Best Books chosen by David Baldacci: 11/22/63 by
Stephen King, The Cider House Rules by John Irving, All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr, Plum Island by Nelson DeMille, The Shetland Island Mysteries
by Ann Cleeves, and Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. Find short descriptions of each title in The
Week magazine, July 27, 2018.
It is always a risk to speak to the
press: they are likely to report what
you say. Hubert H. Humphrey Link to other Humphrey quotes at https://www.azquotes.com/quote/770426
Hubert
Horatio Humphrey Jr. (1911–1978) was an American politician who served as
the 38th Vice President of the United States from
1965 to 1969. He twice served in
the United States Senate, representing Minnesota from
1949 to 1964 and 1971 to 1978. He was
the Democratic Party's nominee
in the 1968 presidential election,
losing to Republican nominee Richard Nixon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Humphrey
A Forbes column arguing that Amazon should replace
libraries grossly underestimates how many services libraries offer by In an opinion column
published in Forbes on July 21, 2018, a professor of economics argued that
local public libraries should be replaced by Amazon. The essay, which sparked so much controversy
that Forbes removed it from its website on July 23, argued, “At the core,
Amazon has provided something better than a local library without the tax fees.
The move would save taxpayers money and
enhance the stockholder value of Amazon all in one fell swoop.” As someone who has worked in libraries for
seven years, the suggestion that Amazon could be a better provider
than a library is unfathomable. Amazon
charges people who want access to art and entertainment. By offering anybody free access to a massive
collection of books, music, and movies, libraries fundamentally advance the
idea that culture is a public good that everybody has a right to enjoy,
regardless of their income. For anyone
who believes in the power of art to change and enhance our lives, the idea that
it should only be available to people who can pay for it is horrifying. But libraries are not just a place to find
books—they’re one of the few places that provide a number of free services to
the American public. They offer a safe
public space for people to gather, computer and internet access to those who
don’t have it, story time for children, a safe space for teens, resources for
the unemployed and homeless. Writer
Panos Mourdoukoutas seemed to grossly underestimate just how much libraries and
librarians provide to the public. I work as a librarian in downtown Washington, DC, in a
branch that serves nearly 100,000 visitors each year. My location is a “single-service desk,”
meaning we only have one circulation desk that serves all visitors. Some two-thirds of our regular patrons fall
into one of three categories: homeless, struggling with addiction, or
recovering from addiction. Our library
provides a space where they can use free computers and wifi, as well as access
a climate-controlled environment with clean bathrooms and water. Many of our patrons arrive first thing in the
morning from a homeless shelter and stay until a shuttle picks them up to take
them back in the evening. I’ve
often heard the argument, “That’s not the library’s job. There are agencies for that.” But where are people without access to
computers or internet supposed to go to find the agencies that will help them
job-search or secure low-income housing? Where can they go to sit down and figure out
their next steps, with knowledgeable help close by? We search for the correct offices. We print Google maps with walking or bus
instructions. We give them a running
start in helping improve their lives. In
a world heavily skewed toward people who can pay for access to resources, we do
what we can to provide equity. Amazon is a corporation. Profit is at the center of its ethos. Fundamentally, it is not here to provide a
public good: It exists to make
money. Libraries are
irreplaceable. https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/7/26/17616516/amazon-silicon-valley-libraries-forbes
The opinion article has been pulled
from Forbes without a note or any other reason. The story has also been removed from Mourdoukoutas' author page.
