11.23.06
Anita O’Day, 1919-2006
Anita O’Day has long been a great favorite of mine—an absolutely superb jazz vocalist. Here’s her obit from the Washington Post:
Anita O’Day, 87, whose breathy voice and witty improvisation made her one of the most dazzling jazz singers of the last century and whose sex appeal and drug addiction earned her the nickname “the Jezebel of Jazz,” died of pneumonia Nov. 23 at a convalescent hospital in West Los Angeles.
Ms. O’Day led one of the roughest lives in jazz, possibly surpassed only by her idol, Billie Holiday. Impoverished and largely abandoned in childhood, she became a marathon dancer and changed her surname from Colton to O’Day, pig Latin for “dough,” slang for money.
Over a five-decade career, a mental breakdown, a rape, numerous abortions, a 14-year addiction to heroin and time in jail all contributed to her legend as a survivor. Her 1981 as-told-to autobiography was appropriately titled “High Times, Hard Times.”
However, as a singer she soared. Jazz writer Nat Hentoff declared her “the most authentically hot jazz singer of all.”
In the 1940s, when most “girl singers” were pert appendages to a featured band, Ms. O’Day was a star attraction who often enlivened the orchestra with her playful and inspired vocals. She said she saw herself as an instrumentalist and often wore a band uniform instead of an evening gown.
She was among the hippest female singers of the big-band period, lending rare emotional resonance to the relentlessly up-tempo and brassy big bands of Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton. She gave both orchestras their first million-selling hits, doing a rare interracial duet on “Let Me Off Uptown” with Krupa trumpeter Roy Eldridge and then the novelty number “And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine” with Kenton’s ensemble.
For Verve records in the 1950s, she performed some of the most inventive interpretations of jazz standards. Andy Razaf, who wrote the words to Fats Waller’s “Honeysuckle Rose,” once said hers was the definitive version of the tune — surpassing even Waller’s recording. Read the rest of this entry »
Fine representative of GOP values
From TalkingPointsMemo:
Since June, Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) has taken free trips to Turkey, Italy, Poland, England, Canada, Spain and Belgium, even though he is retiring from Congress and the subcommittee he chairs had finished its major piece of legislation in May.
Wild-boar dinner report
The wild boar was extremely tasty—very much like fresh pork roast, but with more flavor. And, though I cooked it to 160 degrees (and then let it sit 10 minutes, tented with foil), it was not dry at all. Quite moist in fact. The mustard-caper sauce was excellent with it, and The Eldest’s sauerkraut was, I think, the best I’ve had. Terrific meal, overall, and then we watched the funny little movie Walking and Talking.
A very nice Thanksgiving. And Megs got her nails clipped.
A nation awash in alcohol
I was in the drugstore the other day as they were laying in the alcohol—wine and spirits—for the holiday season. I was astounded at the amount: skids of the stuff. Some serious drinking obviously happens over the holidays.
NY Times 100 notable books of the year
The end-of-the-year listfest has begun. The NY Times, believing that no notable books are published in the period 23 November through 31 December, weighs in with the list of 100 notable books of the year:
FICTION & POETRY
ABSURDISTAN. By Gary Shteyngart. (Random House, $24.95.) A young American-educated Russian with an ill-gotten fortune waits to return to the United States in this darkly comic novel.AFTER THIS. By Alice McDermott. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $24.) In her effectively elliptical novel, McDermott continues to scrutinize the lives of Irish Catholics on Long Island.
AGAINST THE DAY. By Thomas Pynchon. (Penguin Press, $35.) In Pynchon’s globe-trotting tale, set (mostly) on the eve of World War I, anarchic Americans collide with quasi-psychic European hedonists and a crew of boyish balloonists, anticipating the shocks to come.
ALENTEJO BLUE. By Monica Ali. (Scribner, $24.) Ali’s second novel revolves around the inhabitants of a southern Portuguese village.
ALL AUNT HAGAR’S CHILDREN. By Edward P. Jones. (Amistad/HarperCollins, $25.95.) Several characters from Jones’s first story collection return in this one, set mostly in Washington, D.C.
APEX HIDES THE HURT. By Colson Whitehead. (Doubleday. $22.95.) In this parablelike novel, a commercial “nomenclature consultant” is hired to name a Midwestern town, and his task turns into an exploration of the corruption of language.
ARTHUR AND GEORGE. By Julian Barnes. (Knopf, $24.95.) A metaphysical mystery starring Arthur (Conan Doyle), spiritual detective.
AVERNO. By Louise Glück. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $22.) Poems inspired by the underworld of myth confront our most intractable fears. Read the rest of this entry »
Expand your cellphone horizons
Alert Reader passes along this story:
Thanksgiving, is it? Well, despite occasional headaches, technology has also brought us plenty to be thankful for: safety, convenience and entertainment on the go. Next time you’re running late, lost or lonely, ask yourself: aren’t you grateful for your cellphone?
