One day after my post on nattering nabobs, Lynn Lempel provides conspiracy theorists everywhere with just the proof they need that the NYT is, in fact, a socialist rag. All the theme clues tilt unapologetically politically leftward. Rush is working on his updated tirade even as you read this. It's a Monday puzzle so you probably don't need my help but the answers are in the usual place on my stats site if you're stuck somewhere or check out Rex or any of the other listed blogs for the details. I seem to recall the last theme answer was Godless Communist, but I could be mistaken. As a final insult to right-thinking Americans everywhere, "His tomb is in Red Square" was, of course, LENIN. There ought to be a congressional hearing!
I continue to get far more email than comments for some reason and some of my favorite correspondence comes from the constructors themselves. It turns out that when you get a puzzle accepted by the Pinko NYT, they don't bother to tell you what the publication date is. I suspect another conspiracy. That way they get you to buy the paper every day just in case your name appears. No true American would be that devious.
Ken Bessette had already been published in the L.A. Times and USA Today before his recent NYT debut. I love this quote in his email: "I didn't know mine was to be in today until I went online this morning to do the puzzle, as I always do, and there it was!" That must be quite a feeling.
Tony Orbach was kind enough to contact me even though I whined that his recent puzzle was too difficult to be fun. I like to think this great quote from his email completely vindicates me: "I'll tell you, I was really looking forward to a nice, tortuous Saturday solve — I opened the paper and that was the first I learned it was my puzzle today. I was very excited — but I needed to solve it, and even though it was my own puzzle I had trouble with it!" He ended his email with "The better I've gotten at solving though, the more I appreciate when someone totally stumps me! It's that kind of masochistic agony we all seem to enjoy — what's wrong with us?!" Ah, Tony, what indeed?
Finally, a completely useless datum. Of the 31 Lynn Lempel puzzles published in the Times, only one is a pangram. That's just an example of the fun facts you can find out yourself when the newly designed stats site goes live. I know, you can hardly wait, right?