Day: March 19, 2014

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. Conflict in FDR’s presidency WWII
World War II started on September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, falsely claiming that Poland had invaded German territory. Two days later, France and the UK declared war on Germany as a reprisal. The former British dominions of Australia, India and New Zealand followed suit within hours.

14. Indian honorifics SRIS
“Sri” is a title of respect for a male in India.

15. Stops for Carnival custs. ISLS
Islands (isls.)

The Carnival Cruise Line was founded in 1972, and now has over 20 vessels in operation. Three of those Carnival ships were chartered by the US government in the wake of Hurricane Katrina so that they could provided temporary housing for families displaced by the storm.

17. Elton’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” duet partner KIKI
Kiki Dee is an English singer, best known for her hit duet with Elton John from 1976 called “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”. Kiki Dee had the honor of being the first Caucasian singer to be signed by Motown.

18. T’ai __ CHI
More properly called t’ai chi chuan, t’ai chi is a martial art mostly practiced to improve overall health and increase longevity.

19. Billy clubs NIGHTSTICKS
The term “billy club” has been used for a policeman’s nightstick or truncheon since the 1850s. Before that, the term was burglar’s slang for a crowbar.

23. User-edited site WIKI
A wiki is a website in which users are allowed to create and edit content themselves. The term “wiki” comes from the name of the first such site, introduced in 1994 and called WikiWikiWeb. “Wiki” is a Hawaiian word for “quick”, and is used because comprehensive content is created very quickly a there are so many collaborators contributing to the site.

24. Model in a bottle SHIP
There are basically two ways of putting a model ship into a bottle. The most common method (and did this with a “kit” as a child) is to build the ship externally with hinged masts and sails. The “flattened” ship is inserted through the neck of the bottle and the masts raised using strings. An alternative method is to use long-handled tools to build the vessel inside the bottle.

29. Capital of Georgia TBILISI
Tbilisi is the largest city and capital of Georgia, the former Soviet Socialist Republic.

The former Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) of Georgia is now an independent country. Supposedly, the Georgian people were given their name because they especially revered St. George. The flag of Georgia does indeed feature five St. George’s crosses.

36. “This tape will self-destruct in five seconds” fictional spy org. IMF
The fictional Impossible Missions Force (IMF) was introduced to us in the iconic TV show “Mission: Impossible” that was first broadcast in the sixties and seventies. The opening credits for the show featured a lit fuse burning away, with the fabulous theme music by Lalo Schifrin playing in the background. The opening scene almost always featured a briefing with the main operative listening to instructions on a tape that self-destructs after being played in full. The distinctive voice on the tape was provided by actor Bob Johnson.

37. Architect Maya __ LIN
Maya Lin is a Chinese American born in Athens Ohio, and is an artist and architect. Her most famous work is the moving Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Lin was only 21-years-old when she won a public design competition in 1981 to create the memorial. Although her design is very fitting, sadly Lin was not a popular choice for the work given her Asian heritage. As she said herself, she probably would not have been picked had the competition been judged with the knowledge of who was behind each submission.

39. 24-hr. info source CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) was launched in 1980, and was the first television channel in the world to provide news coverage 24 hours a day.

48. Singer Minaj NICKI
Nicki Minaj is a rapper from Queens, New York who was born in Trinidad.

59. Friends and neighbors KITH
The word “kith” describes friends and acquaintances, and is used used in the phrase “kith and kin” meaning “friends and family”. “Kith” comes from an Old English word meaning “native country, home”, as the expression “kith and kin” was used originally to mean “country and kinsmen”.

60. “Lemon Tree” singer Lopez TRINI
Trini Lopez is a noted singer and guitarist from Dallas, Texas. He is perhaps best known for his international hit “If I Had a Hammer” from 1963, as well as “Lemon Tree” from 1965.

The 1965 Trini Lopez hit “Lemon Tree” is a folk song that was written by Will Holt earlier in the sixties. Holt’s song is based on a Brazilian folk song “Meu limão, meu limoeiro”.

61. S&P 500 bank CITI
During the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, the US government rescued Citibank by providing loan guarantees and two payments of $25 billion each. It turns out that the government made a tidy profit on that deal, as Citibank has since repaid the loans in full, along with interest.

Standard & Poor’s (S&P) is a financial services company, famous for its stock market indices, especially the S&P 500. The company also publishes credit ratings for sovereign governments, and in 2011 famously lowered the rating of the US federal government from AAA to to AA+.

62. NFL stats INTS
Interception (int.)

64. Diner orders, briefly BLTS
The BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato) is the second most popular sandwich in the US, after the plain old ham sandwich.

65. Letter before omega PSI
The Greek letter psi is the one that looks a bit like a trident or a pitchfork.

Omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet and is the one that looks like a horseshoe. The word “omega” literally means “great O” (O-mega). Compare this with the Greek letter Omicron meaning “little O” (O-micron).

Down
3. “You Be __”: 1986 Run-D.M.C. hit ILLIN’
“You Be Illin’” is a single released by Run-DMC in 1986. Don’t ask me … I have no idea …

4. They, in Tours ILS
Tours is the largest city in the Centre region of France. It is said that the people of Tours speak the “purest” form of French in the whole country, and when spoken by a local it is also said to be free of any accent.

