The Belmont Festival at Saratoga

Say what you will about NYRA—and I will be the first to say what I will about NYRA—they did put together a series of superior races to surround the 2026 Belmont Stakes at Saratoga. It was a horseplayer's trip to heaven.

The "festival" started Wednesday, with what looked like empty stands, no doubt because of the day of the week, and the huge expense of getting a seat with a back. NYRA loves to now hawk its seats "with backs," and make you pay through the nose for plopping your backside and back in one of them.

For a while now NYRA has been clustering its Grade 1 races to be run on the same day. It does create a great card and a handicapper's challenge. Saturday's Belmont card had 6 Grade 1s, 5 in a row, culminating with the Belmont Stakes. There was also a Grade III on the card.

All week long I liked Golden Tempo, and told anyone who asked—or even who didn't ask—that he was the one. All week long the analysts mentioned that Golden Tempo wasn't going to get the fast pace of the Derby to close into, and without it wasn't going to win. End of story.

To me, this was hollow. Races are rarely copies of races run before. They all have different dynamics because they all have a different combination of entrants. Sure Golden Temple wasn't going to get a fast pace—no one in the Belmont was going to get a fast pace—but that didn't mean that the horse and rider couldn't adapt to and make use of what was being dealt. And they did.

The horse already proved they could easily go 1¼ miles. The Bernardini mare and Curlin sire guaranteed ability for distance. The horse skipped the Preakness, so Golden Tempo had 5 weeks of rest. A nice time to recover from the Derby. The connections were still there: an up and coming competent trainer in Cherie DeVaux, and the jockey José Ortiz should discourage no one.

The fractions were pedestrian; the final time was a calendar, but they tell you time only counts in prison. Sure Golden Tempo was last throughout most of the race, but never far back. There was a rugby scrum of horses that hit the final turn and basically it was several horses' race. The chart caller has Golden Tempo, and the second place finisher Commandant, brushing more times than a house painter. But well inside the sixteenth pole Golden Tempo asserted themselves to win going away by 1­¼ lengths.­­

And there you now have more history. A female trainer winning two-thirds of the Triple Crown, overshadowing Cherie's win with Englishman in the Grade 1 Woody Stephens, a 5 length win in a blistering time of 1:202/5, set up by an ungodly 434/5 half.

Cherie's getting the horses now from big shot stables. And this is just the beginning. The former female body builder's frame is still evident under the sedate clothing of a trainer in the boxes at Saratoga. 

And NYRA will now gloat about the festival. It shows their hand for the future when the new Belmont opens in September and the Belmont Stakes will return to its home in 2027 to be run at its usual test of champions distance of 1½ miles

NYRA will package its admissions with the need to buy seats for multiple days in addition to the Belmont Stakes. These people won't show up for those preliminary dates, and the stands with seats "with backs" will be empty. There will continue to be an onerous General Admission fee of something at least equal to the $90 they got for this year's Belmont at Saratoga, up from the prior year's $75.

Thank god for Fox Sports and Rupert Murdoch. He loves racing as much as he loves women. Fox Sports assembles a terrific cast of analyst/personalities to bring the viewer racing.

It was great to hear the former jockey Richard Migliore tell of when he was born in 1964 that they had to run the Belmont at Aqueduct because they were then rebuilding the Belmont that reopened in 1968, the Belmont I first went to on Belmont Day in 1968.

NYRA can do all they want to attract a crowd, but it's not a gambling crowd. And its not a consistent crowd outside of the big day of the Belmont. All the guys holding beer cans and the ladies with short skirts and fascinator headgear do not add to the handle. The handle is coming in from the betting whales and the simulcasting computer assisted wagering. (CAW)

At 77, I'm not one for the crowds, or the expense of "being there." There is no Senior Citizen discount, so I'll wait for a quiet Saturday or Sunday to go to the new Belmont and hope to get in for an unexorbitant amount and maybe even get a seat with a back that doesn't set me back a sum so great there is nothing left to bet with.

I suspect NYRA still wants me to bet, right?

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Poetic Justice

This is one of those suddenly-I'm-coming-across-something-I-haven't-heard-of-things-recently-but now I'm-hearing-of-it-again-kind-of-things. Did I miss an opportunity to cash in on a prediction bet and then be able to pay off my credit cards? Oh dear.

