Day: March 9, 2013

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
11. Seasonal poem lead-in ‘TWAS
The poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” was published anonymously in 1823, and is better known today by its first line “‘Twas the night before Christmas”. Most scholars believe that the poem was written by Clement Clarke Moore, a theologian from New York City. Others say that it was written by Henry Livingston, Jr. a poet from Upstate New York.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash …

15. View from the Jefferson Memorial TIDAL BASIN
The beautiful Jefferson Memorial was completed in 1947 and sits on the banks of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. The idea for the memorial really came from President Franklin D. Roosevelt as he was a great admirer of President Jefferson.

16. 1999 NFL Defensive Player of the Year Warren SAPP
Warren Sapp is a former NFL player from Orlando, Florida. Sapp was noted for his hard-hitting style and explosive outbursts.

17. Bit of paste RHINESTONE
A rhinestone is a colorless artificial gem made from paste or glass. The original rhinestones were rock crystals that were gathered from the river Rhine in Germany.

18. “Steakhouse inspired” food company ALPO
Alpo is a brand of dog food first produced by Allen Products in 1936, with “Alpo” being an abbreviation for “Allen Products”. Lorne Greene used to push Alpo in television spots, as did Ed McMahon and Garfield the Cat, would you believe?

19. Gene Vincent’s “__ Lovin'” LOTTA
Gene Vincent was the stage name of fifties rock and roll and rockabilly singer Vincent Craddock. Vincent was the first inductee into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame when it was formed in 1997. His biggest hit was his own composition, “Be-Bop-A-Lula” that was released in 1956.

20. One objecting to a called strike SCAB
We first started calling strikebreakers “scabs” in the early 1800s, and before that a scab was a person who refused to join a trade union (back as early 1777). The word probably comes from the use of “scab” as a skin disease, and so is a term that is meant to insult.

22. Regulus is in it LEO
Regulus is the brightest star in the constellation of Leo. Regulus is a multiple star and what we see as one entity is actually made up of four stars rotating around a common center of mass. “Regulus” is Latin for “prince”.

23. ’80s-’90s Mormon leader __ Taft Benson EZRA
Ezra Taft Benson was the thirteenth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, serving from 1985 until 1994. Benson was also the US Secretary of Agriculture in the Eisenhower administration.

26. Black Sea resident ODESSAN
The city of Odessa in Ukraine was founded relatively recently, in 1794 by Catherine the Great. The city was originally meant to be called Odessos after an ancient Greek city believed to have been located nearby. Catherine liked the way the locals pronounced the name as “Odessa” and so went with the less Greek-sounding name.

38. Rural landmark SILO
Silo is a Spanish word that we absorbed into English, originally coming from the Greek word “siros” that described a pit in which one kept grain.

39. ASCAP charter member COHAN
I suppose much of what many of us know about American entertainer George M. Cohan comes from the 1942 film about his life called “Yankee Doodle Dandy”, starring Jimmy Cagney as Cohan. There is an 8-foot bronze statue of Cohan on Broadway in New York City, that was erected in 1959 at the behest of the lyricist Oscar Hammerstein.

ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) collects licence fees for musicians and distributes royalties to composers whose works have been performed. BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated) provides the same service.

52. Abbr. that usually refers to people ET AL
Et alii (et al.) is the equivalent of et cetera (etc.), with et cetera being used in place of a list of objects, and et alii used for a list of names. In fact “et al.” can stand for et alii (for a group of males, or males and females), aliae (for a group of women) and et alia (for a group of neuter nouns, or for a group of people where the intent is to retain gender-neutrality).

55. Israir alternative EL AL
Israir and El Al are both airlines based in Israel. El Al is the flag carrier for the country, and Israir is said to model itself on the American low-cost airline JetBlue.

57. 2011 civil war setting LIBYA
The Libyan Civil War or Libyan Revolution of 2011 led to the fall of the government and the death of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

66. Self-titled 1969 jazz album ELLA
Ella Fitzgerald, the “First Lady of Song”, had a hard and tough upbringing. She was raised by her mother alone in Yonkers, New York. Her mother died while Ella was still a schoolgirl, and around that time the young girl became less interested in her education. She fell in with a bad crowd, even working as a lookout for a bordello and as a Mafia numbers runner. She ended up in reform school, from which she escaped, and found herself homeless and living on the streets for a while. Somehow Fitzgerald managed to get herself a spot singing in the Apollo Theater in Harlem. From there her career took off and as they say, the rest is history.

