LA Times Crossword Answers 17 Mar 14, Monday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Charlie Riley
THEME: Irish Stew … the ends of today’s themed answer are words that often follow the word “IRISH”. Happy St. Paddy’s Day, everyone:

16A. Tricky situation to deal with HOT POTATO (giving “Irish potato”)
23A. End CEASE24. Salon styling stuff HAIR CREAM (giving “Irish cream”)
37A. Former NFLer with a season record 23 touchdown receptions RANDY MOSS (giving “Irish moss”)
54A. Flying socialite JET SETTER (giving “Irish setter”)

64A. Hearty meal often made with mutton, and, in a way, what the ends of 16-, 24-, 37- and 54-Across comprise IRISH STEW

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 5m 24s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

1. Bambi’s mom, e.g. DOE
The 1942 Disney classic “Bambi” is based on a book written by Felix Salten called “Bambi, A Life in the Woods”. 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.

8. Father-son actors Robert and Alan ALDAS
Actor Robert Alda was the father of Alan Alda. Robert Alda’s most famous role was probably George Gershwin in the 1945 movie “Rhapsody in Blue”. Robert appeared twice in “M*A*S*H”, alongside his son.

Alan Alda had a great television career, especially of course on “M*A*S*H”. Alda won his first Emmy in 1972, for playing Hawkeye Pierce on “M*A*S*H”. He won his most recent Emmy in 2006 for his portrayal of Presidential candidate Arnold Vinick in “The West Wing”. When it comes to the big screen, my favorite of Alda’s movies is the 1978 romantic comedy “Same Time, Next Year” in which he starred opposite Ellen Burstyn.

14. Sodium hydroxide, in chem class NAOH
Sodium hydroxide is a highly caustic salt, with the chemical formula NaOH. Because of its caustic properties, sodium hydroxide is also known as “caustic soda”.

16. Tricky situation to deal with HOT POTATO (giving “Irish potato”)
As most Irish people know, it is possible to live on potatoes, potatoes alone. Back in the mid-1800s, one third of the population of Ireland had such a diet. In 1845 the country’s crop was struck with potato blight igniting the Great Famine that lasted for seven years. During the Great Famine, the island nation’s population fell by 20-25%, with one million people dying and a further one million emigrating, mainly to America.

18. Chicago airport O’HARE
O’Hare International is the fourth busiest airport in the world. The original airport was constructed on the site between 1942 and 1943, and was used by the Douglas Aircraft Company for the manufacture of planes during WWII. Before the factory and airport were built, there was a community in the area called Orchard Place, so the airport was called Orchard Place Airport/Douglas Field. This name is the derivation of the airport’s current location identifier: ORD (OR-chard D-ouglas). Orchard Place Airport was renamed to O’Hare International in 1949 in honor of Lieutenant Commander Butch O’Hare who grew up in Chicago. O’Hare was the US Navy’s first flying ace and a Medal of Honor recipient in WWII. As an aside, Butch O’Hare’s father Edward was a lawyer friend of Al Capone who eventually worked undercover for the IRS and helped get the famous gangster convicted on tax evasion. Some years later, Edward was shot to death while driving his car.

20. Piper’s son of rhyme TOM

Tom, Tom, the piper’s son,
Stole a pig, and away did run;

The “pig” mentioned in the rhyme isn’t actually a live animal but is actually a small pastry with an apple filling.

22. Radio switch letters AM/FM
The radio spectrum is divided into bands based on frequency. “High band” is composed of relatively high frequency values, and “low band” is composed of frequencies that are relatively low. FM radio falls into the band called Very High Frequency, or VHF. Television signals use frequencies even higher than VHF, frequencies in the Ultra High Frequency band (UHF). AM radio uses lower frequencies that fall into the relatively low bands of Low, Medium and High Frequency (LF, MF, and HF).

24. Salon styling stuff HAIR CREAM (giving “Irish cream”)
Baileys is the original Irish Cream liqueur, and was introduced to the market really quite recently. Baileys Irish Cream first hit the shelves in 1974. The name of the drink was inspired by the Bailey’s Hotel in Kensington, London, a favorite hotel of mine …

27. Victrola corp. RCA
The Victrola was a phonograph in which the turntable and horn could be hidden away in a wooden cabinet. The “Victrola” name was used as the phonograph was manufactured by the Victor Talking Machine Company. The Victor Talking Machine Company was sold to RCA, leading to the creation of RCA Victor.