8. Pepper and Bilko: Abbr. SGTS
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band was the alter-ego of the Beatles and was the title of a famous studio album released in 1967.

Master Sergeant Ernie Bilko was played by Phil Silvers in his TV show that aired in the fifties. “The Phil Silvers Show” was hugely successful in reruns in the British Isles, even more so than over here in the US.

10. __-Tikki-Tavi: Kipling mongoose RIKKI
In Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book”, one of the short stories is titled “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”, the story about a mongoose, the brave pet of an English family that protects them from a succession of snakes.

11. Egyptian fertility goddess ISIS
Isis was the ancient Egyptian goddess of fertility, as well as the protector of the dead and the goddess of children.

13. Despot Amin IDI
Idi Amin received most of his military training in the British armed forces, eventually achieving the highest rank possible for a Black African in the British Colonial Army in 1959, that of Warrant Officer. On his return to Uganda Amin joined his country’s military and quickly rose to the rank of Deputy Commander of the Army. During that time he was quite the athlete. He was a noted rugby player and swimmer, and for nine years held the Ugandan national light-heavyweight boxing title. By the early seventies, Amin was commander of all the armed forces of Uganda and in 1971 seized power in a military coup, displacing the country’s president Milton Obote. There followed seven years of brutal rule by Amin during which it is estimated that between 100,000 and 500,000 people were murdered. Amin was ousted from power in 1979 after a war with Tanzania, and fled to Libya where he stayed for a year. He then moved to Saudi Arabia, where he was financially supported by the Saudi Royal Family for the remainder of his life. Amin died in 2003.

14. Street sport SKIING
Picabo Street is an alpine ski racer from Triumph, Idaho who won medals at the 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympics.

19. Ones who reject established institutions NIHILISTS
“Nihil” is the Latin word for “nothing, and is a term we’ve absorbed into English. “Nihil” is also the root from which we get our term “nil”. Someone described as “nihilistic” is very skeptical and tends to believe in nothing.

22. One way to get online, briefly DSL
Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)

25. “Of Thee __” I SING
“Of Thee I Sing” is a musical by George and Ira Gershwin that premiered on Broadway in 1931. “Of Thee I Sing” is about a politician running for president who falls for the “wrong” woman.

26. Sonar pulses PINGS
The British developed the first underwater detection system that used sound waves. Research was driven by defence demands during WWI, leading to production of working units in 1922. This new sound detection system was described as using “supersonics”, but for the purpose of secrecy the term was dropped in favor of an acronym. The work was done under the auspices of the Royal Navy’s Anti-Submarine Division, so ASD was combined with the IC from “superson-ic-s” to create the name ASDIC. The navy even went as far as renaming the quartz material at the heart of the technology “ASDivite”. By the time WWII came along, the Americans were producing their own systems and coined the term SONAR, playing off the related application, RADAR. And so the name ASDIC was deep-sixed …

28. Beer from Japan KIRIN
Kirin lager is the oldest brand of beer in Japan. The “Kirin” name comes from the Japanese word for a mythical Chinese creature.

29. “A Christmas Carol” boy TIM
Tiny Tim is the nickname of Timothy Cratchit, the little disabled boy in the Charles Dickens novella “A Christmas Carol”. “A Christmas Carol” is such a popular book that it has never been out of print since its first publication in December 1843.

30. Ratio involving ht. and wt. BMI
The body mass index (BMI) is the ratio of a person’s height to his or her mass.

35. Series with Capt. Picard, to fans TNG
When Gene Roddenberry was creating the “Star Trek” spin-off series “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, I think he chose a quite magnificent name for the new starship captain. The name “Jean-Luc Picard” is imitative of one or both of the twin-brother Swiss scientists Auguste and Jean Felix Piccard. The role of Picard was of course played by the wonderful Shakespearean actor Patrick Stewart.

41. Horseshoe makers SMITHS
Traditionally there has been a distinction between a farrier and a blacksmith. A blacksmith is someone who forges and shapes iron, perhaps to make horseshoes. A farrier is someone who fits horseshoes onto the hooves of horses. The term “blacksmith” is sometimes used for one who shoes horses, especially as many blacksmiths make horseshoes and fit them as well.

43. Printer spec. DPI
The resolution of a printed image can be measured in dots per inch (DPI).

47. Ness foe NITTI
Frank Nitti was one of the top henchmen working for Al Capone. Unlike American-born Capone, Nitti was actually from Italy and was born near the city of Salerno. When Capone was eventually put away for 11 years for tax evasion, Nitti was convicted of the same crime. Nitti was only imprisoned for 18 months, and when released he was labelled as the new head of Capone’s Chicago Outfit. However the truth seems to be that he was just a frontman, with others making the decisions.

Eliot Ness was the Treasury agent charged with the task of bringing down the notorious Chicago gangster Al Capone. When Ness took on the job in 1930, Chicago law-enforcement agents were renowned for being corrupt, for being on the take. Ness handpicked 50 prohibition agents who he thought he could rely on, later reducing the group to a cadre of 15 and ultimately just 11 trusted men. That group of 11 earned the nickname “The Untouchables”, the agents who couldn’t be bought.

