18 Nov 2023

St. Paul library book checked out more than 100 years ago finally returned

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A 1902 edition of “Famous Composers Vol. 2” by Nathan Haskell Dole last checked out in 1919 was recently returned to the St. Paul Public Library, according to a Facebook post by the library Friday, Nov. 17, 2023. (Courtesy of the St. Paul Public Library)

A library book about famous composers believed to have been checked out in 1919 was turned into the St. Paul Public Library this week.

The 1902 edition of “Famous Composers Vol. 2” by Nathan Haskell Dole was found by a person in Hennepin County who was sorting through their mother’s belongings, library officials said on their Facebook page.

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said in a tongue-in-cheek post on X that the late fees would have been very hefty if the library sought them.

“At the 1919 rate of a penny per day, that would have been a $36k fine… but #SaintPaul is a #FineFreeLibrary system so no charge!” Carter tweeted.

Library officials did some sleuthing and believe that the book most likely also survived a fire that burned down most of the city’s library books in 1914, according to the post.

“John, (a web librarian at the St. Paul public library), examined the book — which bears the original Saint Paul Public Library stamp and back pocket card — and discovered several markings that may tell us more about this book’s journey,” the library wrote on its Facebook page:

When the book was further examined, the check-out slip in the back cover showed it was last checked out in 1919. The slip showed the book was checked out in 1914 when the city’s library was housed in Market Hall. At the time, the Central Library was still being built. When Market Hall burned down in 1915, two-thirds of the library’s collection was lost. The other one-third was checked out, leading library staff to believe that the book had been checked out to a patron during the blaze.

“If this book had been on the shelves, it probably would have burned,” the library wrote on its Facebook page. The book was most likely added back to the collection in 1916 before the new library building opened the following year.

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18 Nov 2023

Ravens linebacker Tyus Bowser launches nonprofit to help disadvantaged youth in Baltimore City

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One night after the Ravens beat their division rival Cincinnati Bengals, autographed helmets and jerseys of many of the team’s top players were available in a raffle at the top floor of the Hyatt Regency in the Inner Harbor.

Those who gathered bought raffle tickets, looked out over the Inner Harbor and mingled with Ravens linebacker Tyus Bowser, who recently launched an eponymous nonprofit aimed to help disadvantaged youth in Baltimore City.

The Tyus Bowser Foundation expects to host an event for teachers in early 2024, but first, the nonprofit kicked off with an event to raise money. The foundation hopes to:

Renovate unused classrooms in Baltimore middle schools into spaces that promote science, technology, engineering, mathematics and art.
Fund school supplies for teachers, rather than teachers spending their money.
Offer professional advice to high school students.

Bowser waited until he’d established himself in the NFL and received a second contract, he said, before launching the nonprofit. He was inspired in part by former Ravens teammate Calais Campbell, who was named Walter Payton Man of the Year in 2019.

“Just being able to impact kids, impact this community, especially being here for the last six years, I definitely want to give back just how they’ve been giving me,” Bowser told the Baltimore Sun.

The Texas native, who has not played this season due to injury, is in his seventh year with the Ravens. He wanted to start the nonprofit in Baltimore because “this is home to me,” he said.

Bowser has spent time helping his cousin, a teacher in Houston, prepare her classroom for the school year and noticed how much of their own money teachers spend on school supplies.

“When I say beyond proud, it’s an understatement,” said Bryana Jackson, his cousin, who attended the launch Friday in Baltimore. “I would fly in a New York minute just to come up here and help him. The young man that he has become, I’m extremely proud.”

Attendees at Friday’s “friends and family” kickoff event bought raffle tickets to win autographed merchandise from many Ravens: Lamar Jackson, Odell Beckham Jr., Zay Flowers, Gus Edwards, Mark Andrews, Roquan Smith, Patrick Queen, Kyle Hamilton, Geno Stone and Justin Tucker.

A signed baseball from Orioles All-Star Austin Hays, who sponsored a $20,000 scholarship for students in need earlier last year, was also a prize.

Funds raised from Friday will go toward a “teacher scramble,” allowing teachers to shop for their classrooms.

“Teachers go above and beyond for those kids and I just want to be that help for them so they don’t have to go out of pocket,” Bowser said.

