July 27th — let’s make it a holiday

Today is the birthday

… of television producer Norman Lear. He’s 87. Lear brought a revolution to TV when he introduced All in the Family in 1971. Sanford and Son, Good Times, The Jeffersons, Maude, One Day At a Time and other shows were also his.

… of Jerry Van Dyke, 78.

Left at Albuquerque… of Bugs Bunny, who made his first featured appearance in a cartoon released on this date in 1940, A Wild Hare. Bugs was modeled on Groucho Marx with a carrot instead of a cigar — and with a Brooklyn accent.

… of Bobbie Gentry; she is 65. No word yet on what it was she and Billy Joe threw off the Tallahatchee bridge.

… of Peggy Fleming, 61 today. Miss Fleming won her gold medal for figure skating at the 1968 Winter Olympics.

… of Maya Rudolph, 37.

… of A-Rod. Alex Rodriguez is 34. He’s really younger because “A-Rod years” don’t have Octobers.

Baseball manager Leo Durocher was born 104 years ago today. His Hall-of-Fame bio reads:

Leo Durocher was a good-field, no-hit shortstop for 17 years, but gained his greatest notoriety for accomplishments after his playing days. His combative and swashbuckling style, brilliant baseball mind, uncanny memory and fiery disposition became “The Lip’s” trademarks as a colorful and controversial manager for 24 seasons with the Dodgers, Giants, Cubs and Astros. He compiled 2,009 wins in 3,740 games, captured three pennants and won the World Series in 1954. He was named Manager of the Year three times by the “Sporting News.”

The truce ending the Korean War was signed on this date in 1953. Read the report from The New York Times.

The first U.S. government agency, the Department of Foreign Affairs (which became the Department of State), was established on this date in 1789. State was my employer for 7½ years.

You’ve got to quit drinking diet soda!

I’ll get off the food kick for now, but please take this last post on the matter to heart (literally, I’m afraid).

From Mark Hyman, M.D.’s Ultrametabolism (see two previous posts):

Steer Clear of Artificial Sweeteners Aspartame (NutraSweet), neotame, acesulfame potassium, saccharin, sucralose, and dihydrochalcones … a significant component of our diets. …

Questions remain about their safety, including both short- and long-term health risks. One of the side effects we know these sweeteners have is stimulation of hunger through the cephalic, or brain-phase, insulin response. …

A number of studies have shown that aspartame ingestion may actually lead to increased food and calorie intake. This is likely because artificial sweeteners make your body produce insulin by making it think sugar is on the way. As a consequence, your body tells you to eat more sugar to balance your insulin level. Artificial sweeteners do nothing to help in this regard. They do not act as sugar and do not balance your insulin. As a result you end up with excess insulin in your body, so you end up eating more food to take care of this problem. … What’s worse, it can lead to insulin resistance, which has many serious health consequences. [Emphasis mine]

But the problems with artificial sweeteners, don’t stop there. Animal and human studies show that aspartame may disrupt brain chemistry and induce neurophysiological changes (altered brain chemistry …) that might increase seizure risk, depression, and headaches. …

… While 100 percent of the industry-funded studies conclude aspartame is safe, 92 percent of independently funded research identified aspartame as a potential cause of adverse effects.

Insulin resistance … has also been associated with every major disease related to aging, including cancer, dementia, heart disease, and, of course, diabetes. [Emphasis mine]

And, of course, you shouldn’t be drinking soda with high-fructose corn syrup either. Soft drinks should be a treat (like when the older among us were kids). They should not be a daily regimen. Please heed. The beverage industry is the tobacco industry of our time and the threat to your health is every bit as significant.

The last of the idle food thoughts for now (except one)

Ideas, recommendations and quotes from Mark Hyman, M.D.’s Ultrametabolism. (See previous post also.)

