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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