Friday's Final Jeopardy clue came under the general heading of Literary Terminology. You immediately feel there's trouble ahead. Time to trim the bet?

And then there's the reveal. And it is a doozie. "17th Century Critic Thomas Rymer Coined This 2-Word Term, Instructing That A Work Should Uphold Moral Principles And See Vice Punished." Surely it is a heavily freighted 2-word term to be able to do all that. Did the framers of the Declaration of Independence borrow the term?

One contestant answered: "what is a morality play;" the other: "what is virtuous text." No to both.

The current champ, Chris D'Angelo, answered correctly with: "what is poetic justice." That propelled him to being a 3-day champion, with a total of  $53,600. Nice work. Enough about Chris. He'll be back  on Monday.

I love Carl Hiaasen books. I even read the books for young adults. Florida might have hurricanes and oppressive heat, but Carl seems to  have fun. I bet his air conditioning works just fine.

His protagonists are always fighting the rapacious developers and polluters who are spoiling and fouling Carl's beloved native state. The latest Hiaasen book I just finished reading is "Flush," a YA book about the hard working Underwood family living on one of the Keys, who in their own ways are fighting the fight against a casino boat operator who pumps raw sewage into the bay every night rather than dispose of it legally into a designated holding tank, which of course will cost Dusty Muleman money. And when you're making money hand over fist, the last thing you want to do is make less of it by adhering to the law.

Paine Underwood become so incensed at the dumping and the subsequent spoiling of a local beach his kids use that he gets on board the Coral Queen one night and literally pulls the plug, sinking the boat into several feet of water.

Paine is arrested and starts doing jail time. He won't even consent to being bailed out by his wife Donna, and his kids Noah and Abbey, leaving them to have to visit him in the detention center. Paine is one stubborn, proud Floridian.

The casino boat can be raised, cleaned up, and is soon back in business while Paine fumes in jail. Along the way to the finale, Paine's father, Granpa Bobby, appears after disappearing in South America for 10 years evading some unsavory characters who have stolen his boat. Until now he's been presumed dead by the family. If there's one thing everyone in Florida has other than a tan, it is a boat, big or small. Something that floats. Most of the time.

The story is not crowded with so many characters that you can't follow along. There is of course the unmarried couple who live in a trailer, Shelly Muleman and Lice Peeking. If you're in Florida, everyone knows someone who lives in a trailer.

Shelly emerges as a bit of a heroine in the effort to bring Dusty and his law-breaking habit to justice. Noah and Abbey are two kids on bikes who manage to evade getting shot by a thug on the casino boat with a flare gun, who are later rescued by dad and Grandpa Bobby.

I finished reading the book on Friday night, after of course hearing the answer to the Final Jeopardy clue, "poetic justice."

"Flush" of course has a satisfying ending. Dusty Muleman's intelligently challenged son, Jasper,  accidently causes a fire on the boat and the boat is totaled, a blackened hulk lying in three sections in 22 feet of water. Goodbye Coral Queen, this time for good.

On the next to last page of the book, Paine says, "it's poetry."

"More like poetic justice," says Mom, who of course knows best.

Oh, the prediction bet I could have made.

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Shots

There are many hackneyed, cliché phrases. "Iconic" is one of the fairly recent, massively overused ones to denote something priceless, historic, popular...what? I can only think of icons in a Greek church, and I don't think they're talking about that.

The entertainment reporters will tell you a song, video, deal, movie, even a book, has just been "dropped." By this they of course mean released, but they can't just sat say that anymore. "It's been dropped." "It's being dropped." Okay. Will be available before it breaks?

Print, TV, and radio reports will usually tell us, "shots rang out." Shots are forever "ringing out." Would you select "shots" as your ring tone for your phone? Well, maybe a few of you might. Do shots really sound like bells?

And if the sun is out, the shots are ringing out in "broad daylight." Daylight is forever "broad." The intimation is that shots have intruded on a time when no one should be shot—daylight. The temerity of whoever pulled the trigger and disturbed daylight. They should be shot.

