Am I a Cheater or a Genius? (subtitle: Jefferson v. Hamilton)

I hate even asking that question. But there are arguments both ways.

I have taken to attempting some of the puzzles in the back of the New York Times Sunday Magazine each week. Most of them I don't even give a second glance because I can just tell by looking that it ain't gonna happen (every puzzle involving numbers). However there is one puzzle, innocuously title "Spelling Bee", that draws me in every week.

It's a circle. Inside the circle, arranged like the numbers on a clock, are six letters. Inside that circle of letters is a hexagon shape with just one letter inside of it. The idea is to use any of the letters in the outer ring (as many times as you need) as well as the letter in the center to spell as many words as you can. So to recap: You MUST use the letter in the center in each word; the letters in the outer ring are there for you to use, or not use, as many or as few times as you'd like in each word. Oh, and each word has to be at least five letters in length.

So try it, although since I have no idea how to put letters in a circle you're going to have to either make due with my representation below or draw this out yourself if you want the actual graphic.

                                                       E

                                         Y           M         I

                                         X                       R
                                                       T

You can (kind of?) see the idea here. Let me help you some more. You could use the word "timer", because it uses the "M" in the middle, as well as any other letters on the outside. You could use the word "trimmer" for the same reason. You could not use the word "texter" because it does not use the "M". Get it? Go ahead. Give it a go. You get one point for each word (proper names and hyphenated words are not allowed), and three points for a word that uses all seven letters of the puzzle.

Now be honest. How long did you spend trying to find words before you came back to reading the rest of this? It's kind of addicting isn't it?

I've been trying these puzzles each week for months now. Just in case you aren't frustrated enough, they put a rating system for each puzzle. The puzzle above is rated as follows:
7=good; 12=excellent; 17=genius.

I made it to "good" all by myself. But then...

I had a few words which I wasn't quite sure were actual words, so I went to my computer and clicked on the dictionary program on my Mac. The first word I wanted to look up was "mirer"--as in someone who gets mired down. It turns out that though "mirer" is not a word, "mirex" is, in fact a word. Not that I knew that. But I found out because as I entered in each letter of my word in question, word possibilities started popping up in a list.

M
I
R (mirage, mirror, mirth...)
E (mire, mirex)

And there you go. Mirer not a word. Mirex a word. That I did not know until just then.

I wrote it down and gave myself a point. Am I a cheater?

And if you're being nice enough to give me the benefit of the doubt at this point because I came across this technique accidentally, how about if, now that I knew I could do this, I started just typing in the letters from the puzzle to see what would come up?
Yes, I did that.
And I got more points. (trimeter, rimier and mitey are all legitimate words and now I even know what they mean!)

I am now, according to the rating system for this puzzle, a genius. A GENIUS I say!

But am I? I consulted the instructions for clarity. The directions simply ask how many words you can spell using the given letters. They do not specifically allow using any kind of aids in this quest. They don't specifically prohibit it, either.

So the bigger question, I guess, is how to interpret the instructions, as a strict constructionist (you can only do what is specifically articulated in the document) or a loose constructionist (it is not prohibited if the document does not specifically prohibit it)? Thomas Jefferson or Alexander Hamilton?

I am, apparently (and to no one who knows me would this come as a surprise) a loose constructionist, and as such I am, at least for today, declaring myself a genius :)

General Jumbliness and Discombobulation

Is anyone else out there just plain exasperated?

This White House is leaving me breathless with its constant stream of conspiracy theories, illegal maneuvers, flat-out lies and baseless accusations.

Not that I want him to do what he promised to do (I did not vote for him), but wasn't his big draw with his crowd the fact that, according to him, he and ONLY HE could get done what people wanted done? He was going to repeal Obamacare on DAY 1 (it turns out he had, and I quote, "no idea how complicated healthcare is!" Seriously?). He's going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for it (no indication as of yet that Mexico will embrace that idea, so if there's a wall then US taxpayers will foot that bill). Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Trump was going to bring back manufacturing plants and coal plants and thousands upon thousands of jobs on DAY 1. We do seem well on our way to backing out of trade agreements. Perhaps that will bring back some jobs. Not thousands upon thousands. And I'm not sure whether Trump ever addressed what is likely to happen to the price of consumer goods once those trade agreements are broken. The devil's in the details, and Trump provided preciously few of those in his speeches. He's more of a grand, sweeping statements kind of guy. ISIS--I believe Trump declared that he would convene his generals and they would have to submit a plan to defeat ISIS within 30 days. Anyone heard of anything happening in that arena? Anything at all? Do we have that plan yet? And crime. Didn't he say that he would clean up crime in the inner cities on DAY 1? And shouldn't the VA be fixed by now?

DAY 1 was never going to be what Trump said it was going to be. That should have been people's first clue that perhaps nothing else was going to go as planned.

And things have definitely not gone as anticipated.

We've had a categorically unsuccessful special forces raid in which one soldier was killed, though Trump deemed the operation a huge success from start to finish (how he could lose a man and still declare 100% success on the mission is beyond me, and seems disrespectful to all military families). He's had one senior official resign in disgrace over his lies/Russia connections, and one has had to recuse himself from all things Russia at this point due to his own lies to Congress during his confirmation hearings. He's accused three million people of voting illegally, President Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower, President Obama of orchestrating White House leaks, and the Democrats of obstructing his every whim. I'm not sure if he's noticed, but the Democrats do not have the numbers currently to obstruct anything. Literally. Whatever's not happening is either on Trump himself or on the Republicans.

You don't have a full cabinet? Have your cabinet nominees submitted the required forms for confirmation hearings? No? Then that's on them. There's a process in place for a reason.

Not a lot has gotten done so far. Thankfully. Because what has made it through is thoroughly alarming. Pollution regulations have been rolled back. By Executive Order. The EPA is on lockdown and their website being scrubbed of environmental date regarding climate change. Financial regulations have been rolled back. By Executive Order. There have now been TWO Muslim bans put forward. By Executive Order.

History has also been rewritten by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Did you know that Historically Black Colleges and Universities began because black students were not satisfied with the level of education they were receiving? Take that in for a moment. That's Ms. DeVos's version of the genesis of HBCU's.

So exasperated. Yes. I have no idea what's going on with my government. I'm not really sure my government knows what's going on with my government. Yesterday Senator Rand Paul was pushing his copy machine all over Capitol Hill in search of the new ACA bill. He was not allowed to see it. It's under lock and key, apparently. Another fact to take in: a sitting US Senator is being actively prohibited form seeing the healthcare reform bill being put forward by his own party. WTF?

It feels good to get this all out. It feels a little jumbled, but I think that's because that's how I'm feeling these days. This is not only disconcerting, it's discombobulating.

Here's how I see this in a nutshell:

Trump and his cohorts are raging drunk with power.

At some point soon, I would like the adults in the room to announce their presence, take people's car keys, and bring this raucous kegger back under control.