By 1956, Ernest Hemingway was in a free
fall. Once transformative and
captivating, his short, simple staccato style that remade American writing
decades before had gone stale. It was
now emulated by numerous authors. Lost
in a literary rut, he became a caricature of his super-macho characters. He dodged sniper’s bullets in France, chased
wild animals in Africa and tried to outrun fame. That summer, Hemingway found inspiration for
his fiction in his adventures years earlier as a correspondent in World War
II. He wrote five short stories about
the war, he told his publisher, with a stipulation: “You can always publish
them after I’m dead.” Six decades later
and long after his suicide in 1961, only one of those stories had been
published—until August 2, 2018. The
newly published work, “A Room on the Garden Side,” is a roughly 2,100-word
story told in the first person by an American writer named Robert just after
Allied soldiers liberated Paris from the Nazis in August
1944. There is little doubt that Robert
is based on the author himself. The scene from the title is a garden-view room
at the Ritz, the luxury hotel in Paris on the Place Vendôme that Hemingway
adored and claimed to have “liberated” in the war. Soldiers in the story call Robert by the
writer’s nickname, “Papa.” “Hemingway’s
deep love for his favorite city as it is just emerging from Nazi occupation is
on full display, as are the hallmarks of his prose,” said Andrew F. Gulli, the
managing editor of The Strand Magazine, the literary quarterly that published the story. While the short story had never been released
to the reading public, it was not entirely unknown. The manuscript—15 pages
written in pencil—has been stored for decades in the permanent Hemingway
collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in
Boston. Hemingway scholars have studied and written about “A
Room on the Garden Side” and the four other works in the series, including “Black Ass at the Crossroads,”the
only other story that had been published.
Matthew Haag https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/books/ernest-hemingway-short-story-published.html
There is a wide range of
impressive health benefits
associated with pigeon peas, including their
ability to stimulate growth,
manage blood pressure, prevent anemia, and boost heart health. It
also aids in weight loss, improves digestion, strengthens the immune system,
increases energy,
and eliminates inflammation.
Scientifically known as Cajanus cajan, pigeon
peas are a legume. They belong to
the Fabaceae family and are a tropical pea-like seed. These peas are
often mixed with other grains,
maize, or sorghum, or crushed into flour and used to
make bread. The flavor is rather unremarkable, which is why
they are so often combined in culinary uses, their benefits are undeniable, which has led to
them being such a huge crop around
the world. One of the key minerals found in
pigeon peas is potassium. It is
perhaps best known as a vasodilator, which is able to reduce the constriction of blood
vessels and thereby lower blood pressure.
For those suffering from hypertension or at
a high risk of cardiovascular disease, adding pigeon peas
to your daily or weekly diet is a wise move.
The reason that pigeon peas have become such an irreplaceable part of
the diet in many parts of the world is their densely packed protein content.
A single cup of cooked pigeon peas contains 11 grams of protein. Protein is essential for normal growth and development, as it is the
building block of everything from cells and tissues to muscles and bones. Protein is
also important for normal healing and regeneration of cells throughout the body. The incredibly high levels of folate found in pigeon
peas play a dual role within the body.
First of all, folate deficiency is closely linked to anemia and certain
neural tube defects in unborn children. Anemia is a very common affliction in tropical
and developing countries, which makes pigeon peas all the more important. A single cup of pigeon peas provides more
than 110% of the daily recommended intake of this important vitamin. Every part of the pigeon pea plant has been
used in some form to cure inflammatory issues, including the leaves, seeds, and peas themselves. The organic compounds found in pigeon peas can
quickly reduce swelling and
inflammation throughout the body. https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/other/pigeon-peas.html Recipe for Rice and Pigeon Peas http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/rice-pigeon-peas
August 6, 2018 LeBron
James, cycling superstar? He is,
perhaps, in the eyes of kids at that much-discussed Akron school for at-risk
students the NBA star opened
last week. Each student, in
addition to tuition-free education in a state-of-the-art public school
facility, also
gets a bike, in a more than symbolic nod to James’s association of
his own childhood bike with the freedom it afforded him. Other atypical benefits to students at the I
Promise School and their families: an
on-site food bank and a scholarship to the University of Akron upon high-school
graduation if certain criteria are met. (The Cleveland Plain-Dealer has
estimated that the Akron public-school system will pick up half to
three-quarters of the tab for the school’s ongoing operations.) The bike he had as a kid, James
has recalled, allowed him to safely navigate and explore his eastern
Ohio hometown, and to stay focused on basketball. In an interview last week with the Wall
Street Journal (conducted by the paper’s Jason Gay, James expressed
the centrality of cycling to his formative years in Akron: ‘A bicycle, for me, was the only way to
get around the city. If I wanted to meet
some of my friends, travel across the city, go to school, play basketball—anything—the
bicycle was the way I got around.’
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