Category: Simeon Seigel

Bill’s time: 11m 58s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

13 Peak of revelation? : SINAI

In the Christian and Jewish traditions, the Ten Commandments are a set of principles relating to worship and ethics that the faithful should observe. Also known as the Decalogue, the Book of Exodus describes the revelation of the principles by God to Moses on Mount Sanai. Also according to Exodus, the Ten Commandments were inscribed by the finger of God onto a pair of stone tablets that were kept in a chest known as the Ark of the Covenant.

18 Org. whose initials omit its “E” (for “Explosives”) : ATF

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) today is part of the Department of Justice (DOJ). The ATF has its roots in the Department of Treasury dating back to 1886 when it was known as the Bureau of Prohibition. “Explosives” was added to the ATF’s name when the bureau was moved under the Department of Justice (DOJ) as part of the reorganization called for in the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

21 First Muslim Nobel Laureate (1978) : SADAT

Anwar Sadat was the third President of Egypt right up to the time of his assassination in 1981. Sadat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978, along with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, for the role played in crafting the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1978 at Camp David. It was this agreement that largely led to Sadat’s assassination three years later.

23 Character with a famous opening line? : ALI BABA

In the folk tale “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”, the title character is a poor woodcutter who discovers the magic phrase “Open sesame!” that opens the thieves’ den.

25 Resolve : METTLE

“Mettle” is such a lovely word. It means “courage, fortitude, spirit”. “Mettle” is simply a variant spelling of the word “metal”.

26 Exposes personal information about online, informally : DOXES

Doxing (also “doxxing”) is the publishing of private information about someone on the Internet with the intention of doing harm or causing embarrassment. The term “doxing” is slang, and comes from “dox”, an accepted abbreviation for “documents”.

27 Cultured dessert option : TCBY

TCBY is a chain of stores selling frozen yogurt that was founded in 1981 in Little Rock, Arkansas. The initialism TCBY originally stood for “This Can’t Be Yogurt”, but this had to be changed due to a lawsuit being pressed by a competitor called “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt”. These days TCBY stands for “The Country’s Best Yogurt”.

30 Former Yankee nickname : A-ROD

Professional baseball player Alex Rodriguez earned more nicknames than just “A-Rod”. He has been called “the Cooler” by some players as there was a perception that teams went cold when he joined them and hot when he left. He has also been called “A-Fraud” by teammates because of another perception, that he is over-demanding. Rodriguez was in a world of hurt not so long ago, for using illegal performance-enhancing drugs. He retired from baseball in 2016.

33 *1957 hit by the Edsels with a nonsense title : RAMA-LAMA-DING-DONG

“Rama Lama Ding Dong” was a hit in 1961, although it had been released in 1957 under the erroneous title “Lama Rama Ding Dong” and didn’t quite make it. The song was recorded by the doo-wop group called the Edsels, named after the latest (and “doomed”) Ford automobile. Before becoming the Edsels, the group was called the Essos, after the oil company.

38 Indian spice mixes : MASALAS

“Masala” is a Hindi word meaning “mixture”, and describes a mixture of spices. A dish named “masala” uses the spices incorporated into a sauce that includes garlic, ginger, onions and chili paste. Who doesn’t love Indian cuisine? Yum …

40 Cue preceder : PEE

In the alphabet, the letter P (pee) precedes the letter Q (cue).

46 Adolph who purchased The New York Times in 1896 : OCHS

Adolph Ochs was a former owner of “The New York Times”. Ochs had purchased a controlling interest in “The Chattanooga Times” when he was only 19 years of age, and took control of “The New York Times” in 1896 when he was 38 years old. Soon after taking charge, Ochs coined the paper’s slogan “All the News That’s Fit to Print”. It was also Ochs who moved the paper’s headquarters to a new building on Longacre Square in Manhattan, which the city later renamed to the famous “Times Square” after the newspaper. Och’s son-in-law Arthur Hays Sulzberger took over control of “The New York Times” after Adolph died. The Ochs Sulzberger family has owned the paper ever since.

48 Potentially offensive, say : NOT PC

To be un-PC is to be politically incorrect, not politically correct (PC).

56 Actress Juliette : LEWIS

Juliette Lewis is an actress whose big break came in 1991, playing the traumatized daughter in the Martin Scorsese remake of “Cape Fear”. Another famous role for Lewis was the female lead in Oliver Stone’s 1994 hit, “Natural Born Killers”.

