Monthly Archives: June 2021

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Libraries, Travel

PHOTOS: Joy Of Books In Cape Town Library Born In Shipping Containers : Goats and Soda : NPR

June 27, 20217:15 AM ET, Tommy Trenchard

Terence Crowster, who has been an avid reader since he was young, solicited donations to start the Hot-Spot Library in Scottsville, Cape Town, so kids would have a safe place to connect with books. Tommy Trenchard for NPR

They call it the Hot-Spot library: a ramshackle building of plywood and sheet metal set on a crime-ridden street corner in Cape Town, South Africa.

With its threadbare couches and mismatched carpets, the place looks somewhat dilapidated.

On winter days, rain leaks through holes in the corrugated zinc roof and drips down onto the tables and bookshelves. Built around a pair of aging shipping containers, it may not look like your conventional library.

But for the residents of Scottsville, a neighborhood torn apart by drug abuse and gang violence, it offers a safe space to escape the harsh realities of daily life and to explore different worlds in the pages of thousands of donated second-hand books.

The “Library Rules” are stuck to a painted window in the Hot-Spot Library. Kids who borrow books must submit a book review when they return them.
Tommy Trenchard for NPR

Source: PHOTOS: Joy Of Books In Cape Town Library Born In Shipping Containers : Goats and Soda : NPR

Travel

Amtrak Is Restoring Traditional Dining on Some Long-Distance Trains

Rail riders may soon be packing dinner jackets for their travels as traditional dining is back on Amtrak.

Thomas Pallini, Jun 27, 2021, 6:33 AM

Touring Amtrak’s newly-upgraded Superliner train.
Thomas Pallini/Insider

Traditional dining is back on Amtrak as of June 23 on six long-distance routes.

Sleeper car customers traveling west of Chicago will have white tablecloth service with a new selection of elegant meals.

It’s part of Amtrak’s $28 million plan to upgrade its Superliner and Viewliner fleet of train cars. See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Editor’s Note: Lots more pictures on the article link below…

Source: Amtrak Is Restoring Traditional Dining on Some Long-Distance Trains

Books & Reading, Memories & History, Science & Health

Did comet strike 13,000 years ago change human civilization as we know it? | Space

By Chelsea Gohd 4 days ago

This archaeological site in Arizona in the U.S. shows evidence of an impact from a comet. (Image credit: Comet Research Group)

Could a devastating comet impact in Earth’s distant past have forever changed human civilization?

Scientists think that a cluster of comet shards may have smashed into Earth’s surface 13,000 years ago, in the most catastrophic impact since the Chicxulub event killed off Earth’s large dinosaurs about 66 million years ago.

In a new study, a team led by Martin Sweatman, a scientist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, investigated the impact and how it could have shaped the origins of human societies on Earth. While the first Homo sapiens emerged between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago, much farther in the past than this impact, the researchers found that this comet crash actually coincided with significant changes in how human societies self-organized.

Source: Did comet strike 13,000 years ago change human civilization as we know it? | Space

Travel

The biggest mistakes tourists make in major world cities | travel | CNBC

By Monica Buchanan Pitrelli @MonicaPitrelli

Article image…

Travel writers make a career out of helping tourists navigate unfamiliar places.

Still, even the most savvy traveler is prone to making the occasional faux pas while on vacation.

Here, CNBC’s travel contributors share the biggest mistakes they see visitors make in the cities they call home.

Jamaica is the kind of place where you should go off script.
Sheryl Nash-Nance, American travel writer

Source: The biggest mistakes tourists make in major world cities

Arts & Humanities, Libraries, Memories & History, Web & Technology

Library of Congress Magazine – May/June 2021 – LCM_2021_0506.pdf | LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Screenshot of article page…

The most heavily used collection in the Geography and Map Division depicts entire North American cities and towns in detail — right down to the windows, doors, sprinkler systems and fire alarms in their buildings.

The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, a collection of large-scale, building-level maps, depict the commercial, industrial and residential sections of some 12,000 cities and towns in the United States, Canada and Mexico from 1867 to the present.

Source: Library of Congress Magazine – May/June 2021 – LCM_2021_0506.pdf

Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Science & Health

UFO report: U.S. unable to explain more than 140 unidentified flying objects, finds no evidence of alien life – The Washington Post

By Shane Harris and Missy Ryan, June 25, 2021 at 2:34 p.m. PDT

The USS Russell and the USS Omaha captured video appearing to show UFOs flying, hovering and splashing into the ocean. (Jeremy Corbell)

The report finds no evidence that the objects, characterized as unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, were the handiwork of alien beings. But in almost all of the 144 cases that a team of government experts examined, a lack of data stymied their efforts to say definitively what they were.

The U.S. government was unable to determine whether more than 140 unidentified flying objects, many of them reported by Navy aviators, were atmospheric events playing tricks on sensors or crafts piloted by foreign adversaries, or whether the objects were extraterrestrial in origin, according to a long-anticipated report released Friday by the nation’s top intelligence official.

Editor’s Note: See the link below for the full report links.

Source: UFO report: U.S. unable to explain more than 140 unidentified flying objects, finds no evidence of alien life – The Washington Post