The following are examples of real foods (which are the only kind you should eat):

  • Whole fruit, not canned fruit or fruit juices
  • Whole vegetables, not canned vegetables
  • Wild fish, not farmed fish
  • Whole grains, not processed wheat
  • Grass-fed beef, not feedlot beef
  • Nuts, seeds, and legumes or beans, not fried or salted

1. Eat more fiber
2. Avoid sugar
3. Stay away from supersugar, high-fructose corn syrup

Eat breakfast. A real breakfast.
Those who skip breakfast eat more, have higher cholesterol and are more insulin resistant.

Don’t eat just before bed.

“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and supper like a pauper.”

Even more idle food thoughts

Having read Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto Friday, today I began Mark Hyman, M.D.’s Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss.

Hyman says pretty much the same things Pollan does, though Hyman is more technical and prescriptive, fitting a physician (Pollan is a journalist).

“There is no evidence that fat is bad for you.”

There are however, good fats, bad fats and ugly fats. Good fats (like the best, omega-3) come from wild and natural foods. Bad fats come from processed vegetable oils and industrial meats. Ugly fats (the trans fats) are man-made and deadly.

“When you want to eat a certain food, ask yourself if it is a food your ancestors might have eaten. If so, take a bite; if not, put it back!”

“If it has a label, don’t eat it.”

Hyman tells about the Pima Indians (of southern Arizona) who 100 years ago were thin and fit, with a metabolism totally suited to their desert environment. Seventy to eighty percent of their diet was carbohydrates. Yet once the Western diet was introduced with its high glycemic carbs (like the ones we eat), the Pima became in one generation the least healthy and most obese people on earth (second only to Samoans). 80% of the Pima people have adult onset, or type-2 diabetes, by age 30. Their life expectancy is 46.

New Mexico skies

Click image for larger version
Click image for larger version

iPhone photo taken on the evening of Independence Day from the patio of the Tamaya Resort on the Santa Ana Pueblo. Sandia Mountains in distance, Rio Grande bosque in foreground.

Click image for larger version
Click image for larger version

iPhone photo taken during the at bat of the Iowa Cubs leadoff batter at last night’s game. The hitter, Sam Fuld, tripled and the Cubs went on to win 11-2. Even so, tenth row seat: $13. Beer (imported from Colorado): $7.75. Parking: Free. Another New Mexico evening outside: Priceless.

July 26th is the birthday

… of Bob Lilly. He’s 70. My god the years do go by.

… of Mick Jagger. He’s still can’t get no satisfaction, even at 66. And time isn’t really on his side so much any more, is it?

… of Oscar-winner Helen Mirren, 64.

… of Dorothy Hamill, 53. Another that makes one wonder where the years have gone. Her gold medal was at the 1976 Winter Olympics.

… of two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey. He’s 50. Spacey won for best supporting actor for The Usual Suspects and leading actor for American Beauty.

… of Sandra Bullock. From Arlington, Virginia, she’s 45. Ms. Bullock has been an Academy Award presenter.

Two great comediennes were born on this date — Gracie Allen in 1895, 1897 or 1902 (her birth certificate was destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake) and Vivian Vance in 1909.

Because George Burns lived to be 100 and managed to stay in show business nearly until then (playing God in one film, no less), Gracie, who died in 1964 has been largely forgotten. She was the true comedic talent of the two, however. On their radio and television programs George was the straight man, Gracie had the good lines.

At the end of their show, George Burns would say, “Say goodnight, Gracie.” Urban myth has it that she said, “Good night Gracie,” but, in fact, she always just said “Goodnight.”

“Were you the oldest one in the family?” “No, no, my mother and father were much older.” — Gracie Allen

“They laughed at Joan of Arc, but she went right ahead and built it.” — Gracie Allen

“When I was born I was so surprised I didn’t talk for a year and a half.” — Gracie Allen

Vivian Vance was two years older than her long-time co-star Lucille Ball, though many thought Vance to be much older because her I Love Lucy character Ethel Mertz was married to Fred, played by actor William Frawley, who was 18 years older. Miss Vance died of cancer in 1979.

Actor Jason Robards was born on this date in 1922. Robards won two best supporting actor Oscars and was nominated a third time. NewMexiKen liked Robards in A Thousand Clowns, but Martin Balsam got the acting Oscar for that fine film.

