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Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
8. Red herring, to a cop BAD LEAD
The exact origin of the term “red herring”, meaning “something that misleads”, isn’t known. The most common explanation for the use of the phrase is that kippers (strong-smelling smoked herrings) were used to by fugitives to distract bloodhounds who were on their trail. Kippers become red-colored during the smoking process, and are no longer “white herrings”.

15. Athens eatery TAVERNA
Athens is the capital city of Greece and is one of the world’s oldest cities, with a history that goes back around 3,400 years. In its heyday, Classical Athens was a remarkable center for the arts and philosophical debate, and was home to Plato and Aristotle. Athens is often called “the cradle of Western civilization” and “the birthplace of democracy”. The city was named for the Greek goddess Athena.

16. Where to view “Duck Dynasty” ON A AND E
The A&E television network used to be a favorite of mine, with the “A&E” standing for “arts and entertainment”. A&E started out airing a lot of the old classic dramas, as well as biographies and arts programs. Now there seems to be more reality TV, with one of the flagship programs being “Dog the Bounty Hunter”. A slight change of direction I’d say …

“Duck Dynasty” is a reality television show on the A&E cable channel. The show is centered on the Robertson family from Monroe, Louisiana who made a lot of money selling products to duck hunters. Phil Robertson was in the news awhile back for views he expressed on homeosexuality and other subjects in an interview with “GQ” magazine.

17. Oath sworn in a kosher kitchen? ABOVE ALL, DO NO HAM (sounds like “above all, do no harm”)
“First, do no harm” is a translation of the Latin phrase “Primum non nocere”. The phrase is a principle used in the world of medicine that reminds a provider of healthcare that to do nothing might be better than intervening in some situations.

According to Jewish dietary law, “kosher” food is “fit” to eat, and food that is not kosher is called “treif” (or tref).

20. Le Mans law LOI
Le Mans is a city in northwestern France. The city is famous for the 24 Hours of Le Mans sports car race that has been held annually since 1923. The 24-hour race uses the city’s race track, but closed city streets are also used for part of the circuit.

21. Great Plains tribe OSAGE
The Osage Nation originated in the Ohio River valley in what we now call Kentucky. They were forced to migrate west of the Mississippi by the invading Iroquois tribe. Most of the tribe members now live in Osage County, Oklahoma.

22. 9-Down opener ENERO
(9D. Munich : Jahr :: Madrid : __ ANO)
In Spanish, “el año” (the year) starts in “enero” (January) and ends in “diciembre” (December).

23. ’50s pres. candidate AES
Adlai Stevenson (AES) ran for president unsuccessfully against Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and in 1956. Some years after his second defeat, Stevenson served under President Kennedy as Ambassador to the United Nations. Stevenson was always noted for his eloquence and he had a famous exchange in a UN Security Council meeting during the Cuban missile crisis. Stevenson bluntly demanded that the Soviet representative on the council tell the world if the USSR was installing nuclear weapons in Cuba. His words were “Don’t wait for the translation, answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’!” followed by “I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over!”

25. Long of “Third Watch” NIA
Nia Long is an American actress, probably best known for playing Will Smith’s sometime girlfriend and fiancee Lisa Wilkes on the TV show “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”.

“Third Watch” is a crime drama series about teams of police officers, firefighters and paramedics who worked the same 3pm – 11pm shift in a New York precinct. “Third Watch” originally aired from 1999 to 2005.

26. New Year’s Eve get-togethers? DATES
A couple might get together for a date on New Year’s Eve.

27. Double-dealing in Delhi? INDIAN CON (sounds like “Indian corn”)
New Delhi is the capital city of India. New Delhi resides within the National Capital Territory of Delhi (otherwise known as the metropolis of Delhi). New Delhi and Delhi, therefore, are two different things.

30. “A symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal”: Steinbeck WAR
John Steinbeck was born not far from here, in Salinas, California in 1902. His most famous novels are probably “The Grapes of Wrath” from 1939, “East of Eden” from 1952 and the novella “Of Mice and Men” from 1937. For his work, Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

31. Old knives SNEES
“Snick or snee” is the name given to cut and thrust while fighting with a knife. The phrase is rooted in a pair of Dutch words and it gave its name to a “snee”, a light sword-like knife.