Actually, don’t answer yet. With every passing month, cellphones are becoming even more useful. Sure, it’s nice that they let you call people from the road. But lately, their reach has grown, thanks to clever programmers making links between the cellular world and the Internet.
Here, for your gratitude-generating pleasure, is a rundown of some of the most exciting and powerful services awaiting your cellphone at this very moment. Better yet, at the moment, they’re all free.
FREE DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE By this time, it’s quite clear that nobody with a “$50 a month” calling plan actually pays only $50 a month. The cellphone companies will do anything to puff up your bill — like charging you $1.50 or $2 every time you dial 411 to find a phone number.
Try 800-FREE-411 (800-373-3411) instead. A computer or human being looks up a number for you at no charge, once you’ve listened to a 20-second ad. It’s a classic time-for-money swap.
Or, for an ad-free option, there is a little-known Google service. Send a text message to 46645 (that’s “Google”; leave off the last E for efficiency). In the body of the message, type what you’re looking for, like “Roger McBride 10025” or “chiropractor dallas tx.” Seconds later, you get a return message from Google, complete with the name, address, and phone number. Read the rest of this entry »
Megs and the Wild-Boar Haunch
Megs with the wild-boar haunch. She’s pretending she brought down the boar, but that’s not true. The clew is provided by the plastic wrapping: Megs cannot wrap things in plastic. Plastic, in her view, is mainly for biting.
Still, the haunch has now had a good sniffing (through the plastic) and will go into the 250-degree oven for some hours. I will cook it to 160 degrees, a bit higher than I usually cook pork but, as Broken Arrow Ranch advises:
Be aware that wild pigs may be carriers of the trichina parasite, which means that the meat must be cooked to a safe temperature before eating. Trichinosis is killed when the meat reaches a temperature of 137°F. Cooking tests have confirmed that cooking pork to a temperature of 160° to 170° F results in not only a safe meat but a more pleasing texture as well.
Insert a meat thermometer into the thickest park of the leg and remove from the heat when the temperature reaches 160° F. Wild boar is a really lean meat, so it needs a sauce to add moisture. [I will also drape some slices of smoked bacon across the top of the haunch. - LG]
Mustard Caper Sauce
6 Tbs butter
½ cup dry white wine
2 Tbs Dijon mustard
½ tsp Worcestershire sauce
3 Tbs capers, well drainedMelt the butter over low heat. Mix in wine, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and capers. Stir to blend. Spoon sauce over sliced meat.
More good articles on Vitamin D
This earlier post, and these articles:
A two-part article:
Vitamin Boost From muscle strength to immunity, scientists find new vitamin D benefits
Vitamin D: What’s Enough? Many people may need much more
A three-part article:
Season Affects Cancer-Surgery Survival: People likely to have had high concentrations of vitamin D in their bodies had a far better chance of being alive and cancerfree 5 years after surgery for early-stage lung cancer than did people who probably carried little of the vitamin when they underwent surgery. The finding emerges from a study reported this week at a major cancer conference.
The research was a bit of a fishing expedition. The sunshine vitamin has been linked to several anticancer effects, such as inhibiting the proliferation of tumor cells and limiting the growth of new blood vessels that feed expanding tumors. This time, scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health wanted to investigate whether vitamin D might affect the success of a standard treatment for an especially aggressive and lethal malignancy. (continued at link)
Understanding Vitamin D Deficiency: Our skin evolved to create vitamin D when it’s exposed to the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays. So, when most of the world’s population lived in or near equatorial regions, people had no shortfall of the nutrient, with their bodies making from 10,000 to 20,000 international units (IUs) of this vitamin each day.
However, over the millennia, more and more people moved to high latitudes, where up to half the year, solar-UV exposure isn’t enough to fuel vitamin D production in skin. More recently, justifiable concerns about sunburns and skin cancer have prompted increasing shares of people—even at high latitudes—to don sun-blocking clothing. Unfortunately, what’s good for skin protection is bad for natural vitamin D production.
It also can be bad for health, a host of studies has recently indicated. For decades, vitamin D was appreciated largely for its role in boosting the absorption of calcium, important for bone health. However, over the past decade and especially the past 5 years, research has linked a broad range of additional benefits to having ample vitamin D. It’s shown that the nutrient fights cancers and diabetes, is the pivotal feedstock for a hormone that protects muscle, and inhibits autoimmune disorders from multiple sclerosis and lupus to inflammatory bowel disease.
Moreover, many of these newly recognized benefits of vitamin D rely on blood concentrations of the nutrient far higher than those needed to protect bone. Although high by dietary standards, these aren’t really megadoses, explains Bruce W. Hollis of the Medical University of South Carolina. Rather, they reflect amounts typical of what people can naturally generate within their skin if they spend a lot of time outdoors in a low latitude.
