Christiern

Bechet's stature as a musician and importance to the music obviously eluded the AP writer.

Tuesday, December 6, 2005; A08 Study Concludes Beethoven Died From Lead Poisoning By RICK WEISS Washington Post Staff Writer The source of the composer's exposure to lead remains a mystery. By focusing the most powerful X-ray beam in the Western Hemisphere on six of Ludwig van Beethoven's hairs and a few pieces of his skull, scientists have gathered what they say is conclusive evidence that the famous composer died of lead poisoning. The work, done at the Energy Department's Argonne National Laboratory outside of Chicago, confirms earlier hints that lead may have caused Beethoven's decades of poor health, which culminated in a long and painful death in 1827 at age 56. "There's no doubt in my mind . . . he was a victim of lead poisoning," said Bill Walsh, an expert in forensic analysis and chief scientist at Pfeiffer Treatment Center in Warrenville, Ill., who led the study with energy department researcher Ken Kemner. Still a mystery, however, is the source of Beethoven's lead exposure, which evidence now suggests occurred over many years. Among the possibilities are his liberal indulgence in wine consumed from lead cups or perhaps a lifetime of medical treatments, which in the 19th century were often laced with heavy metals. One metal that was clearly absent was mercury, Walsh said -- a detail that weakens the hypothesis floated by some that Beethoven had syphilis, which in those days was commonly treated with mercury. "We found zero evidence of that," Walsh said, "so it was nice to exonerate him of that scurrilous possibility." Details of the findings are to be announced today in Argonne, Ill. The work was done at Argonne's Advanced Photon Source, a $467 million high-tech facility that sends subatomic particles sailing around a circular half-mile-long track at velocities up to 99.999 percent of the speed of light. When electrons are whipped around that tubular tunnel they emit X-rays that are 100 times as bright as the surface of the sun. Scientists can divert those rays toward tiny samples in need of analysis. As those X-rays hit atoms in a sample, they knock other electrons out of place, causing a brief release of energy whose signature is specific to the types of atoms present. Many of the atoms in Beethoven's body were lead atoms, it turns out. The hair samples clocked in at 60 parts per million, or about 100 times higher than normal. The bone samples were also extremely high in lead, though technical problems kept the team from getting a precise number for those samples. The hair samples were from an authenticated lock of Beethoven's hair purchased by a collector from Sotheby's several years ago. Preliminary studies completed on two of those hairs in 2000 suggested high levels of lead but were not definitive and left open the question of whether they were the result of short-term or chronic exposure. Moreover, the method used at that time destroyed the hairs -- an approach the owner was not willing to repeat. Argonne's X-ray technique is nondestructive. Moreover, it offered Kemner a chance to further his research, which aims to develop ways to clean up heavy-metal contamination. A major goal is to develop soil-dwelling bacteria that can consume dangerous elements and render them relatively harmless. The hairs were the smallest things Kemner had ever analyzed with the X-ray beam. In part because of that success, he has since moved on to measuring heavy-metal levels in individual bacteria, which are 1/100th the diameter of those hairs. The skull relics are the property of a California businessman who inherited them through various relatives from his great-great uncle, who was a doctor in Austria. The lead analysis has been complete for more than a year, Walsh and Kemner said in a telephone interview yesterday. But the two were sworn to secrecy until the businessman received the test results comparing the bone DNA to that in the hairs. Those tests, recently completed, came back somewhat short of definitive, but the provenance of the bones is "absolutely clear," said William Meredith, a Beethoven scholar and director of the Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State University in California. Beethoven developed serious health problems in his early twenties, which grew worse over time and reflected many of the symptoms of lead poisoning, including severe stomach problems. The composer was deaf by his late twenties, a problem of questionable relevance because deafness has only rarely been associated with lead poisoning. But with his many health problems, it is not hard to imagine that medicine itself may have done him in, Meredith said. "He was diagnosed with lots of things, and he was prescribed lots of different treatments." If nothing else, he said, some medicines may have leached the metal from leaded glass medicine bottles. Although the new work leaves the question of the lead's source frustratingly unanswered, it is an important contribution, Meredith said. "There have been many doctors who have theorized about what ailed Beethoven," he said. "But this is actual science versus interpreting someone else's description of symptoms."

