Thursday, May 30, 2019
Chernobyl Forum issues revised "book" on the health effects of the 1986 catastrophe in Ukraine
Here’s a curiosity from behind the former Iron Curtain.
The Chernobyl Forum 2003-2005 published a second edition of “Chernobyl’s
Legacy: Health, Environmental, and Socio-Economic Effects” with the subtitle “Recommendations
to the Governments of Belarus, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine”, on the IAEE
site here. The Moorfield Storey Institute
contributed to the report.
James Peron wrote an article for Medium in a column called “The
Radical Center” with title “Chernobyl: What Facts Found”, excerpt here. Despite total desertion of the living
areas, later studies showed that the health effects and cancer were not worse
than from normal air pollution. Thyroid
cancer increased, but thyroid cancer is usually treatable (it was not for Roger
Ebert, remember).
By MHM55 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
"Range". by David Esptein, argues that generalists can do very well in public life
If you’re going to be professional at something and get
public recognition for it, do you have to be a prodigy and start early and focus
on it from childhood?
According to a New York Times book review by Jim Holt, David
Epstein says, not necessarily, in his new book “Range: Why Generalists Triumph
in a Specialized World”, published by Riverhead Books.
The idea is that learning environments can be kind, or
brutal. Classical music performance
tends to be a kind environment that rewards starting early and sticking with
it. Composing may be more nuanced, and some modern composers are quite
versatile with their skills: Jaron
Lanier (“You Are Not a Gadget”, and “10 Arguments for Deleting your Social Media
Accounts Right Now”), well known for large, eclectic compositions (Plays blog,
June 19, 2013), is quite versatile with tech for its own sake (as are many other
musicians).
The review compares the careers of Tiger Woods (golf) with
Roger Federer (tennis), the latter of which is more compatible with
generalism. Medicine is said to be so,
despite the fact that interns and residents have to live such unifocal
existence.
My own case with piano was a narrow miss. It was not easy
for boys to consider this in the Cold War obsessed 1950s and early 1960s. I had
an audition in a ritzy NW Washington apartment building with a Dr. Hughes, who
was 72 at the time, when I was about 15, for a piano career. It was indeed close.
I wound up with a double life, where mainframe information technology rather dead-ended itself after 2000 as a real career field that creates a professional identity.
Chess requires real focus from early in life to get really good (at least International Master or higher).
Chess requires real focus from early in life to get really good (at least International Master or higher).
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Nicholas Buamah, at age 8, has book published that helps grade school students learn vocabulary
Selena Hill of Black Enterprise reports that a
seven-year-old’s book, “Kayla and Kyle: The Walking Dictionaries; Election Day”
bas been accepted by the Library of Congress, story. The author is Georgia’s Nicholas Nuamah.
The children’s book depicts a class election, and teaches
vocabulary along the way.
Nicholas appeared on Steve Harvey today. He gave the example of a big word, "exacerbate" means "to make worse".
Sunday, May 19, 2019
"First Books" provides children's books to low-income schools
I received a charity mailing from a non-profit named “First Books”, which apparently distributes children’s books to schools in low-income
areas. Some of these were from the “Magic Tree House” series.
The group also has a distribution agreement with a group called
OMG based on a court settlement.
I don’t generally respond to over-personalized charity requests,
but I try to look for things that match the work I do.
But I may start talking to independent bookstores more
soon.
Thursday, May 16, 2019
Time Magazine writer, after long piece very critical of India's leadership, finds Wikipedia page vandalized
Time Magazine recently offered a booklet-length article by
Aatish Taseer on Narenda Modi’s :reign” in India, as an example of populism and
leading to anti-intellecualism.
In an attempt to defuse socialism (and India’s bureaucracy,
which has been criticized). Modi is said to have created a climate of “religious
nationalism”, comparable to alt-right movements in many countries.
His attitudes are supposed to have undermined the
intellectual capital that allowed Indian companies to get Y2K work from
American companies, for example.
Thursday, May 09, 2019
Why is author Dan Harris so controversial (with Carlos Maza, anyway)?
Eric Johnson of Vox publishes an interview by Kara Swisher
of Recode Decode of Sam Harris, whose best known book now is “Waking Up: A
Guide to Spirituality Without Religion” (Simon and Schuster, 256 pages, 2015).
