LA Times Crossword Answers 5 Apr 14, Saturday

CROSSWORD SETTER: Barry C. Silk
THEME: None
BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 14m 07s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

12. Hematological system ABO
The most important grouping of blood types is the ABO system. Blood is classified as either A, B, AB or O, depending on the type of antigens on the surface of the red blood cells. A secondary designation of blood is the Rh factor, in which other antigens are labelled as either positive or negative. When a patient receives a blood transfusion, ideally the donor blood should be the same type as that of the recipient, as incompatible blood cells can be rejected. However, blood type O-neg can be accepted by recipients with all blood types, A, B, AB or O, and positive or negative. Hence someone with O-neg blood type is called a “universal donor”.

15. Music lover’s resource IHEARTRADIO
IHeartRadio is an Internet radio broadcaster that is owned by Clear Channel. The IHeart.com website provides access to over 800 radio stations that can all be played on a computer or mobile device.

16. Crucible setting LAB
A crucible is a container often made of a ceramic material that can withstand high temperatures.“Crucible” comes from the Medieval Latin “crucibulum” meaning “melting pot for metals”, although the term originally described a “night lamp”.

18. Not to FRO
To and fro …

19. St. Louis bridge architect EADS
James Eads was an American Civil Engineer and inventor. He designed and built the first road and rail bridge to cross the Mississippi River in St. Louis, a bridge which went in to service in 1874 and is still used to this day. Aptly enough, it is known as the Eads Bridge.

20. Think CEREBRATE
“To cerebrate” is “to consider, ponder, think”. The term was coined in 1853 by a physiologist from England called Dr. William Carpenter, from the Latin “cerebrum” meaning “brain”.

22. RR crossing sites RDS
Railroad (RR) tracks cross roads (rds.).

25. Rum company founder Fred MYERS
Myers’s Rum is a dark rum from Jamaica that was named for the Fred L. Meyers who established the brand. Dark rum is made from molasses, with the dark coloring coming from residual syrup in the final product.

29. Animal shelter COTE
The Old English word “cote” was used for a small house. Our modern word “cottage” comes from “cote”. We now use “cote” to mean a small shelter on a farm for sheep or birds.

34. Latin 101 word AMAT
“Amo, amas, amat: … “I love, you love, he/she/it loves”, in Latin.

35. Pulitzer playwright Zoë AKINS
Zoe Akins was a playwright from Humansville, Missouri who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1935 for her adaptation of the Edith Wharton’s “The Old Maid”. Her own play “The Greeks Had a Word for It” was adapted into the famous movie “How to Marry a Millionaire”, which rocketed Marilyn Monroe into stardom. Akins is the great-aunt of actress Laurie Metcalf.

36. Brooks of Hollywood MEL
Mel Brooks’ real name is Melvin Kaminsky. Brooks is one of very few entertainers (there are only ten) who has won the “Showbiz Award Grand Slam” i.e. an Oscar, Tony, Grammy and Emmy. He is in good company, as the list also includes the likes of Richard Rogers, Sir John Gielgud, Marvin Hamlisch and Audrey Hepburn.

37. Dog in a horned helmet SNERT
Snert is the clever dog that belongs to Hägar the Horrible in the classic comic strip.

38. Qajar dynasty country, today IRAN
The Qajar Dynasty ruled Persia (modern-day Iran) from 1785 to 1925.

41. Norton Sound city NOME
The town of Nome lies on the northern edge of the Norton Sound, an inlet of the Bering Sea in Alaska. Norton Sound was named by Captain James Cook in 1778, in honor of Sir Fletcher Norton who was Speaker of the British House of Commons at that time.

45. At 5,343 ft., Mt. Marcy is its highest point NYS
New York State (NYS)

Mount Marcy in the Adirondack HIgh Peaks is the highest point in New York State. The mountain is named after former New York Governor William L. Marcy. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt had just summited Mount Marcy in September 1901 when he was informed that President McKinley had been shot and was likely to die, resulting in Roosevelt making a quick exit from the area to the nearest train station so that he could return to Washington.

49. Netherlands port ROTTERDAM
Rotterdam is the largest port in Europe, and the second-largest city in the Netherlands (after Amsterdam). Indeed, Rotterdam was the busiest port in the world from 1962 to 2004, when that honor went to Shanghai. Rotterdam’s economic importance is largely due to its location at the confluence of the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt rivers that provide navigation into the Central European hinterland.

