David Avila's article in The Sweet Science names the following highlights for 2007.
Fighter of the Year - Elena "Baby Doll" Reid
Best Fight of the Year - Florida’s Chevelle Hallback (26-5-1) and Kentucky’s Terri Blair (9-13-2) - eight-round lightweight bout.
Knockout of the Year - Undefeated featherweight Jeannine Garside (7-0-1) of Canada dropped DBrooke Dierdorff (4-1)
Contender of the Year - Moreno Valley’s Kaliesha “Wild Wild” West, 19, bantamweight
Prospect of the Year - Elizabeth Quevedo, being compared to Lucia Rijker, won four US National titles as an amateur, shooting for a world title
2007
In general, the year saw the spotlight wane on the sport.
"Female professional boxing took a dip this year with fewer bouts between champions and contenders than in the past several years," Avila writes.
Although Kenya did a pretty good job of keeping its female boxing scene on the radar, things weren't too great there, either. "For the first time in two years, the general interest on female's boxing, which flocked countless enthusiasts to the game, degenerated considerably with fans shying away from the bogus match-ups." (East African Standard)
2007 female boxing retrospective
reorganizing
I've re-organized my post categories (in the right margin) in an effort to simplify and streamline them. Please check it out - feedback welcome.
Heads up because the last time I did this, the RSS feed went haywire - old posts showed up as new.
polycarbonate water bottles pulled
This AP story by Ben Dobbin explains (in the very end of the industry-defensive piece) by sellers are pulling the Nalgene polycarbonate bottles because of a chemical that mimics a hormone. Which one, doesn't say. Still looks like glass or a ceramic is probably the safest vessel, altho I'm still recycling plastic bottles myself...
from the article
...Critics point to an influx of animal studies linking low doses to a wide variety of ailments — from breast and prostate cancer, obesity and hyperactivity, to miscarriages and other reproductive failures.
An expert panel of 38 academic and government researchers who attended a National Institutes of Health-sponsored conference said in a study in August that "the potential for BPA to impact human health is a concern, and more research is clearly needed."
Fred vom Saal, a professor of biology at the University of Missouri and one of the study's chief authors said the panel reviewed 700 published articles on BPA, practically all published in the last 10 years. Yet U.S. health and environmental regulators "are pretending they're still in the dark," he said.
gym ideas: handles on chains
For the gym that has everything, and for the space that has nothing but could become training space for a tool that gives great bang for the buck and takes up modest space, here are handles suspended from chains, staple equipment for me.
My full article is posted at Straight to the Bar.
Handles hung on chains
These are more versatile than their more glamorous cousin - the rings - because they can easily be adjusted into every possibly degree of proximity to one another, and their level of suspension from the floor can easily be manipulated as well. They’re not just fixed into a ceiling beam for time immemorial. You can move them as often as you like, even during a work out.
spontaneous group emergence pay-forward
Here's a mind-blowingly good holiday story. Starbucks detractors are always down on them for trying to become community mini-hubs, and I have mixed thoughts about the coffee giant, but you have to admit, if something like this happened, there's something good going on.
1,000+ Starbucks Patrons Treat Next In Line
MARYSVILLE, Wash. (AP) - One woman's kindness to a fellow Starbucks customer has resulted in more than a thousand others spreading holiday generosity in Marysville, Washington.
The regular customer paid for the person in line behind her a few times before, according to The Everett Herald. When she did the same thing Wednesday, though, that good deed set off a chain of 1,013 customers who each paid for the next person's drink.
Many even tacked on an extra ten or twenty dollars, and shift manager Sarah Nix says Starbucks Corporation will donate to that money to the company's holiday toy drive.
A store employee says the seemingly spontaneous pay-it-forward run ended at 6:20 a.m. today.
The name of the iced-tea drinker who started it remains unknown.
fallacies of counting calories burned
Excellent editorial with cited sources on the wilderness of "counting calories burned while exercising". Good night, this whole idea is as fraught with variables and misconceptions as those charts basing ideal bodyweight on height and age, or ... phrenology.
"... it can be all but impossible to accurately estimate of the number of calories you burn."
Gina Kolata puts things into perspective so well in her NY Times piece Putting very little weight in calorie-counting methods that I had to post about it so I can pull it up readily.
new reviews up
I've posted three new reviews at The Mighty Fit Review. They're all thumbs up.
The book Lift with your Head: The Training and Movement Philosophies of the Physical Subculture, by Chip Conrad
No Sweat, 100% union-made apparel
Harbinger leather wrist wrap weightlifting gloves, by a big company that doesn't need my help
storm washes up sea critters
Here in the PNW, we've been focused on the havoc that the storms caused us terrestrials on the surface, but the big storm last week really shook up the underwater world, too. It washed up a lot of life on the Pacific shore that belongs on the ocean floor.
More "ghost forests" appeared on the beaches, there are odd finds on the central coast, and a ten-mile stretch up north is covered in a massive debris field.
There was a dead but lifelike umbrella or butterfly crab,
a giant jellyfish,
numerous sea stars and egg casings, ascidians, various types of sponge, bryozoans, moon snail shells, hermit crabs, cockle clams, tubeworms, Dungeness crabs and black skate egg casings, according to the Seaside Aquarium.
nut bars
Sooo good! Thank you - interesting, radical guy blogger Ran Prieur - for sharing this recipe/guide to making nut bars. Delicious! Nutritious! And they keep.
Made mine with diced almonds, cashews, pecans, dates, maple syrup, and a dash of quinoa flour, although the flour wasn't necessary after all, since I was sparing with the sticky stuff (don't be too stingy, though, because the bars and/or the air absorb it). I dried mine out in a warm oven for an hour or so instead of letting them air dry.
From Ran's blog
Store-bought "energy bars" are expensive and poor quality, typically made with processed soy protein that's quite bad for you. (Unfermented soy was not used as food until the industrial age.) And high-quality organic nut bars, like Govinda or Bumble bars, are even more expensive. But you can make the same thing at home, with exactly the ingredients you choose, for less than a quarter the price.
Miss Penitentiary 2007
Finally, coverage of this surfaces again! I haven't seen anything for two years.
Rio de Janeiro (IOL) - A 26-year-old woman serving time in a Brazilian prison for holding up trucks has been named her penitentiary's beauty queen in a competition between convicts, authorities said.
Brunette Dione Normando Pires was on Tuesday named "Miss Talavera Bruce" in the Gericino women's prison in western Rio de Janeiro, beating off competition from eight other convicts.
"Today I don't feel like prisoner. This is the happiest moment of my life," Pires said as she accepted the red winner's sash, which she put over her pink dress.
Runners-up were two drug traffickers, aged 20 and 24.
Photo from Bad News Day
Boxer Esther Phiri
African Esther Phiri beat U.S. fighter Belinda Laracuente to defend her world title over the weekend, increasing her status in the country.
Here in Christian Science Monitor is an article about a Zambian single mother who has turned her life around by becoming a boxer. She's doing well for herself and is becoming a role model for African girls.
Thanks Kris & Andru
Photo by Joseph J. Schatz
first snowfall
This one's especially for Scott in Australia, who loves snow but has to go south for it. :-)
