I’ve just learned that Martin Denny has died:

Musician Martin Denny, the father of the influential genre of pop called “exotica,” died yesterday at home in Hawai’i Kai. He was 93.

He was born April 5, 1911 in New York City.

Although in fragile health for some time — his doctors told him in 2003 that he had only a year to live — Denny was active and performing until shortly before his death.

Denny created a hypnotic international sound that blended exotic elements — bird calls, croaking frogs, jazz rhythms, chimes and gongs. He once described it as a fusion of Asian, South Pacific, American jazz, Latin American and classical styles.

Trained in classical music, he first studied piano at age 10 and was a child prodigy of Lester Spitz and Eleanor Gorn. As a youth, he toured South America with a six-piece band and frequent visits left an impression — Latin elements infiltrated his exotic sounds.

A favorite in Waikiki in the 1950s and ’60s, Denny first played the old Shell Bar at the Kaiser Hawaiian Village Hotel, then moved to clubs such as Don the Beachcomber’s, which later became Duke Kahanamoku’s, in the International Market Place. Over the years, he performed at the Kahala Hilton, the Hawaiian Regent, Canlis’ Restaurant and the Blue Dolphin Club.

In 1959, he was named by Billboard, the music industry bible, as “most promising group of the year,” and nominated for “pianist of the year” alongside such giants as George Shearing and Ahmad Jamal. In 1990, the Hawaii Academy of Recording Arts honored Denny with a Na Hoku Hanohano Lifetime Achievement Award.

In a 2003 interview on the eve of a tribute concert at the Hawai’i Theater, Denny mused on the renewed recognition his music was getting.

“You know, I’m happy the music’s back, because I’m frankly tired of hearing the same old thing. Rap music. High-voltage rock ‘n’ roll,” he scoffed. “What will kids today remember 20 years from now? There’s hardly anything romantic or melodic. I think a whole lot of good music has been lost.”

Actually, I was amazed to learn that he was still alive—I thought he had died years ago. Denny’s work was influential in jazz and pop. You’ve heard his influences in movie and television scores from James Bond pictures to Pee Wee’s Playhouse.

We’ve got a bunch of Martin Denny records—yes, the original LP’s that we inherited from my father-in-law, Don. He was a fan and they were a distinct part of my wife’s life when she was growing up.

So download an MP3 of Denny’s work, pour yourself a mai-tai, and drink a toast to a guy who made a lot of music.

Click on the album cover to hear some of his work.

A constitutional amendment to guarantee “health care of equal high quality” to all Americans has been proposed in the House of Representatives (again):

U.S. Rep. Pete Stark, D-Fremont, on Thursday introduced a resolution to amend the U.S. Constitution to guarantee health care as a right for every American.

The resolution would amend
the Constitution to read “all persons shall enjoy the right to health care of equal high quality.”

H.J. Resolution 30 is co-sponsored by 27 other House Democrats, including Rep. Jesse Jackson
Jr., D-Ill. Jackson is also proposing a constitutional amendment on voter rights.

Other versions of the health care amendment were introduced in four previous sessions of Congress.

“We face a health care crisis where equal opportunity and basic fairness in our nation are at stake,” Stark said in a news release. “A Constitutional guarantee of health care for all will
force Congress to take action to ensure that health coverage is there for all Americans.”

Health care expenses in this country are over $1 trillion per year. Since this bill does nothing to control rising costs, would appear on the face of it to ban side-by-side public and private health care systems (as exist in some countries), and doesn’t give any hints as to where they plan to come up with the jack to pay for it, this is clearly political posturing and rampant lunacy.

I’m all for reform in the health care system but this isn’t it and IMO such idiocy isn’t at all helpful. You can pass a law that all bread is going to be changed into chocolate cake but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen. Grow up, Congressman Stark.

Submitted to the Beltway Traffic Jam.

The blogosphere is all atwitter over an interview Bradley Smith gave with CNet. Mr. Smith is, you see, on the Federal Election Commission, and had this to say about the effect of campaign finance reform on blogging:

The judge’s decision is in no way limited to ads. She says that any coordinated activity over the Internet would need to be regulated, as a minimum. The problem with coordinated activity over the Internet is that it will strike, as a minimum, Internet reporting services.

They’re exempt from regulation only because of the press exemption. But people have been arguing that the Internet doesn’t fit under the press exemption. It becomes a really complex issue that would strike deep into the heart of the Internet and the bloggers who are writing out there today.

Read this post by Michael Totten, and the comments, to get a feel for the emotions in play.

The basic problem is this: the government is beginning to claim both right and duty to limit people’s ability to speak about political candidates and issues. This was a direct and foreseen consequence of McCain-Feingold when passed: if the government regulates what you can spend money on, it also regulates “imputed money”, and that means it regulates everything. The first amendment is, and has been since this law was passed, effectively dead as a legal issue.

But there’s something everyone’s missing: the law is not definitive in the US. Neither common law, nor statute, nor any act of government or court can long stand against the one thing that supersedes them all: the consent of the governed. I – and I hope every other blogger – will ignore government proclamations limiting my ability to link to campaign sites, to require that I disclose anything about where I spend my money (beyond what is necessary for income tax reporting), and so forth. If I am on a jury trying a person for “illegal contributions” that seem to me to be free speech, I will vote to acquit regardless of the content of the law (I refuse to uphold a law I believe unconstitutional). I will not in any way cooperate with this travesty, nor will I seek to obtain some “press exemption” or accreditation that would give me rights beyond those of my fellow citizens.

If we all take this stand, the government will be unable to enforce this abrogation of the Constitution, and may learn a little humility about other abrogations in the process. If not, well, bend over and kiss Liberty goodbye.