32. Cutthroat entrepreneur? BUSINESS CAD (sounds like “business card”)
Our word “cad”, meaning “a person lacking in finer feelings”, is a shortening of the word “cadet”. “Cad” was first used for a servant, and then students at British universities used “cad” as a term for a boy from the local town. “Cad” took on its current meaning in the 1830s.

An “entrepreneur” is someone takes on most aspects of a business venture, from the original idea to the execution. The term is imported from French, with “entreprendre” meaning “to undertake”. The original usage in English dates back to the early 1800s, when it applied to a manager and promoter of a theatrical production.

37. Six-time ’70s Dodger All-Star CEY
Ron Cey played third base for the Dodgers, the Cubs and the As.

38. Demand from a Stooge fan? SHOW ME MOE (sounds like “show me more”)
Moe Howard was the stage name of Moses Harry Horwitz. Howard was one of the Three Stooges. In 1925, he married Helen Schonberger, who was a cousin of Harry Houdini.

45. Lobbying gp. PAC
A Political Action Committee (PAC) is a private group that works to influence the outcome of a particular election or group of elections. Any group becomes a PAC by law when it receives or spends more than $1,000 for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election. In 2010 the Supreme Court ruled that PACS that did not make direct contributions to candidates or parties could accept unlimited contributions. These “independent-expenditure only committees” are commonly referred to as “super PACs”.

46. Neighbor of Turk. SYR
The modern state that we know as Syria was established after WWI as a French mandate. Syria was granted independence from France in 1946.

48. Riches LUCRE
Our word “lucre” meaning “money, profits” comes from the Latin “lucrum” that means the same thing.

51. Deg. for drillers DDS
Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS)

54. “Stir-frying is an option, too”? I COULD USE THE WOK (sounds like “I could use the work”)
“Wok” is a Cantonese word, the name for the frying pan now used in many Asian cuisines.

57. Nervous __ NELLIES
A nervous Nellie is someone easily upset and hesitant to act. The term comes from “Old Nell”, a name often used for a nag. “Nervous Nellie” was originally used to describe a highly-strung racehorse.

60. Gold rush figure ASSAYER
An assayer carries out a metallurgical assay to determine the composition of ore found in a mine.

Down
2. Place to bring a suit CABANA
Our word “cabana” comes from the Spanish “cabaña”, the word for a small hut or a cabin. We often use the term to describe a tentlike structure beside a pool.

3. Wading bird AVOCET
The avocet is found in warm climates, usually in saline wetlands where it uses its upcurved bill to sweep from side-to-side in water searching for aquatic insects on which it feeds. Avocets, and other similar species, may go by the common name of “stilts”, a moniker applied to them because of their long legs.

5. Beliefs CREDOS
A creed or credo is a confession of faith, or a system of belief or principles. “Credo” is Latin for “I believe”.

6. “Bambi” doe ENA
Ena is Bambi’s aunt in the 1942 Disney film “Bambi”. The movie is based on the novel “Bambi, A Life in the Woods” written by Austrian author Felix Salten and first published in 1923. There is a documented phenomenon known as the Bambi Effect, whereby people become more interested in animal rights after having watched the scene where Bambi’s mother is shot by hunters.

7. Award-winning political cartoonist Ted RALL
Ted Rall is a political cartoonist whose cartoons are syndicated in many newspapers across North America.

9. Munich : Jahr :: Madrid : __ ANO
“Year” is “Jahr” in German, and “año” in Spanish.

Munich is the capital of the German state of Bavaria, and is the third largest city in the country (after Berlin and Hamburg). The city is called “München” in German, a term that derives from the Old German word for “by the monks’ place”, which is a reference to the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city in 1158.

Madrid is the largest city in Spain and the capital. Madrid is located very close to the geographical center of the country. It is the third-largest city in the European Union (after London and Paris). People from Madrid called themselves Madrileños.

10. “Hawaii Five-O” nickname DANO
Danny Williams is a character on the TV show “Hawaii Five-O”, both in the original version that first aired in 1968 and in the remake that was first broadcast in 2010. The original, “Danno” is played by James McArthur. In the remake, Danno is played by Scott Caan, son of Hollywood actor James Caan. Book him, Danno!