Yes, there is amateurish input, but I think that is inevitable when one considers the nature of the beast. When I found myself in there, I made a few corrections, but my bio was remarkably accurate. I have since edited and added to listings in areas where I have solid information, for example the bios of Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Lonnie Johnson, et al. I frequently return to those for the purpose of adding more info (and checking for errors). The problem is--as the article points out--that anyone can go in there and make changes without registering. I'm glad to hear that they are addressing that problem. I think the set-up is very well thought out, allowing one to see changes and compare them to earlier input.

REWRITING HISTORY December 4, 2005 Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE ACCORDING to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, John Seigenthaler Sr. is 78 years old and the former editor of The Tennessean in Nashville. But is that information, or anything else in Mr. Seigenthaler's biography, true? The question arises because Mr. Seigenthaler recently read about himself on Wikipedia and was shocked to learn that he "was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John and his brother Bobby." "Nothing was ever proven," the biography added. Mr. Seigenthaler discovered that the false information had been on the site for several months and that an unknown number of people had read it, and possibly posted it on or linked it to other sites. If any assassination was going on, Mr. Seigenthaler (who is 78 and did edit The Tennessean) wrote last week in an op-ed article in USA Today, it was of his character. The case triggered extensive debate on the Internet over the value and reliability of Wikipedia, and more broadly, over the nature of online information. Wikipedia is a kind of collective brain, a repository of knowledge, maintained on servers in various countries and built by anyone in the world with a computer and an Internet connection who wants to share knowledge about a subject. Literally hundreds of thousands of people have written Wikipedia entries. Mistakes are expected to be caught and corrected by later contributors and users. The whole nonprofit enterprise began in January 2001, the brainchild of Jimmy Wales, 39, a former futures and options trader who lives in St. Petersburg, Fla. He said he had hoped to advance the promise of the Internet as a place for sharing information. It has, by most measures, been a spectacular success. Wikipedia is now the biggest encyclopedia in the history of the world. As of Friday, it was receiving 2.5 billion page views a month, and offering at least 1,000 articles in 82 languages. The number of articles, already close to two million, is growing by 7 percent a month. And Mr. Wales said that traffic doubles every four months. Still, the question of Wikipedia, as of so much of what you find online, is: Can you trust it? And beyond reliability, there is the question of accountability. Mr. Seigenthaler, after discovering that he had been defamed, found that his "biographer" was anonymous. He learned that the writer was a customer of BellSouth Internet, but that federal privacy laws shield the identity of Internet customers, even if they disseminate defamatory material. And the laws protect online corporations from libel suits. He could have filed a lawsuit against BellSouth, he wrote, but only a subpoena would compel BellSouth to reveal the name. In the end, Mr. Seigenthaler decided against going to court, instead alerting the public, through his article, "that Wikipedia is a flawed and irresponsible research tool." Mr. Wales said in an interview that he was troubled by the Seigenthaler episode, and noted that Wikipedia was essentially in the same boat. "We have constant problems where we have people who are trying to repeatedly abuse our sites," he said. Still, he said, he was trying to make Wikipedia less vulnerable to tampering. He said he was starting a review mechanism by which readers and experts could rate the value of various articles. The reviews, which he said he expected to start in January, would show the site's strengths and weaknesses and perhaps reveal patterns to help them address the problems. In addition, he said, Wikipedia may start blocking unregistered users from creating new pages, though they would still be able to edit them. The real problem, he said, was the volume of new material coming in; it is so overwhelming that screeners cannot keep up with it. All of this struck close to home for librarians and researchers. On an electronic mailing list for them, J. Stephen Bolhafner, a news researcher at The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, wrote, "The best defense of the Wikipedia, frankly, is to point out how much bad information is available from supposedly reliable sources." Jessica Baumgart, a news researcher at Harvard University, wrote that there were librarians voluntarily working behind the scenes to check information on Wikipedia. "But, honestly," she added, "in some ways, we're just as fallible as everyone else in some areas because our own knowledge is limited and we can't possibly fact-check everything." In an interview, she said that her rule of thumb was to double-check everything and to consider Wikipedia as only one source. "Instead of figuring out how to 'fix' Wikipedia - something that cannot be done to our satisfaction," wrote Derek Willis, a research database manager at The Washington Post, who was speaking for himself and not The Post, "we should focus our energies on educating the Wikipedia users among our colleagues." Some cyberexperts said Wikipedia already had a good system of checks and balances. Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Stanford and an expert in the laws of cyberspace, said that contrary to popular belief, true defamation was easily pursued through the courts because almost everything on the Internet was traceable and subpoenas were not that hard to obtain. (For real anonymity, he advised, use a pay phone.) "People will be defamed," he said. "But that's the way free speech is. Think about the gossip world. It spreads. There's no way to correct it, period. Wikipedia is not immune from that kind of maliciousness, but it is, relative to other features of life, more easily corrected." Indeed, Esther Dyson, editor of Release 1.0 and a longtime Internet analyst, said Wikipedia may, in that sense, be better than real life. "The Internet has done a lot more for truth by making things easier to discuss," she said. "Transparency and sunlight are better than a single point of view that can't be questioned." For Mr. Seigenthaler, whose biography on Wikipedia has since been corrected, the lesson is simple: "We live in a universe of new media with phenomenal opportunities for worldwide communications and research, but populated by volunteer vandals with poison-pen intellects."