29. Govt. intelligence gp. NSA
The National Security Agency (NSA) was set up in 1952 by President Truman, a replacement for the Armed Forces Security Agency that had existed in the Department of Defense since 1949. The NSA has always been clouded in secrecy and even the 1952 letter from President Truman that established the agency was kept under wraps from the public for over a generation. I really like the organization’s nickname … “No Such Agency”.

30. Dr. of rap DRE
Dr. Dre is the stage name of rapper Andre Romelle Young. Dr. Dre is known for his own singing career as well as for producing records and starting the careers of others such Snoop Dogg, Eminem and 50 Cent.

33. Taiwanese-born director Lee ANG
Taiwanese director Ang Lee sure has directed a mixed bag of films, mixed in terms of genre but not in terms of quality. He was at the helm for such classics as “Sense & Sensibility” (my personal favorite), “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, “Hulk”, “Brokeback Mountain” and “Life of Pi”.

37. Former NFLer with a season record 23 touchdown receptions RANDY MOSS (giving “Irish moss”)
Randy Moss is a retired NFL wide receiver who played with several teams as a professional. Moss holds several records, including single-season touchdown receptions (23).

Irish moss is a common name for a species of red algae called Chondrus crispus. Over in Ireland we call the same species “carrageen moss”, from the Irish “carraigín” meaning “little rock”, as the seaweed is found growing attached to little rocks on the beaches of the Atlantic coast. Carrageen moss is the source of “carrageenan”, which is widely used as a thickening agent in processed foods and ice cream.

40. JFK’s vessel PT BOAT
PT boats were motor torpedo boats: small speedy vessels that used torpedoes as their primary weapon against large surface ships. The “PT” stands for “Patrol Torpedo”. The most famous PT boats that served during WWII were probably PT-41 that carried General Douglas MacArthur and his family from Corregidor to Mindanao in his escape from the Philippines, and PT-109 that was commanded by Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, future President of the United States.

43. Soft slip-on MOC
“Moc” is short for “moccasin”, the type of shoe.

44. Norse trickster LOKI
Loki is a god appearing in Norse mythology. In one story about Loki, he was punished by other gods for having caused the death of Baldr, the god of light and beauty. Loki was bound to a sharp rock using the entrails of one of his sons. A serpent drips venom which is collected in a bowl, and then Loki’s wife must empty the venom onto her husband when the bowl is full. The venom causes Loki great pain, and his writhing causes the earthquakes that we poor humans have to endure.

49. “Norma __” RAE
“Norma Rae” is a 1979 movie starring Sally Field as Norma Rae Webster in a tale of union activities in a textile factory in Alabama. The film is based on the true story of Crystal Lee Sutton told in a 1975 book called “Crystal Lee, a Woman of Inheritance”.

53. Flying Peter PAN
The author and dramatist J. M. Barrie is best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. Barrie wrote a play in 1904 called “Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up”. He turned this into a novel called “Peter and Wendy” in 1911. The girl’s name “Wendy” was very uncommon before Barrie named his character, and he is given credit for making the name as popular as it is today.

54. Flying socialite JET SETTER (giving “Irish setter”)
Speaking as someone who lived much of my life outside of the US, I have to say that the Greyhound bus is real symbol of America, famous from so many old movies. In Ireland the official provincial bus service “stole” the famous logo that gracefully adorns the sides of these buses, and uses an Irish Setter in place of the iconic greyhound.

57. Start of a fitness motto USE IT
Use it or lose it …

60. Minor league rink org. AHL
The American Hockey League (AHL) is the so-called development circuit for the National Hockey League (NHL), the equivalent of the minors in professional baseball. The AHL’s playoff trophy is called the Calder Cup, which is named for Frank Calder who was the first president of the NHL.

62. “Politically Incorrect” host Bill MAHER
Bill Maher is a stand-up comedian and political commentator. Maher has an HBO television show called “Real Time with Bill Maher” which is essentially a follow-on from the very successful “Politically Incorrect” that started out on Comedy Central.

68. Chile’s Cape __ HORN
Cape Horn is sometimes cited as the most southerly point of South America, In fact, that honor goes to the Águila Islet of the Diego Ramirez Islands. Cape Horn is however the northern point of the Drake Passage that was used by sailing ships to pass between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The use of the Drake Passage fell off with the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914.

70. “Ghost Hunters” channel SYFY
Syfy is a cable television that used to be known as “Sci-Fi Channel”, which of course specializes in broadcasting science fiction shows. The brand name “Syfy” was chosen because “Syfy” could be trademarked whereas the generic term “sci-fi” could not.