11. Landlocked Asian nation LAOS
The official name for the country of Laos is the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. In the Lao language, the country’s name is “Meuang Lao”. The French ruled Laos as part of French Indochina, having united three separate Lao kingdoms. As there was a plural of “Lao” entities united into one, the French added the “S” and so today we tend to use “Laos” instead of “Lao”.

13. Slow movements ADAGIOS
An adagio is a piece of music with a slow tempo. The “adagio” marking on the score is an instruction to play the piece slowly and in a stately manner. The word adagio is Latin for “at ease”.

24. 1980 Oscar winner who portrayed Loretta SISSY
The actress Sissy Spacek probably got her big break in movies when she played the title role in the 1976 horror movie “Carrie”, which is based on the Stephen King novel. Her most acclaimed role is the lead in the 1980 biopic about Loretta Lynn called “Coal Miner’s Daughter”, for which she won an Oscar. Spacek’s first cousin is the actor Rip Torn.

The singer Loretta Lynn is sometimes referred to as the First Lady of Country Music. Lynn was born in 1932 in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky to a coal miner and his wife, and so famously is also referred to as “the Coal Miner’s Daughter”. Her much younger sister (by 19 years) is the singer Crystal Gayle.

27. Actor McKellen IAN
Sir Ian McKellen is a marvelous English actor, someone who is comfortable playing anything from Macbeth on stage to Magneto in an “X-Men” movie. On the big screen, McKellen is very famous for playing Gandalf in “The Lord of Rings”. In the UK Sir Ian is noted for being at the forefront of the campaign for equal rights for gay people, a role he has enthusiastically embraced since the eighties.

28. Mandela’s org. ANC
As a young man, Nelson Mandela led the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). Mandela was eventually arrested and admitted to charges of sabotage and was sentenced to life in prison in 1964. He remained behind bars for 27 years, mainly in the infamous prison on Robben Island. As the years progressed, Mandela became a symbol of the fight against apartheid. He was released in 1990, and immediately declared his commitment to peace and reconciliation with South Africa’s white minority population. Mandela was elected president of the Republic of South Africa (RSA) in 1994, an office that he held until 1999. Nelson Mandela passed away on December 5, 2013.

29. Exhibition funding gp. NEA
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an agency funded by the federal government that offers support and financing for artistic projects. The NEA was created by an Act of Congress in 1965. Between 1965 and 2008, the NEA awarded over $4 billion to the arts, with Congress authorizing around $170 million annually through the eighties and much of the nineties. That funding was cut to less than $100 million in the late nineties due to pressure from conservatives concerned about the use of funds, but it is now back over the $150 million mark. I wonder how long that will last though …

33. Detroit labor org. UAW
The United Auto Workers (UAW) was founded to represent workers in auto plants in the Detroit area in 1935. Nowadays the UAW’s membership extends into the aerospace, agriculture and other industries.

34. Letters in personal columns SWM
Single white male (SWM)

36. First poet interred in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner CHAUCER
Geoffrey Chaucer was an English author. He is often referred to as the father of English literature because he established vernacular English as a legitimate language for artistic works, as up to that point authors used French or Latin. Chaucer’s most famous work is actually unfinished, a collection of stories called “The Canterbury Tales”, all written at the end of the 14th century.

Poets’ Corner is an area in Westminster Abbey in London that earned its name from the high number of poets buried and commemorated there, as well as playwrights and authors. The first poet interred there was Geoffrey Chaucer. Also in Poets’ Corner are the remains of Edmund Spenser, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, John Dryden, George Frideric Handel, Thomas Hardy, Samuel Johnson, Rudyard Kipling, Laurence Olivier and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Wow!

39. Something to eat in a Western? MY DUST
Eat my dust, you’ll never catch me …

40. Miss America contestants’ array SASHES
The Miss America beauty pageant started out as a marketing ploy in the early twenties to attract tourists to the Atlantic City boardwalk after Labor Day. Today, contestants must be between 17 and 24 years of age. Before those limits were introduced, 15-year-old Marian Bergeron won the contest in 1933.

41. Salsa brand ORTEGA
The Ortega food manufacturing company has been around for about 150 years. It was founded by Maria Concepcion Jacinta Dominguez Ortega, known affectionately as Mama Ortega within the company.

