I am not a big fan of THE NEWS. But then again, some days the universe just tees up some fun stuff. NyTimes obit, Frank W. Lewis, Master of the Cryptic Crossword, Dies at 98.
The younger Mr. Lewis attended secretarial school and the University of Utah (later earning a degree in absentia) and passed the federal government’s civil service test. He then headed for Washington, where he earned a master’s degree in music from the Catholic University of America and took government secretarial jobs.
Col. William Friedman, who ran the Army’s cryptography operations, was looking for very smart people on the eve of World War II. He heard about Mr. Lewis, who was bored “to tears” in the civil service’s death benefits section.
Colonel Friedman hired him as a civilian employee, and Mr. Lewis went on to help break the code used to coordinate Japanese ships. He became addicted to British puzzles while posted in England at the Bletchley Park decryption station at the end of the war. He then followed Colonel Friedman to the National Security Agency, where he won plaudits for his service, started the N.S.A. Glee Club and created English-style puzzles for an N.S.A. magazine.
Mr. Lewis’s 2,962 puzzles for The Nation were proofread by his wife of 74 years, the former Sylvia Shosteck….
One cannot make up, no matter how creative you are, the real life founder of the N.S.A Glee Club. In a similar vein, Sri Daya Mata, Guiding Light for U.S. Hindus, Dies at 96
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Her death was confirmed by Lauren Landress, a spokeswoman for the group, the Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, which is based in what once was an elegant hotel on Mount Washington in Los Angeles.
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Besides its headquarters, the society owns a 10-acre sanctuary in the Pacific Palisades, near Malibu, Calif., where a temple crowned by a golden lotus was built in 1966 under Sri Daya Mata’s guidance. Followers come from around the country to meditate.
Previous days obits included Samuel T. Cohen, Neutron Bomb Inventor, Dies at 89:
In contrast to strategic warheads, which can kill millions and level cities, and smaller short-range tactical nuclear arms designed to wipe out battlefield forces, the neutron bomb minimized blast and heat. Instead, it maximized a barrage of infinitesimal neutrons that could zip through tanks, buildings and other structures and kill people, usually by destroying the central nervous system, and all other life forms.
While doubters questioned the usefulness, logic and ethics of killing people and sparing property, Mr. Cohen called his bomb a “sane” and “moral” weapon that could limit death, destruction and radioactive contamination, killing combatants while leaving civilians and towns unscathed. He insisted that many critics misunderstood or purposely misrepresented his ideas for political, economic or mercenary reasons.
A specialist in the radiological effects of nuclear weapons, he relentlessly promoted the neutron bomb for much of his life, writing books and articles, conferring with presidents and cabinet officials, taking his case to Congressional committees, scientific bodies and international forums. He won many converts, but ultimately failed to persuade the United States to integrate the device into its tactical nuclear arsenal.
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“It’s the most sane and moral weapon ever devised,” he said in September in a telephone interview for this obituary. “It’s the only nuclear weapon in history that makes sense in waging war. When the war is over, the world is still intact.”
In case you missed it, you just read an obit which included an interview of the deceased for the obit. Oh and then there is the moral question of killing people but sparing property.