Of course the sun may have set, and it's nighttime. Then the shots rang out in the "dead of night." This of course means when everyone else is asleep, a shooter pulled a trigger and shot someone else who also wasn't asleep at an un-Godly hour, like in the "wee small hours of the morning."  Some people have no consideration of others. The noise, the sirens.

Pictured above is Ambrose Bierce, a 19rh-century journalist, writer of some renown who railed against clichés. I think there was a book in which he compiled these hackneyed figures of speech. I don't think it was "The Devil's Dictionary," a now somewhat hard to read compilation of Bierce's definitions for professions, and words. Example: Dentist, n. A prestidigitator who, putting metal in your mouth, pulls coins out of your pocket.

ChatGpt, tells us Mr. Bierce did, like myself, have something to say about shots "ringing out."

Ambrose Bierce had a sharp, almost sarcastic take on clichés in writing—especially in his column “The Passing Show.” He mocked the overused phrase “shots rang out” by pointing out that shots don’t actually ring; they bang, crack, or explode.

His point wasn’t just literal—it was stylistic. He was criticizing lazy, formulaic language that writers fall back on instead of describing things vividly or accurately. Bierce preferred precise, concrete wording over worn-out expressions that had lost their meaning through repetition.

In essence, his jab at “shots rang out” was a reminder: don’t rely on stock phrases—write what actually happens in a way that feels real and fresh.

Newscaster all lead into the weather report by telling us that so-and-so will now, "time it all out for us." What's wrong with "what's in store for us."

Are we getting hourly-minute-by-minute-second-by-second accuracy as to when things are going to happen? They do tells us when certain weather patterns will emerge. But there is no stopwatch accuracy when things are going to happen.

Back to the entertainment people. They will describe a resurrection of an old song, TV series, movie, theme of some sort that is going to be revived as "a re-boot."

The computer people, a long time ago now, told us to "re-boot" the computer when it stopped doing what we wanted. Try again. Metaphorically, you're giving it a kick, "a re-boot" to try again and the next time hope to get it right without consciously changing anything. Einstein's definition of insanity. We've been living with it a long time now.

To the entertainment reporters, the re-boot is like the computer: someone is going to try again with what's already been tried, but they're going to do it slightly different. Stay tuned for it.

Ambrose Bierce at this point is just another dead white guy from the 19th century who never got an award named after him, like "The Mark Twain Award." or the "Pulitzer Prize."

There is no journalistic award for witty commentary, despite there being plenty of potential nominees. Humor is serious stuff too.

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Après Jamie Ding

Jeopardy fans are just going to have to get used to not having Jamie Ding around when the show opens and the champion is introduced by Ken Jennings.  It's a merry-go-round.

Greg Shahade lasted two more games after knocking Jamie Ding off on Monday. Three-day champions are rare too. Not as rare as 31-day champs, but still admirable.

I think the woman who bumped off James Holzhauer lasted one game, losing her first defense of the title. This happens a good deal in horse racing. A horse breaks its maiden, racing with other non-winners, only to never win again. Very few race horses get to string together Cigar's and Citation's 16 straight victories. Every competition has its streaks.

Kate Brody, pictured, a novelist from Los Angeles, beat Greg Shahade and provided perhaps the most non-sensical answer to the final Jeopardy clue, a relatively difficult one at that, that turned into a "triple stumper." (I think the writer of such clues should get bonuses.)

Remember, the bets are made before the details of the clue are revealed. Thursday's category was Sports and the Movies.

Greg had $13,200, Derek, no factor with $1,400, and Kate with a leading $22,000. No mathematical winners here.

Kate made the correct defensive bet that anticipated Derek going for double his winnings which would put him at $26,000 if correct. Kate wagered $4,401 which would leave her with a dollar more than Greg if both are right. Greg bet $10,000.

The clue: "In 2026 a New Year's Day college football game featured these 2 team names that are both Gene Hackman movie titles."

Derek answers "What is Hoosiers and Rams." No
Greg answers "What is Crimson Tide and Fighting Irish." No
Kate answers "What is Patriots and Jets." Oh boy. No.

As non-sensical as Kate's answer is, she can be forgiven. She has the look of a librarian with horn rimmed glasses, or the novelist that she is, and certainly may not be up on football team names. But to include two professional teams when college names are called for, puts her in a really ignorant sports light. 