42. Room to maneuver LEEWAY
Our word “leeway” meaning “spare margin” is nautical in origin. A vessel’s leeway is the amount of drift motion away from her intended course that is caused by the action of the wind.

43. Where to emulate the natives IN ROME
The proverb “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” probably dates back to the days of St. Augustine. St. Augustine wrote a letter around 390 AD in which he states:

When I go to Rome, I fast on Saturday, but here [Milan] I do not. Do you also follow the custom of whatever church you attend, if you do not want to give or receive scandal?

44. More unpleasantly moist DANKER
“Dank” is such a lovely word, now largely superseded by another nice word “damp”. It is thought that “dank” came into English from Scandinavia some time before the 14th century. The modern Swedish word “dank” means “moist place”.

50. Some Ivy Leaguers ELIS
Eli is the nickname for a graduate of Yale University, a term used in honor of the Yale benefactor Elihu Yale.

The term “Ivy League” originally defined an athletic conference, but now it is used to describe a group of schools of higher education that are associated with both a long tradition and academic excellence. The eight Ivy League Schools are: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale.

55. Agnus __ DEI
“Agnus Dei” is Latin for “Lamb of God”, a term used in Christian faiths for Jesus Christ, symbolizing his role as a sacrificial offering to atone for the sins of man.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Not as available SCARCER
8. Red herring, to a cop BAD LEAD
15. Athens eatery TAVERNA
16. Where to view “Duck Dynasty” ON A AND E
17. Oath sworn in a kosher kitchen? ABOVE ALL, DO NO HAM (sounds like “above all, do no harm”)
19. Hightailed it RACED
20. Le Mans law LOI
21. Great Plains tribe OSAGE
22. 9-Down opener ENERO
23. ’50s pres. candidate AES
25. Long of “Third Watch” NIA
26. New Year’s Eve get-togethers? DATES
27. Double-dealing in Delhi? INDIAN CON (sounds like “Indian corn”)
30. “A symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal”: Steinbeck WAR
31. Old knives SNEES
32. Cutthroat entrepreneur? BUSINESS CAD (sounds like “business card”)
36. Pool option CRAWL
37. Six-time ’70s Dodger All-Star CEY
38. Demand from a Stooge fan? SHOW ME MOE (sounds like “show me more”)
40. Unyielding SOLID
45. Lobbying gp. PAC
46. Neighbor of Turk. SYR
47. Place to play ARENA
48. Riches LUCRE
51. Deg. for drillers DDS
53. Unyielding STERN
54. “Stir-frying is an option, too”? I COULD USE THE WOK (sounds like “I could use the work”)
57. Nervous __ NELLIES
58. No-win situation TIE GAME
59. Doesn’t back away TRIES IT
60. Gold rush figure ASSAYER

Down
1. Was googly-eyed STARED
2. Place to bring a suit CABANA
3. Wading bird AVOCET
4. Put on a pedestal REVERE
5. Beliefs CREDOS
6. “Bambi” doe ENA
7. Award-winning political cartoonist Ted RALL
8. Word with able or full -BODIED
9. Munich : Jahr :: Madrid : __ ANO
10. “Hawaii Five-O” nickname DANO
11. Landlocked Asian nation LAOS
12. Heightened ENHANCED
13. Slow movements ADAGIOS
14. Insult DEMEAN
18. Some bank files LOAN RECORDS
24. 1980 Oscar winner who portrayed Loretta SISSY
27. Actor McKellen IAN
28. Mandela’s org. ANC
29. Exhibition funding gp. NEA
30. Trickery WILES
32. Cabbage family member BROCCOLI
33. Detroit labor org. UAW
34. Letters in personal columns SWM
35. Get SEE
36. First poet interred in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner CHAUCER
38. Immobilize, in a way SPLINT
39. Something to eat in a Western? MY DUST
40. Miss America contestants’ array SASHES
41. Salsa brand ORTEGA
42. Room to maneuver LEEWAY
43. Where to emulate the natives IN ROME
44. More unpleasantly moist DANKER
49. Dominate RULE
50. Some Ivy Leaguers ELIS
52. Words with limit or trap SET A …
55. Agnus __ DEI
56. It’s in many poems ‘TIS

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