53. Cuban Revolution name CHE
Ernesto “Che” Guevara was born in Argentina, and in 1948 he started to study medicine at the University of Buenos Aires. While at school he satisfied his need to “see the world” by taking two long journeys around South America, the story of which are told in Guevara’s memoir later published as “The Motorcycle Diaries”. While travelling, Guevara was moved by the plight of the people he saw and their working conditions and what he viewed as capitalistic exploitation. In Mexico City he met brothers Raul and Fidel Castro and was persuaded to join their cause, the overthrow of the US-backed government in Cuba. He rose to second-in-command among the Cuban insurgents, and when Castro came to power Guevara was influential in repelling the Bay of Pigs Invasion and bringing Soviet nuclear missiles to the island. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to continue his work as a revolutionary. He was captured by Bolivian forces in 1967, and was executed. Fidel Castro led the public mourning of Guevara’s death, and soon the revolutionary was an icon for many left-wing movements around the world.

57. Craft whose name means “peace” MIR
The Russian Mir Space Station was a remarkably successful project, with the station still holding the record for the longest continuous manned presence in space, at just under ten years. Towards the end of the space station’s life however, the years began to take their toll. There was a dangerous fire, multiple system failures, and a collision with a resupply ship. The Russian commitment to the International Space Station drained funds for repairs, so Mir was allowed to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up in 2001.

Down
4. Norwegian-born chemistry Nobelist Onsager LARS
Lars Onsager was a Norwegian-born American chemist and physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1968.

5. NYC subway IRT
The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) was the original private operator of the New York Subway when it opened in 1904. The city took over ownership of the system in 1940, but the lines originally operated by the IRT are still known by the IRT moniker.

7. Wrestling style GRECO-ROMAN
Greco-Roman wrestling was contested at the first modern Olympic Games, back in 1896. Back then there was relatively little regulation of the sport and Greco-Roman contests were noted for their brutality. Bouts also took a long time to finish, often lasting hours. In fact, the competitors in the 1912 Olympic final were both awarded silver medals when the bout was ended by the judges after eight hours of wrestling.

8. Freshwater fish DACE
Dace are small freshwater fish, such as minnow and carp.

10. Guys with gifts WISE MEN
“Magi” is the plural of the Latin word “magus”, a term applied to someone who was able to read the stars. Hence, magi is commonly used with reference to the “wise men from the East” who followed the star and visited Jesus soon after he was born.

12. Spider producer ALFA ROMEO
The “Alfa” in Alfa Romeo is actually an acronym, standing for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili (“Lombard Automobile Factory, Public Company”). ALFA was an enterprise founded in 1909 and which was taken over by Nicola Romeo in 1915. In 1920 the company name was changed to Alfa Romeo.

13. MVP of the first two Super Bowls BART STARR
Bart Starr is a retired football player and coach who spent his whole career with the Green Bay Packers. Starr was quarterback for the Packers from 1956 to 1971. Starr was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) in the first two Super Bowls.

14. Wind up on stage? OBOE
The oboe is perhaps my favorite of the reed instruments. The name “oboe” comes from the French “hautbois” which means “high wood”. When you hear an orchestra tuning before a performance you’ll note (pun intended!) that the oboe starts off the process by playing an “A”. The rest of the musicians in turn tune to that oboe’s “A”.

24. Montana motto word ORO
“Oro y Plata” means “gold and silver”, and is the state motto of Montana. The motto was written in Spanish, solely because “it had a nice ring to it”.

26. Floyd __ Field, NYC’s first municipal airport BENNETT
Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn was the first municipal airport to serve New York City. Opened in 1931, the airport was named for Brooklyn resident Floyd Bennett who was an aviator and recipient of the Medal of Honor. The airfield is now a park.

28. Aristotelian ideal GOLDEN MEAN
The “golden mean” is a philosophical concept describing a desirable middle between two extremes. Among others, Aristotle referred to the golden mean in his writings. For example, he viewed courage as a virtue lying between recklessness on one side and cowardice on the other.

32. LeBron James’ birthplace AKRON, OHIO
For part of the 1800s, the Ohio city of Akron was the fasting growing city in the country, feeding off the industrial boom of that era. The city was founded in 1825 and its location, along the Ohio and Erie canal connecting Lake Erie with the Ohio River, helped to fuel Akron’s growth. Akron sits at the highest point of the canal and the name “Akron” comes from the Greek word meaning “summit”. Indeed, Akron is the county seat of Summit County.

LeBron James plays basketball for the Miami Heat. James seems to be in demand for the covers of magazines. He became the first African American man to adorn the front cover of “Vogue” in March 2008. That made him only the third male to make the “Vogue” cover, following Richard Gere and George Clooney.

37. Cold War gp. SSRS
The former Soviet Union (USSR) was created in 1922, not long after the Russian Revolution of 1917 that overthrew the Tsar. Geographically, the new Soviet Union was roughly equivalent to the old Russian Empire, and was comprised of fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs).

The term “Cold War” was first used by the novelist George Orwell in a 1945 essay about the atomic bomb. Orwell described a world under threat of nuclear war as having a “peace that is no peace”, in a permanent state of “cold war”. The specific use of “cold war” to describe the tension between the Eastern bloc and the Western allies is attributed to a 1947 speech by Bernard Baruch.

