Semitic people or Semites is an obsolete term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group associated with people of the Middle East, including Arabs, Jews, Akkadians, and Phoenicians.  The terminology is now largely unused outside the grouping "Semitic languages" in linguistics.  First used in the 1770s by members of the Göttingen school of history, this biblical terminology for race was derived from Shem (Hebrew: שֵׁם), one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis, together with the parallel terms Hamites and Japhetites.  In archaeology, the term is sometimes used informally as "a kind of shorthand" for ancient Semitic-speaking peoples.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_people#:~:text=Semitic%20people%20or%20Semites%20is,%22Semitic%20languages%22%20in%20linguistics.   

The word "Semitic" was coined by German orientalist August Ludwig von Schlözer in 1781 to designate the Semitic group of languages - Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew and others - allegedly spoken by the descendants of Biblical figure Sem, son of Noah.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism   

The Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) is an organization that developed and maintains a mechanism through which plant breeders can designate the new crop varieties they have bred as open source.  This mechanism is advanced as an alternative to patent-protected seeds sold by large agriculture companies such as Monsanto or DuPont.  OSSI is a U.S. based not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization focusing on establishing a protected commons of open source varieties and on educational and outreach activities associated with the development of this open source seed commons and on seed rights and issues related to the control of seed.  The OSSI was founded in 2012 by a group of plant breeders, farmers, and seed companies.  OSSI is governed by a board of directors and as of July 2017 includes 36 plant breeders and 46 seed company partners in its work.  Members of the group are unhappy with the patenting of plant varieties, as they say the patenting of seeds restricts plant breeders' freedom and increases the power of large seed companies.  Taking inspiration from open source software, the OSSI seeks to create a "protected commons" of open-source seed varieties as an alternative to patented or otherwise legally restricted seeds.  At first the OSSI tried to draft a legally-defensible license, but they found that the principle of software licenses did not translate easily to plants, as a license on plant seeds would need to continue to each new generations of plants, quickly creating a huge amount of legal work.  The OSSI eventually decided to use an informal Pledge printed on every seed packet or transmitted along with the seed, both for simplicity and because they felt this less restrictive approach was more in line with the goals of the project.  The Open Source Seed Initiative Pledge asks farmers, gardeners, and plant breeders who use the seed to refrain from patenting or licensing the seed or derivatives from it, and to pass on the Pledge to any derivatives made.  The Pledge states: "You have the freedom to use these OSSI-Pledged seeds in any way you choose.  In return, you pledge not to restrict others' use of these seeds or their derivatives by patents or other means, and to include this Pledge with any transfer of these seeds or their derivatives."  The work of University of Wisconsin sociologist Jack Kloppenburg, particularly his book First the Seed: The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology, 1492-2000 (2nd ed.) influenced the development of OSSI.  Originally published in 1990, then updated in 2000, this book chronicles the vast changes in seed sovereignty that took place during the 20th century through the rise of modern plant breeding approaches, the expansion of intellectual property rights, and emerging crop biotechnologies.  Kloppenburg's work explored global consequences of legal control over crop seeds during an era of heavy consolidation in the seed industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Seed_Initiative  Thank you, Muse reader!   

Alice Ann Munro (née Laidlaw 1931–13 May 2024) was a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013.  Munro's work has been described as revolutionizing the architecture of the short story, especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time, and with integrated short fiction cycles, in which she has displayed "inarguable virtuosity".  Her stories have been said to "embed more than announce, reveal more than parade".  Munro's fiction is most often set in her native Huron County in southwestern Ontario.  Her stories explore human complexities in an uncomplicated prose style.  Her writing has established Munro as "one of our greatest contemporary writers of fiction", or, as Cynthia Ozick put it, "our Chekhov".  Aside from the Nobel Prize, Munro received many awards for her work as "master of the contemporary short story", and the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work.  She was also a three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for Fiction, and received the Writers' Trust of Canada's 1996 Marian Engel Award and the 2004 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for Runaway.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Munro    

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2814  May 15, 2024