71. Two-time loser to DDE 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!”

Down
3. Old Montreal team EXPOS
The Washington Nationals baseball team started out life as the Montreal Expos in 1969. The Expos moved to Washington in 2005 becoming the Nats. There are only two Major Leagues teams that have never played in a World Series, one being the Mariners and the other the Nats.

6. Terra __: pottery clay COTTA
The name “terra cotta” comes to us from Latin via Italian and means “baked earth”. Terra cotta is a ceramic made from clay which is left unglazed. Maybe the most famous work in terra cotta is the Terracotta Army, the enormous collection of life-size figures that was buried with the Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China around 210 BC. I had the privilege of seeing some of this collection when it toured the US a few years ago, and just the few pieces on display were so very impressive.

7. Surefire winner SHOO-IN
A “shoo-in” is a surefire winner, especially in politics. Back in the 1920s, a shoo-in was a horse who was pre-arranged to win a race, a race that was fixed.

8. Latin “I love” AMO
“Amo, amas, amat: … “I love, you love, he/she/it loves”, in Latin.

9. “The Merry Widow” composer Franz LEHAR
“The Merry Widow” is an operetta composed by Franz Lehar. It was first performed in 1905 and has been popular ever since.

Franz Lehar was a Hungarian composer who had a difficult relationship with the Nazi regime after it took control of his country. His wife was born Jewish, but converted to Catholicism. Fortunately, Hitler enjoyed Lehar’s music and as a result Goebbels intervened and made Sophie Lehar “an honorary Aryan by marriage”.

11. Orbitz quote AIRFARE
Orbitz is one of the big online travel companies, one that is based in Chicago. Orbitz was originally set up as a joint-venture of several airlines including Continental, Delta, Northwest and United.

13. Oh-so-stylish CHICHI
Someone who is “chichi” is showily trendy and pretentious. “Chichi” is a French noun meaning “airs, fuss”.

21. Logical guy with pointy ears MR SPOCK
Leonard Nimoy played the logical Mr. Spock in the original “Star Trek” television series. Spock has to be the most popular character on the show, and he keeps popping up in “Star Trek” spin offs to this day. Nimoy first worked alongside William Shatner (Captain Kirk) in an episode of “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (I loved that show!), with Nimoy playing a bad guy and Shatner playing an U.N.C.L.E. recruit.

28. Bach composition CANTATA
The term “sonata” comes from the Latin and Italian word “sonare” meaning “to sound”. A sonata is a piece of music that is played, as opposed to a cantata (from Latin and Italian “cantare” meaning “to sing”), a piece of music that is sung.

Johann Sebastian Bach raised a very large family. He had seven children with his first wife, who died suddenly. He had a further thirteen children with his second wife. Of his twenty youngsters, there were four sons who became famous musicians in their own right:

– Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (aka “the Halle Bach”)
– Carl Philipp Bach (aka “the Hamburg Bach”)
– Johann Christoph Bach (aka “the Buckeberg Bach”)
– Johann Christian Bach (aka “the London Bach”)

34. Workout place GYM
Our word “gymnasium” comes from the Greek “gymnasion” meaning “public place where exercise is taken”. The Greek term comes from “gymnos” meaning “naked”, as that physical training was usually done unclothed.

36. Communication for the deaf: Abbr. ASL
It’s really quite unfortunate that American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) are very different, and someone who has learned to sign in one cannot understand someone signing in the other.

38. Swiss river AARE
The Aar (also called the “Aare” in German) is the longest river entirely in Switzerland. A famous spot along the Aar is the Reichenbach Falls in the center of the country, actually a series of waterfalls near the city of Meiringen. These falls are renowned in the world of literature as it was here that Sherlock Holmes fell to his supposed doom with his nemesis Professor Moriarty (in “The Adventure of the Final Problem”).

39. Othello, for one MOOR
The most famous Moor in literature has to be Othello, the title character in William Shakespeare’s tragedy “Othello, the Moor of Venice”. The word “Moor” describes various peoples of North Africa, usually of the Muslim faith. At the height of their geographic influence the Moors occupied much of the Iberian peninsula, calling it Al Andalus (from which modern Andalusia gets its name).

40. Pillow fight garb PAJAMAS
Our word “pajamas” comes to us from the Indian subcontinent, where “pai jamahs” were loose fitting pants tied at the waist and worn at night by locals and ultimately by the Europeans living there. And “pajamas” is another of those words that I had to learn to spell differently when I came to America. In the British Isles the spelling is “pyjamas”.

46. Former German leaders KAISERS
“Kaiser” is the German word for “emperor”. The term is usually applied to the Emperors of the German Empire or Deutsches Reich that started with Kaiser Wilhelm I in 1871 and ended with the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II after the Empire’s defeat in WWI.