Scott also wrote "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother." He was a prolific composer whose work touched a lot of bases/ He also started an autobiography--I don't know if he went much beyond the MS that he sent me shortly before his death, but it is very interesting. Bobby Scott was also one of Quincy Jones's "victims," that is to say, he belonged to an esteemed group of composer/arrangers who were ripped off (intellectually) by Q. I have several tapes of his original music, none of which was ever released--as far as I know.

Dan, I hope you recovered some of this stuff...

Would that be Bush Shit? Sorry Dan, couldn't resist!!!

Somewhere, I have A. B. Spellman singing "Blue Moon"--it was a dare.

And here I thought you had at last opened you eyes and reformed!

He's busy inventing new Miles stories for his next boo: "Me, Me, Me, and Miles" Sorry, return to subject...

Good point!

Very strange, Allen. What are you creating--an audio collage? If I knew more, I could probably dig some usable stuff out of my catch-all closet.

Indeed Chris

EDITORIAL OBSERVER November 29, 2005 Goodbye to Pat Morita, Best Supporting Asian By LAWRENCE DOWNES Pat Morita, the Japanese-American actor, died on Thanksgiving Day in Las Vegas. He was 73. News reports over the weekend were not specific about the cause of death or funeral details. Also not clear was what Hollywood would do now that Mr. Morita is gone. The movie and TV industry has never had many roles for Asian-American men, and it seemed for a while that they all went to Mr. Morita. He made his debut as "Oriental No. 2" in "Thoroughly Modern Millie" in 1967 and never stopped working. He hit two peaks - as Arnold the diner owner on TV's "Happy Days" and the wise old Mr. Miyagi in the "Karate Kid" movies - and spent the rest of nearly 40 years roaming an endless forest of bit parts. He was Mahi Mahi, the pidgin-talking cabby in "Honeymoon in Vegas," Lamont Sanford's friend Ah Chew in "Sanford and Son," Brian the waiter in "Spy Hard," Chin Li the Chinese herbalist in "The Karate Dog." Whenever a script called for a little Asian guy to drive a taxi, serve drinks or utter wise aphorisms in amusingly broken English, you could count on Mr. Morita to be there. Those who knew Mr. Morita say he was a man of uncommon decency and good humor. He fulfilled the actor's prime directive, to keep busy. But it's distressing to think that the life's work of one of the best-known, hardest-working Asian-American actors is mostly a loose collection of servile supporting roles. I know nothing about Mr. Morita's ambitions; if he had a longing to interpret Eugene O'Neill on Broadway, I have not heard of it. But actors generally have to work within the range of what's available. And with Asian-Americans, particularly men, what's available generally stinks. Mr. Morita was one of the last survivors of a generation of Asian-American actors who toiled within a system that was interested only in the stock Asian. Harold Sakata played Oddjob in "Goldfinger" and was typecast as a mute brute forever after. Philip Ahn played houseboys and villains for decade upon decade. Some actors - well, a couple - broke out, like George Takei, Mr. Sulu in "Star Trek," and Jack Soo on "Barney Miller." B. D. Wong's role on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" is a major improvement, but it will be a