Hoosiers and Crimson Tide are the teams. No problem. She wins, and will be back for Friday's match as the champion.

Kate will easily ace the inevitable Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, and Jane Austen clues.  She is after all a writer. The Jeopardy clue writers love to show off how well read they are. But Sports will be her Achilles heel. Her field of vision is not flooded with commercials for Chevy and Ford trucks.

Everyone like to make predictions. And you can even bet on them these days. But my prediction that Kate won't get to 5 games will not be taken on the prediction platforms. I could have inside information from the taping that was likely a month ago, (I don't have such information.)

But stay tuned. It's been quite a week, and it's not over yet.

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The End of Jamie

We all knew it would eventually happen. Multi-day, multi-month Jeopardy champion Jamie Ding has been defeated, but not before prevailing in 31 games and winning nearly $900,000. Not bad for swallowing an atlas at six years old.

Jamie didn't get any of the Daily Doubles on Monday's, April 27th telecast. And by that I mean he didn't land on them. His opponent, in the No. 3 slot, was Greg Shahade. Greg is introduced as an International Master chess player. His wife has twice been a U.S. chess champion.

Greg is a somewhat odd looking guy with very odd mannerisms. He is decidedly near-sighted and has to push his head forward and squint to read the clues. If people didn't like Mattea Roche for her waving hands, this guy bobs and weaves and grabs the podium. He's even flat stuck out his tongue contemplating an answer. He's full of tics. Time will tell how often we keep seeing him.

But I guess all's fair in Jeopardy, despite what could be suspicions as to who gets the Daily Double selections. You still have to answer correctly, and still have to bet the right amount, so I'm sure there's no shenanigans behind the board.

Greg started out like a house on fire, and was quickly pouring gravel on Jamie's head. Greg landed on all three Daily Doubles and quickly pulled away from Jamie when he went all in and doubled his score.

Eventually, despite Jamie answering correctly, his goose was cooked, when going into Final Jeopardy. Jamie had less than half Greg's total. The mathematical elimination before the clue is even read.

Jamie went out with class, writing TTFN, Textspeak for Ta-ta for now. Ken Jennings of course knew what it meant.

Jamie's in the NYT and the WSJ with stories and interviews on his run. Thirty-one wins remarkably only leaves him in 5th place overall for wins. 

Ahead of Jamie is James Holzhauer with 32; Matt Amodio with 38; Amy Schneider with 40; and all-time No. 1, Ken Jennings, with 74 wins in 2004. It is hard to repeat even with a second win, let alone start stringing them out so that you need to bring lots of a change of clothes to the tapings.

Is Ken's 74 equal to Joe DiMaggio's consecutive hitting streak of 56 games? Looks that way so far. After Trebek's death, Ken had to assume the role as host.

Greg Shahade won game No. 2 on Tuesday night. I have to say, he's not easy to watch. His body movements have at least me (and maybe others) rooting against him. 

Time will tell if Greg has to bring better clothes to the tapings and has to get rid of his Richard Nixon 5 o'clock shadow.

Stay tuned.

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I Love Maureen's Bile in the Morning

I do not subscribe to the Sunday print edition of the New York Times, but for some reason my carrier gives me advance sections with Saturday's delivery, and then delivers the rest of the paper on Sunday morning. I don't complain. I'm a hard copy newspaper reader and will die that way.

The Sunday Opinion section as a whole is the most pessimistic compilation of opinions you can compile. I love just reading the headlines to get a sense of how I shouldn't even be looking forward to tomorrow living in this country, let alone spend the rest of the day in it. But I digress. 

I've always told my daughter's you need cranial calluses when you read the news. You have to take it with more than a grain of salt. You need Kevlar.

I grew up in an apolitical household. Neither of my parents ever uttered a word that could lead me to conclude where their sentiments sat with either the Republicans or the Democrats. Neither voted; neither was registered to vote. They were both WW II veterans, but seemed to voice no opinions on any daily events or utterances.

I always suspected my father didn't vote because in that era the jury duty rolls were taken from the voter registrations. Don't register, no jury duty. It's not that way these days, but that worked for him. My mother hardly spoke of anything, so I never knew what she was thinking.