Harris gets into why even mainstream Islam, in his view, has
a problem, that tends to invite radicalization. By comparison, white supremacy
among Christians, he thinks, is at the very fringes, even given Charlottesville.
He made some comparisons of Sri Lanka with New Zealand that
many will not welcome.
Yet, Carlos Maza yesterday tweeted that Vox should not have
published this, and that “bad faith actors and bigots should be quarantined”
from speech. They can be explained around without being given a platform.
As for Harris’s ideas, I’ve worked for persons of Muslim faith
and with them for years, and never imagined a problem before 9/11 happened. The point of terrorists is to force others to
become polarized.
And it’s hard to say what scripture has the most clobber
passages.
Tuesday, May 07, 2019
Fiction authors of color irritated by expectations of political correctness at book signings
Thrity Umrigar is a prolific author from India with an
interesting column in the Washington Post Style section on Monday, May 6.
Her novels are complex family sagas, like “The Space Between
Us”, “The World We Found”, and “Everyone’s Son”.
She talks about the quizzed about political correctness at
book events, as indicated by the title of her article, “For writers of color,
the questions that sting”.
Technically, people from India are usually considered Caucasian
by science, but still call themselves POC.
Sunday, May 05, 2019
Indie bookstores become much more conscious of indulging consumers with other items
Here are a couple more stories about how indie bookstores
make comebacks.
The Wall Street Journal, in a story by Susan Kitchens on
Apr. 28, discusses A Capella Books in Atlanta – how a retailer borrowed from a closed-knot
social structure but in time turned to special author events.
The article discusses “book curation”, the idea that a local
store could indulge consumers with very specific and narrow genres.
Alexander Alter, in a New York Times article on May 2, talks
about a Canadian chain, Indigo, that packages books with consumer items like “reading
socks”. The idea seems to be catching on
with Barnes and Noble, but I had noticed this – certain games and toys (and previously
music cd’s) were often sold.
This reminds me of a bizarre phone call I got, out of the blue,
in 2012 quizzing me if I would want to go on a tour in Canada. Why would this make sense when my main 1997
book had been about an American policy regarding gays in the military?
Wednesday, May 01, 2019
New York Times explores the importance of public libraries, in the "Web 3.0 age".
The New York Review of Books from Sunday April 28 has a long
article by Sue Halpern, “In Praise of Public Libraries”, link.
She mentions a long (197-minute) documentary “Ex Libris: TheNew York Public Library” by Frederick Wiseman (there is a shorter version for
China) which I should watch some day. Does the title of this film have anything to do with the name of the POD publishing company (under Author Solutions) "Xlibris"? The movie is also the name of a cloud-based education content company.
She starts out with an anecdote about a small town apparently
in the Catskills and a bookmobile (remember those?) that went out of service. The town proposed a small tax increase to
fund a library, and wrought a resistance from the right wing. Eventually,
however, the library was built and it boomed and became very popular, even in
the Internet era.
She then goes into discussion of the New York City and Los
Angeles central libraries.
That is all in conjunction with two new books: (1) Eric
Klineburg, “Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality,
Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life”.
So can reforming social media (another post to go up today), and (2) “The
Library Book” by Susan Orlean, from Simon and Schuster.
A good question for new authors is how seriously they should go after the public library market to sell their books, even in this Internet age.
Harvard undergraduate John Fish has made several videos on his channel about reading, such as the value of fiction, the value of volume reading (for humanities in college), and increasing reading speed without losing comprehension (I can imagine how that can matter in the culture wars). He also sells audio books (link ) as a dorm room business. This facility would make me wonder how far new authors should go in offering audiobooks; I haven't heard the topic come up in self-publishing contexts. It sounds expensive. You would wonder how students would have time to listen to them, but that's like having the time to watch videos or listen to podcasts. He hasn't posted in the last three weeks, don't know why.
Back in 2012, actor Reid Ewing had made a short film “It’s
Free” set in a Los Angeles public library, where he made the case for free access
to information but almost inadvertently set up today’s debate on whether “free”
social media is really free. I wish the
film were available because it could help with today’s debate on Internet
policy.
There is a correlated post on the Movies blog today about the Alexandria Egypt library fire in 47 BC.
There is a correlated post on the Movies blog today about the Alexandria Egypt library fire in 47 BC.
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