39. French auto pioneer CITROEN
André-Gustave Citroën was a Parisian industrialist who founded the Citroën automotive company in 1919, which became the fourth-largest manufacturer of automobiles by the 1930s. Citroën was also quite the gambler and his huge losses eventually led to his company going bankrupt and being taken over by Michelin, the enterprise that provided the tires for the Citroën cars.

44. Site with a Symptom Checker WEBMD
WebMD is a website containing health information that has been online since 1996. WebMD is read by over 80 million readers a month.

46. Flightless birds RHEAS
The rhea is a flightless bird native to South America. The rhea takes its name from the Greek titan Rhea, an apt name for a flightless bird as “rhea” comes from the Greek word meaning “ground”.

47. Cardigan or Pembroke dog CORGI
The Welsh corgi is a herding dog that originated in Britain, with two recognized breeds: the Pembroke and Cardigan. Corgis aren’t speedy enough to do their job by running around livestock like collies, and instead nip at the heels.

49. Law org. with an annual Musical Ride tour RCMP
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the Mounties; RCMP) is an unusual police force in that it provides all policing for the whole country. The RCMP works on the national level, and right down to the municipal level. The force’s distinctive uniform of red serge tunic, blue pants with a yellow stripe, stetson hat etc. is known internally as “Review Order”. The red uniform dates back to the days of the North-West Mounted Police, which was one of the existing forces that were merged in 1920 to form the RCMP.

50. Actress Delany DANA
Dana Delaney is an actress from New York who had her big break playing Colleen McMurphy on the TV show “China Beach” in the late eighties. More recently, Delaney played Megan Hunt, the lead role on the drama series “Body of Proof”.

51. Mennen lotion AFTA
Afta is an aftershave in the Mennen range of products that is owned by Colgate-Palmolive.

55. After A LA
The term “in the style of” can be translated in “alla” in Italian and “à la” in French.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Performing poorly FALLING DOWN
12. Hematological system ABO
15. Music lover’s resource IHEARTRADIO
16. Crucible setting LAB
17. Accept financial responsibility BEAR THE COST
18. Not to FRO
19. St. Louis bridge architect EADS
20. Think CEREBRATE
22. RR crossing sites RDS
23. Chaotic scene ZOO
25. Rum company founder Fred MYERS
26. Onslaught BARRAGE
29. Animal shelter COTE
31. Satisfied MADE GOOD ON
34. Latin 101 word AMAT
35. Pulitzer playwright Zoë AKINS
36. Brooks of Hollywood MEL
37. Dog in a horned helmet SNERT
38. Qajar dynasty country, today IRAN
39. Bar seller CANDY STORE
41. Norton Sound city NOME
42. Broken up IN TEARS
43. Food mfr.’s calculation NET WT
45. At 5,343 ft., Mt. Marcy is its highest point NYS
46. HDTV brand RCA
49. Netherlands port ROTTERDAM
52. Cries of discovery OHOS
53. Cuban Revolution name CHE
54. They may come from ostriches BOA FEATHERS
57. Craft whose name means “peace” MIR
58. Picture in your head MENTAL IMAGE
59. Batt. terminal POS
60. Forensic technique DNA ANALYSIS

Down
1. Bit of forensic evidence FIBER
2. Not trying to catch anyone AHEAD
3. Doesn’t have to catch anyone LEADS
4. Norwegian-born chemistry Nobelist Onsager LARS
5. NYC subway IRT
6. Degree in math NTH
7. Wrestling style GRECO-ROMAN
8. Freshwater fish DACE
9. Suggestive quality ODOR
10. Guys with gifts WISE MEN
11. __ a long shot NOT BY
12. Spider producer ALFA ROMEO
13. MVP of the first two Super Bowls BART STARR
14. Wind up on stage? OBOE
21. Takes back RECANTS
23. Turns abruptly ZAGS
24. Montana motto word ORO
26. Floyd __ Field, NYC’s first municipal airport BENNETT
27. Make __ in A DENT
28. Aristotelian ideal GOLDEN MEAN
30. Usher follower? -ETTE
31. Key MAIN
32. LeBron James’ birthplace AKRON, OHIO
33. Circle measures DIAMETERS
37. Cold War gp. SSRS
39. French auto pioneer CITROEN
40. “Way to go!” YAY!
44. Site with a Symptom Checker WEBMD
46. Flightless birds RHEAS
47. Cardigan or Pembroke dog CORGI
48. Burden-bearing team ASSES
49. Law org. with an annual Musical Ride tour RCMP
50. Actress Delany DANA
51. Mennen lotion AFTA
52. “Wow!” OH MY!
55. After A LA
56. Up to, briefly ‘TIL

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