long, long time before we erase the memory of the bucktoothed, jabbering Mickey Rooney in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," or Sidney Toler as Charlie Chan. Watch Rob Schneider play Ula, a leering Hawaiian in the Adam Sandler movie "50 First Dates," with a pidgin accent by way of Cheech and Chong, and you get the sense that Hollywood still believes that there is no ethnic caricature a white actor can't improve upon. Mr. Morita, who was born Noriyuki Morita to migrant farmworkers in California and was sent to an internment camp in Arizona during World War II, never gave the sense of bearing a racial burden. He had a comic's perspective and sense of humor, and would play his parts - Chinese, Japanese, Korean, whatever - with relaxed professionalism. As a standup comedian in the 1960's, he called himself "the Hip Nip," and he once told a group of Pearl Harbor survivors in a Waikiki nightclub that he was sorry about messing up their harbor. Mr. Miyagi remains everybody's idea of a positive character. Who can forget "wax on, wax off," his wise counsel linking car care to karate? But still, it bother me Miyagi-san so wise, but find so hard use articles, pronouns when talk. Mr. Morita's legacy may soon take a posthumous turn for the better. He has a role in an unreleased movie, "Only the Brave," about Japanese-American soldiers of the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team, one of the most decorated units in World War II. He plays a Buddhist priest who is imprisoned in Hawaii after Pearl Harbor. Lane Nishikawa, who wrote, directed, produced and acted in the film, which is now making the rounds of festivals in search of a distributor, said it told its story from the Asian-American point of view - an unusual perspective, by past or current standards. With its wide pool of Asian-American talent, including Mr. Morita, Tamlyn Tomita and Jason Scott Lee, the film promises to be at least different from the other movie about the 442nd. That one -"Go for Broke!" - was made in 1951 and starred Van Johnson, with a large, and utterly forgotten, supporting cast.

JSngry:"No offense to either of those two Firebrands of Femdom [Rachel and Maren], but I suggest that we bring Rainy Day in on this, tell her the iPods are only being offered in white and let her take it from there. That oughta teach Little Lisa a thing or two!" That'll do it, for sure!

That's odd. Perhaps it depends on one's Mac and/or OS.

I hope this thread is eliminated before any of our members fall for this scam. Believe me, you will be inundated with all kinds of cyber crap if you dont' ignore this bit of deception.

Since mine is silver, I guess it's the older model, but it works beautifully. I use it for transferring audio from my cassette tape deck to my HD or mini-disc. It comes with very useful software and, IMO, is well worth the $35 price. I don't know what a "dedicated" USB port is since none of my USB ports can be used for anything else! I have plugged my iMic into the back of my monitor and a hub, both with excellent results.

Last seen in the arms of a former Bulgarian Queen (the royal kind), Michael, I can assure everybody, is alive and well.

I forgot that I have a bunch of these--mostly virgin--purchased on a trip to Tokyo 21 years ago.

I didn't grow up with this holiday, it's genesis may be a fable, but it makes sense...

