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Jill Norgren’s Late Summer Reading Suggestions
Jill Norgren Reviews: There are a few weeks remaining before summer’s end. Here are some of my suggestions for off-hours reading — several outstanding books, newly published and golden oldies. Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamtress is an extraordinary, near perfect novel, slight of size. In The Alice Network, Kate Quinn creates a world of female spies in World War I with a parallel story of disappearance during World War II. In The Barefoot Woman Scholastique Mukasongas, like Kate Quinn, gives us another story of an intrepid woman. Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain considers a childhood quite different from Mukasongas’s, one is which a child tries to protect and save his mother from her worst instincts. An astonishing first novel-autobiographical, winner of the Booker prize, Shuggie Bain is set in 1980s Glascow, the Thatcher years. more »
Above-Normal Activity Predicted for This Hurricane Season: Warmer-than-average Temperatures in Tropical Atlantic Ocean & Caribbean Sea; Weaker Tropical Atlantic Trade Winds; An Enhanced West African Monsoon
n 2020, there were 30 named storms, of which 14 became hurricanes, including seven major hurricanes last year. Major hurricanes are known to carry winds of 111 mph and higher. The season was so active we ran out of the alphabetical list of names and had to borrow some from the Greek alphabet. This year, however, the Greek alphabet will no longer be used partly due to difficulty translating in different languages. Instead, any extra storms will be named through a supplemental names list from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Several factors contributed to NOAA’s prediction for an above-normal hurricane season. Among them: predicted warmer-than-average temperatures in the Tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea; weaker tropical Atlantic trade winds; and an enhanced west African monsoon. more »
US Surgeon General Vivek Dr. Murthy Issues Advisory During COVID-19 Vaccination Push Warning American Public About Threat of Health Misinformation
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans have been exposed to a wide range of misinformation about masks and social distancing, treatments, and vaccines. As of late May, 67% of unvaccinated adults exit disclaimer icon had heard at least one COVID-19 vaccine myth and either believed it to be true or were not sure of its veracity. Health misinformation has already caused significant harm exit disclaimer icon, dividing families and communities and undermining vaccination efforts. An analysis of millions of social media posts exit disclaimer icon found that false news stories were 70 percent more likely to be shared than true stories. And a recent study exit disclaimer icon showed that even brief exposure to misinformation made people less likely to want a COVID-19 vaccine. more »
UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ: ‘I always felt like a pioneer’
Carol Christ: When I joined the faculty, only 3% of the faculty were women. When I joined the English department, there were 84 faculty in the English department — it was much bigger then than it is now — and there were four women. I was the fourth woman. And I remember whenever I went to an office, people didn’t believe I was a faculty member. Carol Clover: Or, when I went to Harvard, people always thought that I was a secretary in my office. They would just walk in and say, “Would you please type this for me and have it for tomorrow?” Anne Brice: What would you say? Carol Clover: It would be a nice conversation. They were usually apologetic. It was just the way things were." more »