My own political views can fluctuate, despite having registered for a party. I don't always vote for the party I'm registered under. But there are others, many in fact, who are ironclad in their easily identified party affiliations and anger toward certain elected officials.

The political cartoonist gave us the still indelible images of Republicans being drawn as elephants and Democrats as Donkeys. My mnemonic aid is D, Democrats, Donkey. The images have prevailed since the 19th century, even if given a modern rendition.

I always tell my girls that there are usually about 50% of the voting population that voted for the current president, and 50% that didn't. Divided country? Try the Civil War.

I'm thinking Nixon's second term might have been a so-called landslide. And as we all should know, that didn't end well, despite his massive popularity at the start of the term.

I love reading Maureen Dowd when she decides to write. She doesn't let a pejorative adjective go unused when stomping on Republicans and President Trump. It's delicious, not because there might be agreement, but because it's great to see words used so well.

She pulls in such great metaphors for her column. In this Sunday's column, Trump, Iran's Newest Hostage,  she opened with a parable to an O Henry short story, "The Ransom of Red Chief." I wonder if she's ever been to Pete's Tavern on 18th Street and Irving Place in NYC, the age-old, landmark tavern where O Henry sat and wrote many of this stories. There's a good looking photo of O Henry in a back dining room, that probably leaves the modern crowd wondering who that is.

Maureen usually sends me to the dictionary to suss out the meaning of a word she's used that I don't know the meaning of. I've commented on this before. This Sunday's column makes a reference to..."President Trump went along with Bibi Netanyahu's Panglossian case..."

Okay, you got me: Panglossian describes a person or viewpoint that is excessively, naively, or blindly optimistic, maintaining a positive outlook regardless of hardship, adversity, or evidence to the contrary Originating from Voltaire’s Candide it derives from Dr. Pangloss, who believes in "the best of all possible worlds"

If nothing else, we know Maureen is well read.

Maureen reminds us of how long she's been a reporter. She makes a reference to her first big story of covering the Iranian hostage crisis in 1981. That's 45 years ago. Nearly 60% of the U.S. population is under 45 years old. Maureen herself, apparently not going gently into any night, and not taking any buyouts offered by the NYT, is 74 years old, three years younger than myself. We remember the same presidents.

No doubt Maureen's Sunday column was filed well before the shootings at Saturday's dinner in Washington, the third attempt to end Trump's life, with the possibility of collaterally harming others who might get  in the way.

My edition of the Sunday Times is an early edition. There are four dots on the volume number and dateline (fewer dots indicate later editions) that indicate the earliest of editions. There is no mention of the shooting. We know it didn't succeed.

The shooter's name, Cole Allen, sounds like someone from a western, or a semi-finalist on American Idol. The memory of his name will fade over time.

Maureen proves prescient when she closes her column with, "According to a Washington Post analysis, 'Trump has invoked the ballroom on about a third of the days this year.'"

Yep. And after the shootings, he did again.

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Jeopardy as Drama

Last night's Jeopardy telecast (April 23, 2026) was as good as the Ron Lyle/George Foreman fight of January 24, 1976 when each fighter knocked the other down so many times it was thought that only the referee would remain standing and be declared the winner.

Wednesday night's telecast was not billed as a heavyweight fight—it just turned into one. Anyone with even a passing interest in Jeopardy now knows that Jamie Ding, the man who wears something orange as his talisman, was in his now usual spot at the No. 1 champion's podium. That Jamie has now occupied this spot for the prior 29 days has attracted attention outside of ardent Jeopardy fans. He's in the news.

Facing Jeopardy champ Jamie are of course two opponents. In the middle is Leighanna Mixter, an attorney from Fresco, California. In the No. 3 slot is Patrick Nolan, an actuary from Wheaton, Illinois.  Having an actuary compete is almost like having a professional gambler like James Holzhauer compete. Thus, the East Coast (Jamie) and the Midwest and West Coast are represented.

Poor Leighanna. She's out buzzed and out answered by Jamie and Patrick. Patrick is a firecracker, and pulls ahead of Jamie with $11,600 to Jamie's $11,200. Toe-to-toe. Is this the end of Jamie?

