if they’re able to imagine that Michelle Obama is actually a man.)
We need a congress which is able to work together and get things done. If Republicans aren’t able to work well with straight male Democrats then it’s important to elect as diverse a group of Democrats to the house as we can to provide Republicans with a wider choice of people and hopefully find ones they are more comfortable working cooperatively with. Denise Juneau has worked well with many different types of people over the years and is an excellent choice to represent Montana in congress. If Republicans can't work well with her then there is something seriously wrong with them.
Lastly for tonight, here’s
an explanation of how JulieCrostics work:
In JulieCrostics you are given a set of clues, such as these:
1. say what’s not so
2. resting
3. concede
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4. more than game, less than match
5. famous star location
6. vampire slayer
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7. activist Eastman
8. skirt or pad
9. accepted principle
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10. consume
11. blue-green color
12. candidates who share a platform
The answers to the clues need to be entered into a grid of rows and columns. For the Saturday night warm-up puzzles I usually tell solvers how many rows and columns there are; for the more challenging Sunday night puzzles the solvers generally need to figure that out for themselves. (In this example, the puzzle contains 4 rows with 3 answers per row).
Solving the clues is easier than it looks, since every word in a row has all the letters of the previous word plus one new letter. For example, in the set of clues above the answers in the first row are:
1. say what’s not so = LIE
2. resting = IDLE [LIE + D, anagrammed]
3. concede = YIELD [IDLE + Y, anagrammed]
As you solve the clues, write the answers and the add-on letters into a grid like so:
lie D idle Y yield
set A east K stake
Max I maxi O maxim
eat L teal S slate
As you can see in the chart, all the words in a column have the same number of letters. In this example puzzle the first answers in a row all have 3 letters, the middle answers all have 4 letters, and the final answers all have 5 letters.
When you have solved all the clues and written down all the added letters, the added letters will form columns that spell out a message of some sort. It might be a person's name, it might be the title of a book, it might be a familiar phrase, or it might be a series of related words.
In the example given, the verticals read DAIL YKOS. With proper spacing and capitalization that spells out Daily Kos!