However, with modern habits and work routines, few of us create these higher doses of vitamin D in our bodies throughout the year. So, we rely on our diets for most of this essential nutrient, even though few foods are naturally rich sources of vitamin D and only a few, such as milk, are supplemented with anything more than meager amounts. (continue at link)
Bread and Chocolate: No Longer D-Minimus: How do you get people to take a big dose of vitamin D? One midwestern company thinks the answer is to put the sunshine vitamin in bread—and chocolate. The firm, Natural Ovens Bakery, is responding to growing concerns about chronic, widespread vitamin D deficiency by pioneering the robust fortification of new foods.
These new products are about to be marketed as bone-building dietary supplements that look and taste like ordinary bread and chocolate.
Natural Ovens Bakery
Indeed, both products will have so much vitamin D that they will have to be marketed as dietary supplements, much as vitamin pills are today, observes Paul A. Stitt, board chairman of Natural Ovens Bakery.
Stitt justifies such heavy enrichment of his company’s products with findings from new studies, many reported last month at the Experimental Biology meeting, in San Diego. The company funded one of the studies.
Over the past few years, a scientific consensus has grown that not only do most people consume far too little vitamin D, but also that the official recommended daily intake (RDI) for this nutrient is inadequate. Driving those assessments has been research linking more and broader benefits to the vitamin, which can come from the sun, food, or supplements. The nutrient is the pivotal feedstock for a hormone that protects bones and muscle and appears to stave off various cancers, autoimmune disorders, diabetes, and gum disease. Most recently, researchers found that ample vitamin D improved the odds of people surviving lung cancer.
Concludes Stitt: When it comes to vitamin D, superfortified foods are long overdue because “society is already seriously hurting.” (continue reading at the link)
Breathe easier with Vitamin D
Vitamin D also improves lung function:
Most people associate vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin, with strong bones. But studies in the past few years have linked this essential nutrient to a bonanza of additional benefits—from fighting cancer and diabetes to strengthening muscles. Physicians in New Zealand have now linked the vitamin to yet one more apparent advantage: improved lung function.
Peter N. Black is a University of Auckland internist with a research interest in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)—a category including diseases most people know as emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Classic signs of COPD are holes in lung tissue where inflammatory enzymes have homed in to destroy diseased cells. Although COPD is common in cigarette smokers, not all smokers develop this disease.
Scientists know that enzymes called matrix metalloproteinases play a role in creating COPD’s lung damage. Since laboratory studies had indicated vitamin D could inhibit production of these enzymes, Black wondered if people who got plenty of the vitamin through sun exposure or supplements might be protected from the disease. So, he and colleague Robert Scragg decided to mine data on vitamin status and lung function for 14,000 U.S. residents—a nationally representative sample—who had participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).
In the December Chest, the researchers report that getting ample vitamin D doesn’t prevent COPD, but it does appear to help people with and without this lung disease to breathe easier and more deeply. Indeed, Black told Science News Online, “We were taken aback at how large the effect was.” The study showed that people who never smoked but who were getting little vitamin D had 35 percent worse lung function than did former smokers who were getting adequate amounts of the vitamin. Current smokers, regardless of their vitamin D intake, had worse lung function than did either of these groups. Read the rest of this entry »
Winter sun too weak to produce Vitamin D
One commenter asked, “Why not just spend more time in the sun?” to get enough Vitamin D. The answer is that the winter sun is too weak to produce enough Vitamin D. From the article below:
Season also matters. Holick has found that from the latitude of San Francisco northward—or from Buenos Aires southward—for 3 to 6 months a year, no amount of exposure will generate substantial vitamin D in even the palest skin.
The entire article is of interest:
A few minutes of sun exposure on a summer day can generate huge quantities of vitamin D in a person’s body. A cholesterol-like substance in the skin absorbs ultraviolet (UV) energy and creates vitamin D. Then, a cascade of chemical reactions turns vitamin D into a surprisingly versatile hormone—one that has long been recognized to help the body absorb calcium from the diet to build strong bones. Recent work, however, indicates that vitamin D also bolsters muscle strength, insulin action, immune health, and the body’s natural defenses against cancer.
Inhabitants of the tropics typically have plenty of vitamin D, says Robert P. Heaney of Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. However, studies are now showing that people throughout the industrial world lag far behind. Many in temperate and colder climates don’t reach the doses currently recommended to protect bone health, much less the far-higher amounts that research has been linking to additional health-promoting functions.
Some scientists are campaigning for additional vitamin-D enrichment of foods. Others advocate that people spend more time outdoors to increase vitamin D–producing sun exposure. Many hold that the boost must come largely from supplements.
What researchers who study vitamin D do agree on is that many people would benefit from more of the vitamin. At issue is only how much. Read the rest of this entry »