In fact, for more than a year, I have spent several hours each day going over (slave) head tax records kept for the King of Denmark, translating them and entering the data into a database for the Virgin Islands Society Historical Association. I am dealing with St. Croix (Christiansted and Frederiksted), going house by house through annual registries (in old Danish/Gothic handwriting). I started with 1772 and have now reached 1789, so I have developed an eerie familiarity with the population, both black and white (many storms, many widows), which was remarkably integrated. Other than church organists, I haven't come across too many musicians, but that folk song probably was known by all. Apropos churches, they had plenty of them: Roman Catholic, Dutch, Danish, Moravian Brothers, Presbyterian, English, and synagogues. Don't want to take this thread off track, but I hope you consider the relativity valid. BTW, Barak, you need to post more often.

Simple answer, Barak, the Virgin Islands were owned by Denmark until WWI, when they were sold for a song (as it were) to the U.S. To this day, the streets of St, Thomas and St. Croix remain named after Copenhagen streets.

Mikell's was my neighborhood hangout--a great place that has become a drab coffee shop.--CA Gone to Vermont November 21, 2005 Mike Mikell, 80, Owner of an Influential R&B and Jazz Club, Dies By JON PARELES Mike Mikell, whose Upper West Side club, Mikell's, was a vital part of New York City rhythm-and-blues and jazz scenes for two decades, died on Friday in Kingston, N.Y. He was 80 and lived in Woodstock, N.Y. The cause was cancer and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known and Lou Gehrig's disease, his wife, Pat, said. Mikell's opened in 1969 at the corner of 97th Street and Columbus Avenue, and became both a literary and musical magnet, which it remained until it closed, in 1991. At a tribute to the club last year, Paul Shaffer, the bandleader for CBS's "Late Show With David Letterman," called Mikell's "soul heaven." Harold Craig Mikell, who was known as Mike, was born in Quincy, Fla., and grew up in Hartford. As a young man, he earned a living picking tobacco. He served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and returned to Hartford to work in restaurants as a chef and manager. But he would regularly visit New York and the jazz clubs that were thriving on 52nd Street, and he eventually moved to the city. He was the manager of Terry's Pub on the Upper West Side when the owner decided to give up the lease, and Mr. Mikell took it over with the help of a Small Business Administration loan; he renamed it Mikell's. In 1971 he married Patricia Nuccitelli, who survives him, along with a son, Zachary Mikell, of Hartford and two daughters, Deborah Glover of Georgia and Monique Mikell of Woodstock. With the writer James Baldwin's brother David working at the club as a bartender, Mikell's drew Baldwin and other authors as regulars, including Tony Morrison, Amiri Baraka and Maya Angelou. Top studio musicians came to unwind there with late-night jam sessions, and around them a 1970's New York City style coalesced that mixed blues, gospel and soul roots with urban sophistication. It was a style that would permeate albums by Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan and many others, and would also define the sound of late-night television bands on "Saturday Night Live" and Mr. Letterman's shows. An instrumental group of studio musicians, called Stuff, which formed in 1974, played at Mikell's three nights a week until 1980, and singers like Stevie Wonder and Joe Cocker would show up to sing with them. A teenage Whitney Houston made her solo debut at Mikell's after performing regularly there with her mother, the gospel singer Cissy Houston. One night, Cissy Houston told her daughter she was too ill to perform and Whitney would have to sing a set herself; it was a ploy to give Whitney her start. Clive Davis of Arista Records later discovered Whitney Houston during a Mikell's engagement. The club remained an Upper West Side landmark through the 1980's, presenting mainstream jazz groups, pop-soul singers and Latin jazz. Ms. Mikell said that the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis sat in with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers there one night and was offered a spot in the group, a turning point in his career. In 1991, Mr. Mikell took on outside investors to get a longer lease for the club, and problems with those investors led to bankruptcy and the club's closing. In the early 1990's, Mr. Mikell and his wife moved to Woodstock. A 2004 tribute concert at Symphony Space reunited many of the club's performers and brought a proclamation from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg that praised Mr. Mikell for "providing a stage for the world's most talented and ingenious poets, musicians and artists."

Looks great, Jim--please don't revert to the pink!