Happy Birthday, Sash! Sasha Obama turned 22 yesterday and appeared in the puzzle today, clued with “White House daughter whom the Secret Service called ‘Rosebud,’” at 19A. Her legal name is Natasha. Here she is wearing her Owl Chatter cap for this short feature on her.
Sasha enrolled at U. Michigan after high school, but transferred to USC for reasons unknown, and earned her degree in Sociology from there last month. Her dad is the Kenya-born former pol Barack Obama.
You probably know what an acronym is, but do you know what a BACKRONYM is? It was at 17A today, clued with “CARES, for Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, e.g..” An acronym is when you take the first letters of a phrase or name and create a new word out of them. So, e.g., North Atlantic Treaty Organization gives us the acronym NATO. A backronym is the same operation but in reverse. You start with the single word and name the item using those letters. In the puzzle clue, Congress started with CARES as the name of the legislation and used those letters to come up with Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.
A great example is the USA PATRIOT Act, where that was the “shorthand” name Congress wanted to use, so they made up from it the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. Rolls right off the tongue, no?
How about RED HOT POKER at 21A for “Flower whose name sounds like a branding iron.” Ouch. That’s new to me, although I think I’ve seen them. Their formal name is kniphofia, after Johann Hieronymus Kniphof, an 18th-century German physician and botanist.
There was also a SEA LILY today, at 36D, “Marine animal that resembles a flower.” The sea lily is a “crinoid” that is attached to the sea bottom by a stalk. The unstalked forms are called “feather stars.” Here’s a sea lily.
In the Midwest, fossilized segments of the columns of crinoids are sometimes known as Indian beads. A species of crinoid is the state fossil of Missouri. I didn’t even know states had official fossils. New Jersey’s is a lizard-like dinosaur, the Hadrosaurus. Cute!
Today is King Kamehameha I Day, honoring the monarch who established the kingdom of Hawai’i. I’m not kidding — he has been in puzzles at least twice pretty recently, so I have heard of him. Here’s a poem in honor of the day, courtesy of the Poetry Foundation. It’s From Understory, by Craig Santos Perez.
For my wife, Nālani, and our daughter, Kaikainali‘i, on her first birthday
nālani clips
kaikainali‘i’s tiny
fingernails while
she sleeps —
“the rape
of oceania
began with
guam” — soldiers
invade okinawa,
hawai‘i, the
philippines, and
south korea —
#yesallwomen
how do
[we] stop
kaikainali‘i’s body
from becoming
target practice —
bullets fragment
and ricochet —
nālani brushes
kaikainali‘i’s hair
when she
wakes, sings
the names
of body
parts in
hawaiian language —
who will
remember the
names of
girls disappeared
from reservations
and maquiladoras
from villages
and schools
#mmiw #mmaw
#bringbackourgirls
nālani gathers
the clippings
because even
[our] nails
are ten
percent water —
outside, mānoa
rain falls
as large
as eggs —
inside, nālani
lies on
her side
to breast-
feed kaikainali‘i
in bed —
they fall
asleep facing
each other,
still latched —
i nestle
with them
and, for
a moment,
kaikainali‘i smiles —
what does
she dream
about? her
deep breath
rises and
falls like
king tides —
her fragile
rib cage
appears and
disappears like
a coral
island crowning —
my daughter,
i know
our stories
are heavier
than stones,
but you
must carry
them with
you no
matter how
far from
home the
storms take
your canoe
because you
will always
find shelter
in our
stories, you
will always
belong in
our stories,
you will
always be
sacred in
our ocean
of stories —
hanom hanom
OK — here’s the actual headline in the Times: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s Former Leader, Is Arrested in Financial Inquiry.
Here’s what they should have used: Sturgeon Netted by Authorities; Accused of Fishy Behavior.
C’mon, fellas — that’s low-hanging fruit.
In March of 1963, Ernesto Miranda was arrested for the kidnapping and rape of an 18-year-old woman. The victim identified him as her assailant and he wrote out and signed a confession after he was interrogated. It was signed at 1:30 pm on March 13, 1963. A jury found Miranda guilty in June and the conviction was upheld on appeal by Arizona Supreme Court. It ruled the confession was admissible despite his not having a lawyer present.
You may have guessed by now where we’re heading. The U.S. Supreme Court took up the case on appeal and reversed the conviction in 1966. It was a 5-4 decision. In so doing, it established the requirement for the police to provide suspects with certain warnings, which have become known as the Miranda warnings.
Ernesto was retried in 1967 without the confession, and was found guilty again. He was paroled in 1972 and stabbed to death in a bar fight in 1976. He had been trading on his “celebrity” by selling Miranda warning cards for $1.50 each. The price hasn’t gone up much over the years. You can get this one on Amazon for $1.74.
Miranda was first taken into custody by Carroll Cooley, a detective on the Phoenix police force. Cooley played it by the book, as the book was written at the time. He was college-educated, a good cop, and a good man. He disagreed with the Supreme Court decision, saying it would hamper crime-fighting. He said Miranda was aware of his rights without receiving the specific warnings since he was an ex-con who had been through the process before. Cooley was promoted to captain and retired in 1978. He later taught as an adjunct prof in a police certification program at U. Illinois, and volunteered at the Phoenix Police Museum, which unveiled an exhibit about the Miranda case in 2013.
Cooley died two weeks ago at the age of 87 in his home in Phoenix. He is survived by his wife, who is known as Glee, two children and two stepchildren, 12 grandchildren, and 18 great-grandchildren, every one of whom is well aware of his or her right to remain silent.
And here’s Miranda:
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 