68. Bar lineup RYES
For whiskey to be labelled as “rye” in the US, it has to be distilled from at least 51% rye grain. In Canada however, a drink called rye whiskey sometimes contains no rye at all.

Down
1. PC feature that doesn’t do anything by itself CTRL
The control key (Ctrl.)

2. Ritz alternative HI-HO
Sunshine Biscuits was an independent producer of cookies and crackers which produced Hi-Ho crackers in competition to the successful Ritz brand. In 1996, Sunshine was absorbed by the Keebler Company and Hi-Ho Crackers was on the list of brands that was discontinued because of the merger.

4. Part of a French toast SANTE
“À votre santé” is French for “to your health”. Cheers!

6. “Mike & Molly” network CBS
“Mike & Molly” is a sitcom starring Billy Gardell and Melissa McCarthy in the title roles. Mike and Molly are a couple who met at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting.

7. Parallel meas. LAT
Lines of latitude are the imaginary horizontal lines surrounding the planet. The most “important” lines of latitude are, from north to south:

– Arctic Circle
– Tropic of Cancer
– Equator
– Tropic of Capricorn
– Antarctic Circle

8. Chicago team, on Spanish radio OSOS
In Spanish, “osa” is a female bear, and “oso” is a male.

The Chicago Bears were founded in Decatur, Illinois in 1919 and moved to Chicago in 1921. The Bears are one of only two franchises in the NFL that were around at the time of the NFL’s founding (the other is the Arizona Cardinals, who were also based in Chicago in 1921).

9. Quince factor CINCO
In Spanish, five (cinco) is a factor of fifteen (quince).

11. Defense org. since November 2001 TSA
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was of course created in 2001, soon after the 9/11 attacks.

12. Financial metonym WALL STREET
New York’s famous “Wall Street” was originally named by the Dutch as “de Waal Straat”.

14. Lack of pies, say SPOONERISM
Spoonerisms are errors in speech in which letters or sounds are switched from one word to another. Famous examples are “Three cheers for our queer old dean” (dear old Queen … Victoria) and “Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?” (customary to kiss). Spoonerisms are named after an Oxford don, William Archibald Spooner, who was notorious for his tendency to pepper his speech with “spoonerisms”.

“Lack of pies” is a spoonerism for “pack of lies”.

21. Sierra Nevada, e.g. BEER
The Sierra Nevada Brewing Company is powered almost exclusively by solar energy, and even has a charging station for electric vehicles at its brewery. The company also uses the cooking oil from its restaurant as biodiesel for its delivery trucks. Discarded yeast is used to make ethanol fuel, and spent grain is used as food for livestock. For its efforts to preserve the environment, Sierra Nevada won the EPA’s “Green Business of the Year” award for 2010.

24. Drillers’ org. ROTC
The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) is a training program for officers based in colleges all around the US. The ROTC program was established in 1862 when as a condition of receiving a land-grant to create colleges, the federal government required that military tactics be part of a new school’s curriculum.

25. Electrolysis particle ANION
As we all recall from science class, a positive ion is called a cation and a negative ion is an anion. The names “cation” and “anion” come from Greek, with “kation” meaning “going down” and “anion” meaning “going up”.

27. Presidential Seal’s 50 STARS
The Seal of the President of the United States dates back at least to 1850. The basic design in use today was developed by President Rutherford B. Hayes. There is actually only one official seal, but many facsimiles. The official seal is used make an imprint in a wax seal that closes the envelopes containing correspondence from the President to Congress.

28. “I almost always write about very young people” speaker J D SALINGER
J. D. Salinger was a very reclusive author, most famous for his novel “Catcher in the Rye”. Salinger fought in WWII after he was drafted into the US Army. He saw action on Utah Beach on D-Day, and in the Battle of the Bulge. He also spent a lot of time interrogating prisoners due to his knowledge of French and German, and he was one of the first Americans to go into a liberated concentration camp. He later spent time in hospital suffering from what was then called combat stress reaction, as he tried to deal with what he saw in the German camps.

32. CPA’s work SCHED
CPAs write up a lot of schedules that are attached to tax returns.

35. Cabbage MOOLA
Lettuce, cabbage, kale, dough, scratch, simoleons, clams and moola are all slang terms for money.

36. Show on which Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o was interviewed KATIE
“Katie” is a talk show hosted by Katie Couric.

Manti Te’o is college football player who has been in the news a lot lately. Te’o was noted for playing particularly well after the death of his grandmother and girlfriend. It turned out that his relationship with the “girlfriend” was an online affair and a hoax. A make acquaintance of Te’o had posed as a girl and lured him into a relationship. Wanting to put an end to the deception, the hoaxer “killed off” the girlfriend by “giving” her leukemia.