Humorist Jean Shepherd was born on this date in 1925. As they so often do, The Writer’s Almanac had a nice, succinct essay (from 2004):

It’s the birthday of humorist Jean Shepherd, born in Chicago, Illinois (1925). He’s remembered for the autobiographical stories he told on the radio about a boy named Ralph Parker growing up in Hohman, Indiana. One of his stories was made into the movie A Christmas Story (1983), which he narrated. It’s about a boy who wants a BB gun for Christmas, even though every adult in his life says that he’ll shoot his eye out. The stories Shepherd told on-air were always improvised, but he later wrote them down and published them in collections like In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash (1967) and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters (1972).

Shepherd said, “Some men are Baptists, others Catholics. My father was an Oldsmobile man.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856), Carl Jung (1875) and Aldous Huxley (1894) were born on July 26th.

The sinking of the Andrea Doria

Fifty-three years ago today, on July 25, 1956, two large passenger liners off Massachusetts were steaming toward each other through the night at a combined speed of 40 knots. In spite of ample room to maneuver, in spite of the radar that let them spot each other from a distance, and in spite of clear rules intended to avoid collisions, the Stockholm crashed into the Andrea Doria and ripped the luxurious ship open amidships. It was to be the last great drama of the age of transatlantic passenger liners.

Read more from American Heritage.

A 14-year-old girl aboard the Andrea Doria survived in the wreckage on the Stockholm.

Big man

Lincoln at Antietam

NewMexiKen ran across this photo of Lincoln at Antietam taken just days after the battle in 1862. Look at those arms. If Lincoln lived in the present century, he wouldn’t have been president, but he would have been a great rebounder.

That’s Allan Pinkerton and General John McClernand with Lincoln, October 3, 1862.

Click photo for larger version.

Idle food thoughts

More from Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, which I read yesterday afternoon.

“The human animal is adapted to, and apparently can thrive on, an extraordinary range of different diets, but the Western diet, however you define it, does not seem to be one of them.”

“[T]oday corn contributes 554 calories a day to America’s per capita food supply and soy another 257.”

Omega-3. Get some. It’s essential and we don’t get enough. Get it from real food (not supplements). It comes from leafy plants (fish get it from algae).

“Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”

“Don’t eat anything incapable of rotting.” (Twinkies, this means you.)

“Avoid food products containing ingredients that are A) unfamiliar, B) unpronounceable, C) more than five in number, or that include D) high-fructose corn syrup.”

“Avoid products that make health claims.”

“Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.”

Buy local. “Shake the hand that feeds you.”

“Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does.”

Hey, wait a minute

An individual who I’ve known for some years — and whose opinions I regard highly — posted something today that troubled me. He said he “just wants to point out that Cambridge cops have a seriously bad reputation when it comes to race.”

That statement may very well be true. The problem with it is, the “Cambridge cops” did not go to Professor Gates’s home. Sgt. James Crowley did.

Do we assume then that if the “Cambridge cops” have a race problem, that Sgt. Crowley has a race problem?

That sounds like profiling to me.

Idle food thought

Chocolate cake.

Top American word association: “Guilt”.

Top French word association: “Celebration.”

Perception vs. Reality

Scot Key writes about how this boy —

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – An Albuquerque woman faces a criminal charge after her 13-year-old son was dropped off at a hospital unconscious and extremely drunk.

Crystal Deleon, 31, faces a charge of child abuse resulting in great bodily harm.

The boy told police he was drinking with his mom and others on Wednesday.

— and those like him undermine the reality of standardized testing and No Child Left Behind.

And Annette links to an article that says that the war on drugs in Mexico doesn’t exist. It’s really a war for drugs.

I couldn’t live like that

Eight times so far this month the LOW temperature in Phoenix has been 90º or higher.

On the 17th the official high was 114º and the low was 93º. The AVERAGE temperature in Phoenix that day was 104º. In the shade.

Albuquerque’s official high Sunday was 100º. It’s only the second day since 2003 that we’ve hit 100 officially.