50. Saint __ and Nevis: Caribbean country KITTS
Saint Kitts is the more familiar name for Saint Christopher Island, part of the West Indies. Saint Kitts, along with the neighboring island of Nevis, is part of the country known as the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Saint Kitts has had a troubled history, with the Spanish, British and French all vying for control of the island. Most of the population today is descended from slaves brought onto Saint Kitts to farm tobacco and then sugar cane. Most of the slaves were from Africa, although Irish and Scottish slaves were also used.

51. Formal “Who’s there?” reply IT IS I
The much debated statement “it is I” is actually grammatically correct, and should not be “corrected” to “it is me”. Traditionally, pronouns following linking verbs such as “is”, “appear” and “seem”, are written in the nominative case. Examples are:

– It is I (who called)
– It was he (who did it)
– It is we (who care)

53. Web address letters HTTP
“http” are the first letters in most Internet link addresses. “http” stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol.

54. “Elegy for __”: memoir about writer Murdoch IRIS
“Elegy for Iris” is a memoir written by John Bayley about his marriage to author Iris Murdoch. The memoir deals with Murdoch’s multiple infidelities as well as her final years suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

56. Part of FDR: Abbr. INIT
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was the only child of Sara Delano and James Roosevelt Sr. The Delano family history in America goes back to the pilgrim Philippe de Lannoy, an immigrant of Flemish descent who arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621. The family name “de Lannoy” was anglicized here in the US, to “Delano”.

57. Diarist Anaïs NIN
Anaïs Nin was a French author, famous for her journals that she wrote for over sixty years from the age of 11 right up to her death. Nin also wrote highly regarded erotica and cited D. H. Lawrence as someone from whom she drew inspiration. Nin was married to banker and artist Hugh Parker Guiler in 1923. Decades later in 1955, Nin married former actor Rupert Pole, even though she was still married to Guiler. Nin and Pole had their marriage annulled in 1966, but just for legal reasons, and they continued to live together as husband and wife until Nin passed away in 1977.

61. “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.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Conflict in FDR’s presidency WWII
5. Readies, as presses INKS
9. Pod prefix TRI-
12. Rise HILL
13. Carding at a door IDING
14. Indian honorifics SRIS
15. Stops for Carnival custs. ISLS
16. Finger, e.g. DIGIT
17. Elton’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” duet partner KIKI
18. T’ai __ CHI
19. Billy clubs NIGHTSTICKS
21. Indian language HINDI
23. User-edited site WIKI
24. Model in a bottle SHIP
27. Outer coating SKIN
29. Capital of Georgia TBILISI
32. Works without a script WINGS IT
36. “This tape will self-destruct in five seconds” fictional spy org. IMF
37. Architect Maya __ LIN
38. Bug IRK
39. 24-hr. info source CNN
40. Longing to see MISSING
42. Yellowish embellishment GILDING
44. “Sent” folder contents: Abbr. MSGS
45. Small cut SNIP
46. Tizzy SNIT
48. Singer Minaj NICKI
52. Maintaining shoe gloss, in a way SPIT SHINING
58. Popular show HIT
59. Friends and neighbors KITH
60. “Lemon Tree” singer Lopez TRINI
61. S&P 500 bank CITI
62. NFL stats INTS
63. Easy two-pointer TIP-IN
64. Diner orders, briefly BLTS
65. Letter before omega PSI
66. Start of a library conversation PSST!
67. Señor’s assent SI SI

Down
1. Question of choice WHICH?
2. Words often heard before may and might WISH I
3. “You Be __”: 1986 Run-D.M.C. hit ILLIN’
4. They, in Tours ILS
5. “Got it, man” I DIG
6. At hand NIGH
7. Make socks, e.g. KNIT
8. Pepper and Bilko: Abbr. SGTS
9. Prank TRICK
10. __-Tikki-Tavi: Kipling mongoose RIKKI
11. Egyptian fertility goddess ISIS
13. Despot Amin IDI
14. Street sport SKIING
19. Ones who reject established institutions NIHILISTS
20. Instant TWINKLING
22. One way to get online, briefly DSL
25. “Of Thee __” I SING
26. Sonar pulses PINGS
27. Way more than sips SWIGS
28. Beer from Japan KIRIN
29. “A Christmas Carol” boy TIM
30. Ratio involving ht. and wt. BMI
31. Suppositions IFS
33. __-fi SCI
34. Accommodating place INN
35. Series with Capt. Picard, to fans TNG
41. Horseshoe makers SMITHS
43. Printer spec. DPI
46. Quick rides SPINS
47. Ness foe NITTI
49. Spicy pepper CHILI
50. Saint __ and Nevis: Caribbean country KITTS
51. Formal “Who’s there?” reply IT IS I
52. Miss on purpose SKIP
53. Web address letters HTTP
54. “Elegy for __”: memoir about writer Murdoch IRIS
55. Pinches NIPS
56. Part of FDR: Abbr. INIT
57. Diarist Anaïs NIN
61. “Mike & Molly” network CBS

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