RIP

[pinhodecarlos]

A book is like a wife, never loan it.

[rudy235]

Olivia Newton-John made famous by the Movie “grease” 1978 starring John Travolta.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article...wton-john-dies

[xilman]

Olivia Newton-John

Daughter of Bletchley Park cryptographer.

[kriesel]

https://www.dailywire.com/news/magnu...ley-dead-at-83
‘Magnum, P.I.’ Actor Roger E. Mosley Dead At 83.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by pinhodecarlos

A book is like a wife, never loan it.

I've bought a copy of a book specifically to loan. It is in the public domain. Handing a copy of a book to a person to read and return is useful.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

I've bought a copy of a book specifically to loan. It is in the public domain. Handing a copy of a book to a person to read and return is useful.

Given that most people have limited shelf space, if it's not, say, one of the classics or something you will read over and over, enjoy it, then put it on the "Leave one, take one" shelf at your coffee shop or other business. (In my town the local unisex hair salon keeps such a shelf outside the shop, next to the bench for waiting folks, a Covid-driven innovation).

I like to save the titles of books-to-read as they appear and friends whose tastes I respect and share recommend them, then once they are reissued in paperback form, look for a discounted good-shape hardcover. Example: just bought a 'good' used HC of Paolo Bacigalupa's The Water Knife, a mere $7 including tax & shipping, looks brand-new.

[kriesel]

The last known survivor, of a Brazilian tribe attacked by ranchers, loggers, or miners in the 1970s and later, was found dead recently at approximately age 60 after living alone for ~26 years. https://news.yahoo.com/man-hole-last...094432514.html

https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11973 "FUNAI must prove he is still alive to retain the restriction order protecting his land, otherwise the ranchers who surround the territory will move quickly and violently to grab the land."

“The terrible crimes that have been committed against this man and his people must never be repeated, but countless other uncontacted tribes face the real prospect of the same fate unless their lands are protected. Only a major groundswell of public opinion can even the odds in favour of their survival, against the powerful agribusiness interests who want nothing more than to steal uncontacted tribes’ land, at the expense of their lives.”

[pinhodecarlos]

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62732447

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by pinhodecarlos

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62732447

Gorbachev's reforms led to the crowning achievement of Soviet-style democracy - the elections of March 1989. Some races had an unprecedented feature - candidates in addition to the Communist Party candidates! In a number of these races, the alternate candidates won overwhelmingly. But the ne plus ultra was the races in which (as usual), the Communist Party candidates ran unopposed - but did not win! The reason they did not win was that so many voters either crossed off the candidates' names on their ballot, wrote "Boycott" on the ballots, etc. that the sole candidates got less than 50% of the vote, and so by Soviet law could not be declared the winners.

Sadly, many Russians blamed, and continue to blame Gorbachev for the demise of the Soviet Union. In 1996 he ran for president and only got about 0.5% of the vote.

It is true that he was unwilling to send in the tanks and otherwise wage war on his own citizens and those of the USSR's satellite nations to crush public discontent, which his predecessors had been willing to do.

[storm5510]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

...Sadly, many Russians blamed, and continue to blame Gorbachev for the demise of the Soviet Union...

I saw an interview many years ago where he was asked what he felt had led to the collapse. He answered with one word: Chernobyl. He was quick to point out that the problem did not begin in 1986, but years before. Poor design, poor construction, and poor oversight. Afterward, all the finger-pointing and "the party" trying to cover it up. He went on for a while...

[Dr Sardonicus]

I don't know why I didn't hear about this more than a month ago.

Diana Kennedy, author of. e.g. The Art of Mexican Cooking.

She hated all the plastic. She told me she reused, over and over, every plastic bag or container she’d ever been given.

She was mad at all the wasted water in Mexico’s industries.

She hated pesticides.

She scorned industrialized tortillas.

And she truly hated, despised, the fact that Mexico was importing corn from the United States. Imported corn! In Mexico! Where corn, one of the planet’s greatest gifts to mankind, was born!

This fact, to Kennedy, seemed to encapsulate everything that was wrong with everything. And because of it, she expressed anger at the world of food itself — the corporatizing, the genetic modifications and unfettered, market-driven globalization that had pushed the world at large, she argued, to literally lose its taste. “Especially in the U.S.,” she told me. “And then it passes to Mexico.”

“Why is it that we have allowed people who are totally incompetent in food to design our food?” she said that day in her unapologetic British accent. “Our food doesn’t have the flavor it used to have. I remember the chile poblanos, full of flavor, thin-fleshed, very dark green, and that big. Now ¡olvidalo!”

Forget it.