56. “The Jetsons” boy ELROY
On the cartoon show “The Jetsons”, young Elroy wore a cap with an antenna sticking out of it.

“The Jetsons” is an animated show from Hanna-Barbera that had its first run in 1962-1963, and then was recreated in 1985-1987. When it was debuted in 1963 by ABC, “The Jetsons” was the network’s first ever color broadcast.

58. Malia Obama’s sister SASHA
Sasha is the younger of the two Obama children, born in 2001. She is the youngest child to reside in the White House since John F. Kennedy, Jr. moved in with his parents as a small infant. Sasha’s Secret Service codename is “Rosebud”, and her older sister Malia has the codename “Radiance”.

61. Cosby/Culp TV series I SPY
The very successful TV show “I Spy” ran from 1965-68. Robert Culp played secret agent Kelly Robinson, opposite Bill Cosby who played Alexander Scott. I saw Bill Cosby perform live in San Jose not too long ago, and what a great evening it was! Sadly, Robert Culp passed away in 2010, pronounced dead after a fall just outside his home. He was 79 years old.

63. Rotation meas. RPS
Revolutions per second (rps)

65. Global currency org. IMF
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was established at the end of 1945 with 29 major economies supporting and funding an effort to stabilize economies across the globe after WWII. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., today the IMF has 187 member countries.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Bambi’s mom, e.g. DOE
4. First grade lessons ABCS
8. Father-son actors Robert and Alan ALDAS
13. Essence CRUX
14. Sodium hydroxide, in chem class NAOH
15. Deserve MERIT
16. Tricky situation to deal with HOT POTATO (giving “Irish potato”)
18. Chicago airport O’HARE
19. Smitten IN LOVE
20. Piper’s son of rhyme TOM
22. Radio switch letters AM/FM
23. End CEASE
24. Salon styling stuff HAIR CREAM (giving “Irish cream”)
26. Santa’s laugh sounds HOS
27. Victrola corp. RCA
29. Govt. intelligence gp. NSA
30. Dr. of rap DRE
31. Division word INTO
33. Taiwanese-born director Lee ANG
35. Asked God for guidance PRAYED
37. Former NFLer with a season record 23 touchdown receptions RANDY MOSS (giving “Irish moss”)
40. JFK’s vessel PT BOAT
43. Soft slip-on MOC
44. Norse trickster LOKI
48. “I got it!” AHA!
49. “Norma __” RAE
51. Approves OKS
53. Flying Peter PAN
54. Flying socialite JET SETTER (giving “Irish setter”)
57. Start of a fitness motto USE IT
59. Curved foot part ARCH
60. Minor league rink org. AHL
61. “Just watch me!” I CAN SO!
62. “Politically Incorrect” host Bill MAHER
64. Hearty meal often made with mutton, and, in a way, what the ends of 16-, 24-, 37- and 54-Across comprise IRISH STEW
66. “Not __ out of you!” A PEEP
67. Casino freebie COMP
68. Chile’s Cape __ HORN
69. Methods: Abbr. SYSTS
70. “Ghost Hunters” channel SYFY
71. Two-time loser to DDE AES

Down
1. Talk and talk and … DRONE ON
2. Show more staying power than OUTLAST
3. Old Montreal team EXPOS
4. Poker game starter ANTE
5. Sheep’s sound BAA
6. Terra __: pottery clay COTTA
7. Surefire winner SHOO-IN
8. Latin “I love” AMO
9. “The Merry Widow” composer Franz LEHAR
10. Serious-and-funny show DRAMEDY
11. Orbitz quote AIRFARE
12. Originated (from) STEMMED
13. Oh-so-stylish CHICHI
17. Finished for good OVER
21. Logical guy with pointy ears MR SPOCK
24. Ranch worker HAND
25. Auto dealer’s inventory CARS
28. Bach composition CANTATA
32. Gold, to Gomez ORO
34. Workout place GYM
36. Communication for the deaf: Abbr. ASL
38. Swiss river AARE
39. Othello, for one MOOR
40. Pillow fight garb PAJAMAS
41. Psychologist’s treatment THERAPY
42. Cookie dough units BATCHES
45. Summer shoe style OPEN-TOE
46. Former German leaders KAISERS
47. Back home after traveling, say IN TOWN
50. Moral principles ETHICS
52. For instance, with “as” SUCH
55. Piece of paper SHEET
56. “The Jetsons” boy ELROY
58. Malia Obama’s sister SASHA
61. Cosby/Culp TV series I SPY
63. Rotation meas. RPS
65. Global currency org. IMF

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