UPDATE (4/5): Francis Porretto posted on the same topic, starting from the point that Republicans are going over the edge on expression (and he’s right) and ending at the same place I did.

I post this link to Callimachus’s post, RIP, “Tito” so that a soldier who died in Iraq can get the obituary he deserves from people who care. Go over to Callimachus’s post, read it, and remember.

Linked to The Mudville Gazette. Thanks, Greyhawk.

Today is the second anniversary of the end of one of the toughest weeks in my life. Two years ago this week our Samoyed bitch, Tally, had an emergency C-section (I was in the room for the whole procedure). There was a dead and decaying girl puppy and two live boys. One of the boys was puny and struggling, the other was strong. They were both beautiful.

We did everything we could to keep those boys alive. I went for a solid 72 hours without sleeping. First one, then another died in my arms. We never really knew why they died. Canine herpes is our best guess.

I think of those puppies often. They would have been magnificent dogs now. An act of my will caused them to come into being but I just didn’t have the power to keep them alive.

We have a very few precious pictures of them and a few feet of videotape. But I’m not ready to share those yet.

Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:

• Across the Bay continues excellent of the unfolding situation in Lebanon.
• The Abode of Amritas has a somewhat rambling post that starts off with Noam Chomsky’s linguistic theories and ends up speculating about moderate Muslims. A good bit:
  

  When Rightists hope (and pray) for ‘moderate Islam’, I think they really want a Muslim version of homeopathic Christianity. Being less devout makes them more Muslim than the fundamentalist fanatic. What would Muhammad say?

• Ammar of Amarji, a Syrian blogger blogging from Damascus, tells us that in Syria freedom remains a distant dream.
• There’s another wonderful post from Marcus Cicero over on Winds of Change. This one’s about the opportunities afforded by Lebanon’s tentative moves towards freedom:
  

  Lebanon’s growing democracy movement offers the Western left the opportunity to become relevant in the War on Terror — a war that might be more accurately described as a War on Tyranny. Tyranny endures when free people do nothing to stop it; and it prospers when they cut deals with tyrants.

  That’s just the opening. Read the whole thing.

• Too few people are linking to this Christian Science Monitor opinion piece from veteran newsman and NPR-ista Daniel Schorr. The gist: Bush may have been right. (hat tip: Bull Moose)
• Joseph Braude of Cordoba has an excellent post on how Arab newspapers covered the Iraq election.
• Coyote Blog has a good how-to (and why-to) on hosting Carnivals. My own two cents is that hosting carnivals is not particularly effective at attracting long term traffic. Like bulk mail if you get a 1% response you’re ahead of the game. But I find hosting carnivals worth doing for its own sake. And that’s the best reason to do anything, isn’t it?
• Christie Keith of Dogged Blog posts about her bad dog, Colleen.
• Don Herzog has the third installment of his critique of originalism in constitutional law on Left2Right.
• Is this the last of Protein Wisdom’s Martha Chronicles?
• Iconic Midwest reports that the last of the Jesuit priests involved in the real-life exorcism upon which William Peter Blatty’s book The Exorcist and the movie derived from it in turn was based has died.
• Is an Al Qaeda attack imminent? Check out this chilling post from The Word Unheard.

That’s the lot.

The 29^th edition of the Carnival of the Recipes, a selection of recipes from some of the best cooks in the blogosphere, is now available for your reading, cooking, and eating pleasure. This time around it’s being hosted by Rocket Jones.

Steph (my wife) made a good point (different from both this point and the more common tirades against using foreign courts as a basis for US law) about the recent Supreme Court decision to disallow execution of people who committed their crimes before they were legal adults, on the grounds that they are not mature enough to know right from wrong until they reach the age of maturity: so how come they are mature enough to decide not only to have sex, but also to abort the baby without the consent of their parents, then?

This is what I made for dinner last night. I took my inspiration from the Greek lamb and eggplant casserole moussaka so I’m calling this “Open-faced Moussaka”. It’s still a work in progress so I’m certainly opened to suggestions on improving the recipe.

Open-faced Moussaka

Serves 4

1 lb. ground beef, lamb, or a combination
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled, crushed, and minced (optional)
1 12 oz. can chopped tomatoes
½ tsp. ground allspice
½ tsp. ground oregano
1 bay leaf
Pinch cayenne (optional)
Salt & pepper to taste
1 large eggplant, peeled and sliced into 1 inch slices
2 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced into ¼ inch slices

1. Pre-heat the oven to 400°F.
2. Saute the onion in the olive oil over medium heat in a large saucepan until the onions are transparent.
3. Add the optional garlic and saute for an additional 30 seconds.
4. Add the ground beef and/or lamb and saute until the meat is browned.
5. Add the allspice, oregano, bay leaf, salt, and pepper. Stir thoroughly and saute for 1 minute.
6. Add the chopped tomatoes, reduce the heat, and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes. Add a little water, white wine, or stock if necessary to keep from burning.
7. Remove the lid and reduce for an additional 10 minutes. It shouldn’t get too dry. Once you’ve got it reduced to a nice consistency, cover the pot and put the heat on low.
8. While the sauce is cooking, line a roasting pan with foil, coat it with a little olive oil, and put the eggplant and potatoes into the pan (in a single layer if possible).
9. Roast the vegetables for 30 minutes until fully cooked, turning once at the half-way point.
10. To serve put a layer of eggplant and a layer of potatoes on each plate. Top with the meat sauce. If you really want to gild the lily, you can put a dollop of Bechamel Sauce and a little chopped parsley on top of each serving.