Bet right, and answer the Daily Double (if you get the chance) and you can bury the opposition. Patrick gets to select a $1,200 clue under TEENY TINY COUNTRIES. What's the bet? "True Daily Double, Ken." This means all of it. The audience gasps. Loudly. I gasp. If right, Patrick is gong to dump a load of gravel on Jamie's head and pull way ahead with $23,200 to Jamie's $11,200? Will Jamie have to get up off the mat?

Patrick's clue is: Borgo Maggiore & Serravalle are towns in this landlocked nation that bears the name of a 4th century holy man.

Are you fucking kidding me? Nope. But they didn't write a clue that stumps Patrick. He answers "San Marino" and dumps the gravel on Jamie's head. Is this the end of Jamie? Will be get up off the mat?

The contestants go back to their corners. Jamie picks up some loose change and moves to $13,200, now nowhere near Patrick's $23,200. 

If Jeopardy were to have a scandal, it would be who gets the Daily Doubles? Is there scrambling/someone behind the board so that when someone gets a clue and they need money, they are steered to a needed Daily Double? Not likely, but a conspiracy theorist will go with it.

What happens when Jamie, with control of the board, picks a $2.000 clue under the category, Art for Art's Sake? 

Daily Double. Suspicious? Who knows, but Jamie goes "True daily double" because his $13,00 pales to Patrick's $23,200, and the game is winding down. More audience gasping.

The clue is: The Glasshouse in Seattle is a one-of-kind structure holding a 100-foot sculpture by this artist.

Are they for real?

Jamie at this point, has come off the mat and is throwing a haymaker. Will he be correct?

Jamie answers Who is Chihuly?

Ding, ding, ding goes Ding. Down goes Patrick. Jamie is correct and now has $26,400.

What did Jamie get at Christmas that I didn't get?

The game proceeds, and of course goes to final Jeopardy. Poor Leighanna Mixter. She's been caught between two heavyweights and can only expect to finish second or third.

Jamie picks up some more loose change goes into the round with $30,800; Patrick goes in with some more loose change as well and goes in  $28,000. Someone's arm is going to be raised. But who?

The category: THE 1950s

I saw the preview of the clue in the morning New York Times: 

The announcement declared this safe & effective was made April 12, 1955, the 10th anniversary of the death of a famous American.

To a child born during the Truman administration, this one's easy. My mother was an R.N. from Illinois who was an Army nurse during WW II and who volunteered and was allowed to administer polio vaccine shots to us little people in the gym of P.S. 22 on Sanford Avenue in Flushing, sometime in the 1950s

I wasn't on her line, but there were plenty of us lined up in that gym. In my adult years I always thought how was my mother allowed to do that? She wasn't working as a nurse after the war. She wasn't licensed in New York. She just told them she was an Army nurse and was assigned a line and a battery of needles and vaccine to administer to little arms and wincing faces. Different times.

Surely Jamie's going to know this one. Even the actuary, despite neither of them being old enough to remember the polio outbreak in the 1950s and Salk vaccine, should know it, no?.

Jamie's got $30,800; Patrick's got $28,000; poor overlooked Leighanna's got $5,400.

Leighanna goes first. She bets $5,000, gets it right, and finishes with a paltry $10,400.

Patrick's got to go double, or at least bet enough to finish ahead of Leighanna. Not hard. He bets a surprising $10,000. But actually a good bet. He figures Jamie's going to bet whatever it takes to exceed a double bet on Patrick's part, if that's what he makes, which would give him $56,000.

Jamie needs to cover the possible $56,000 of Patrick if Patrick doubles and gets it right. So Jamie's bet is the classic cover, $25,201, which if correct would give Jamie $56,001, a dollar over an expected Patrick double bet.

Drum roll please, maestro.

Patrick answers "penicillin". Oh no. Obviously wrong, but still leaves Patrick with $18,000, enough to win if Jamie doubles, or covers, and stumbles with a wrong answer which would bring him below Patrick's $18,000. Is this the end of Jamie?

In Jeopardy you need to be good at math as well as have lots of correct answers.

Jamie has bet the expected cover of $25,201, but needs a right answer to win his 30th game.

Jamie's dressed in solid, bright orange sweater today. He looks like Buddha and a traffic cone at the same time. Jamie, what's your answer?

"Polio vaccine," with "Salk" added in smaller letters.

Win No. 30 is in the books. See you Friday.

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