40. Tweed lampooner NAST
Thomas Nast was an American caricaturist and cartoonist. He was the creator of the Republican Party elephant, the Democratic Party’s donkey, Uncle Sam and the image of the plump and jocular Santa Claus that we use today.

William Magear Tweed was known as “Boss” Tweed. He was a 19th-century, American politician who led the Democratic Party machine in New York, headquartered in Tammany Hall. He was one of the most successful of the corrupt politicians of the day, siphoning from taxpayers (in today’s money) billions of dollars. In 1871 he was arrested, and served time in jail. He was then rearrested on civil charges and served time in debtor’s prison. He managed to escape to Spain, but was arrested once more and extradited to the United States. He died in jail in 1878.

45. Clinton cabinet member SHALALA
Donna Shalala was a Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Clinton Administration. Shalala was the first Arab-American to serve in a cabinet postion.

59. “To show false Art what beauty was of __”: Shakespeare YORE
The quoted line is the last in William Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 68:

Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
Before these bastard signs of fair were born,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow;
Before the golden tresses of the dead,
The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,
To live a second life on second head;
Ere beauty’s dead fleece made another gay:
In him those holy antique hours are seen,
Without all ornament, itself and true,
Making no summer of another’s green,
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;
   And him as for a map doth Nature store,
   To show false Art what beauty was of yore.

64. USSR successor CIS
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a loose association of countries that were former soviet republics. The CIS was formed in 1991 by Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, with six other states joining the alliance later.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Its two halves can’t run simultaneously CHESS CLOCK
11. Seasonal poem lead-in ‘TWAS
15. View from the Jefferson Memorial TIDAL BASIN
16. 1999 NFL Defensive Player of the Year Warren SAPP
17. Bit of paste RHINESTONE
18. “Steakhouse inspired” food company ALPO
19. Gene Vincent’s “__ Lovin'” LOTTA
20. One objecting to a called strike SCAB
22. Regulus is in it LEO
23. ’80s-’90s Mormon leader __ Taft Benson EZRA
26. Black Sea resident ODESSAN
28. Position JOB
31. Many millennia EONS
33. Alight SETTLE
34. Certain leg DRUMSTICK
37. Less likely to be seen RARER
38. Rural landmark SILO
39. ASCAP charter member COHAN
41. Time-saving, commercially REDI
42. Bright AGLOW
44. Retirement planning consideration NET ASSETS
46. Avoid detection LIE LOW
48. Part of a spread DISH
49. Many a turkey TOM
50. Consumed amounts INTAKES
52. Abbr. that usually refers to people ET AL
54. “Uh-uh” NAH
55. Israir alternative EL AL
57. 2011 civil war setting LIBYA
61. Whipped cream amount GLOB
63. Once in a while ON OCCASION
66. Self-titled 1969 jazz album ELLA
67. Peripheral connection SERIAL PORT
68. Bar lineup RYES
69. Intrusions TRESPASSES

Down
1. PC feature that doesn’t do anything by itself CTRL
2. Ritz alternative HI-HO
3. Polish, in a way EDIT
4. Part of a French toast SANTE
5. Dirtbags SLEAZES
6. “Mike & Molly” network CBS
7. Parallel meas. LAT
8. Chicago team, on Spanish radio OSOS
9. Quince factor CINCO
10. Works with one’s hands KNEADS
11. Defense org. since November 2001 TSA
12. Financial metonym WALL STREET
13. Interested APPEALED TO
14. Lack of pies, say SPOONERISM
21. Sierra Nevada, e.g. BEER
24. Drillers’ org. ROTC
25. Electrolysis particle ANION
27. Presidential Seal’s 50 STARS
28. “I almost always write about very young people” speaker J D SALINGER
29. In the beginning ORIGINALLY
30. Target opening BULLET HOLE
32. CPA’s work SCHED
35. Cabbage MOOLA
36. Show on which Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o was interviewed KATIE
40. Tweed lampooner NAST
43. Roused WOKE
45. Clinton cabinet member SHALALA
47. Brief post-game summary WE LOST
51. Less bananas? SANER
53. Speech troubles LISPS
56. It’s retold often LORE
58. Who’s who entries BIOS
59. “To show false Art what beauty was of __”: Shakespeare YORE
60. They’re sometimes seen in columns ANTS
62. Some coll. degrees BAS
64. USSR successor CIS
65. Keep from going higher CAP

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