59 Risk-taker’s mantra, in brief : YOLO

You only live once (YOLO)

60 Hoppy inits. : IPA

The foodstuff that we call “hops” are actually the female flowers of the hop plant. The main use of hops is to add flavor to beer. The town in which I used to live here in California was once home to the largest hop farm in the world. Most of the harvested hops were exported all the way to the breweries of London, where they could fetch the best price.

64 Cause of some head-scratching : NIT

A nit is an egg of a louse.

Lice (singular “louse”) are small wingless insects, of which there are thousands of species. There are three species of lice affecting humans, i.e. head lice, body lice and pubic lice. Most lice feed on dead skin found on the body of the host animal, although some feed on blood. Ick …

69 Campus health and safety org. : SADD

Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) was founded in Massachusetts in 1981. SADD’s aim is to prevent road traffic accidents by urging students to avoid potentially destructive decisions (such as driving under the influence of alcohol).

Down

1 Ex ___ (from nothing: Lat.) : NIHILO

The Latin phrase “ex nihilo” means “out of nothing”. The extended phrase “creatio ex nihilo” describes the concept that God created the world out of nothing.

4 One-named singer with the 2016 #1 hit “Cheap Thrills” : SIA

“Cheap Thrills” is a 2015 song that was the first number-one hit in the US for Australian singer/songwriter Sia.

6 Not snookered by : ONTO

The use of the word “snooker” to mean “to cheat” has been used since the early 1900s. The term probably took on that connotation as it’s relatively easy to trick someone who is new to the game of snooker.

7 Arthur with a statue on Richmond’s Monument Avenue : ASHE

Arthur Ashe was a professional tennis player from Richmond, Virginia. In his youth, Ashe found himself having to travel great distances to play against Caucasian opponents due to the segregation that still existed in his home state. He was rewarded for his dedication by being selected for the 1963 US Davis Cup team, the first African-American player to be so honored. Ashe continued to run into trouble because of his ethnicity though, and in 1968 was denied entry into South Africa to play in the South African Open. In 1979, Ashe suffered a heart attack and had bypass surgery, with follow-up surgery four years later during which he contracted HIV from blood transfusions. Ashe passed away in 1993 due to complications from AIDS. Shortly afterwards, Ashe was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton.

13 Very valuable violin, informally : STRAD

Generations of the Stradivari family produced violins and other stringed instruments, the most famous of which were constructed by Antonio Stradivari.

17 Bean or noodle : NOB

Slang terms for “head” include “bean”, “coconut”, “gourd”, “noodle” and “noggin”.

29 ___ Harbour, Fla. : BAL

Bal Harbour is a village in Florida that is located on the northern tip of the barrier island usually known as Miami Beach.

34 Sitting meditation pose : ASANA

“Asana” is a Sanskrit word that translates literally as “sitting down”. The asanas are the poses that a practitioner of yoga assumes. The most famous is the lotus position, the cross-legged pose called “padmasana”.

36 Artoo’s well-spoken partner : THREEPIO

C-3PO (or “Threepio”) is the protocol droid that appears in the “Star Wars” movie franchise.

37 Measure of energy savings, as when the meter runs in reverse : NEGAWATT

39 1/3,600th of a deg. : SEC

Second (sec.)

42 Literature Nobelist Morrison : TONI

Writer Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. Amongst other things, Morrison is noted for coining the phrase “our first black President”, a reference to President Bill Clinton.

44 Extra-sweaty meditative exercise : HOT YOGA

Hot yoga is performed under relatively hot and humid conditions. The actual temperature and humidity levels are often chosen to resemble those found in India, where yoga originated.

47 Kind of sense : SPIDEY

“Spidey-sense” is a term used to describe one’s intuition or instinct, especially when sensing something that might be dangerous. The term arises from the comic book hero Spider-Man’s ability to sense danger before others.

55 Possible hurdle for getting a master’s, for short : GRE

Passing the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is usually a requirement for entry into graduate school here in the US.

63 L.A.P.D. head? : LOS

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is the third-largest local law enforcement agency in the country, after New York PD and Chicago PD. Among other things, LAPD is famous for creating the first Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team in the US, in 1965.