Drafted by Baltimore in 2017, the 28-year-old Bowser started all 17 Ravens games in 2021 and notched seven sacks. He’s been sidelined by a knee injury, however, and has not played this season.

He told The Sun Friday night it’s been “a process,” but that he’s starting to see progress and hopes to return soon.

“My mindset is always to come back this year,” Bowser said.

“I don’t want to ever let any games go. But I’m also looking out for myself, just making sure I’m at my best. Because when I get on the field I make sure that I pour my heart out for my team, because I always put the team first before me.”

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18 Nov 2023

Former Trump adviser O’Brien slams Biden for attacks on U.S. troops in Syria, Iraq

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HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Robert O’Brien, former President Donald Trump’s last national security adviser, accused President Joe Biden of failing to prevent dozens of attacks in recent weeks by Iranian-backed proxies on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.

In an interview with POLITICO on the sidelines of the Halifax International Security Forum, O’Brien called on the Biden administration to do more to protect American troops. He criticized Biden’s retaliatory U.S. airstrikes on facilities used by the militants in Syria, calling them “a couple of minor pinprick attacks.”

“The attacks against American troops continue. Iran is not deterred, their proxies are not deterred, so that question answers itself,” he said Friday on the sidelines of the forum, a major annual national security conference attended by Western diplomats, officials, military leaders and democracy advocates. “We’re not doing enough to protect our troops … more needs to be done.”

The Biden administration has sent a massive amount of American firepower to the Middle East since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, with the aim of preventing a wider conflict in the region. The Pentagon deployed two aircraft carrier strike groups, additional aircraft and air defenses, as well as hundreds of troops.

But the attacks on U.S. troops have continued: Since Oct. 17, Iranian proxies have targeted American forces with drones and rockets at least 60 times in Iraq and Syria, injuring at least 60 U.S. personnel. Many of those service members were diagnosed withtraumatic brain injury.

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh on Thursday defended the administration’s response, saying the attacks have mostly been “unsuccessful” and have not caused “significant” damage to infrastructure or “significant” injury to any service members. She also defended the retaliatory airstrikes, saying they have “significantly downgraded and degraded” the militia groups’ access to weapons.

“We’re not waiting on something to act. We have responded, and if there are more attacks, we will certainly respond at a time and place of our choosing.”

O’Brien also seemed to pin some blame on the Biden administration for the Oct. 7 attacks, which killed more than 1,000 Israelis, and for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The U.S. failed to deter Iran and Hamas in Israel. We failed to deter Russia in Ukraine,” O’Brien said. “Those are two major failures of the current administration.”

O’Brien has previously criticized Biden’s Iran policy, voicing concern in September that a recent deal to free five imprisoned Americans in exchange for unlocking $6 billion in frozen funds for Tehran will encourage other nations to continue detaining U.S. citizens.

O’Brien was serving as national security adviser when Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the former leader of Iran’s elite Quds force, in January 2020.

O’Brien also said Biden’s White House could do more to support both Israel and Ukraine. On Israel, he said Biden must “remain resolute” in the face of criticism by the Democratic party’s progressive wing.

“We cannot let world public opinion, which has been turning against Israel because of terrible antisemitism abroad, undermine our efforts,” he said.

On Ukraine, he criticized Biden as being “too little, too late on delivering the weapons systems that Ukraine needed to win.”

18 Nov 2023

Inna Faliks: Where have all the pianos gone? No one has time for them anymore

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The students have too many activities and academic deadlines, the Montessori school principal informed me. This is not a good time for piano recitals, and the piano wasn’t needed either.

“Please feel free to take the piano and donate it” elsewhere, the email said.

Several months ago, with help from my favorite piano technician, I had found a free upright piano and arranged for its delivery with the school principal. It had stood against the back wall of the classroom, used as a table for lunches and backpacks, and now it was no longer wanted.

As a pianist, I wanted my children, who attended the elementary school, and their friends to hear the sound of a real piano at school. The kids have one music class a week, which involves a few pop songs played on a keyboard. There is nothing wrong with pop songs or keyboards. But I had imagined the kids’ delight at hearing the full sound of chords on a piano, the storm of a Beethoven sonata, the mist of a Debussy prelude, the bouncy bass of Scott Joplin.

After helping to arrange the piano delivery, I offered to play for the children, and to tell them about adventures in music and piano. But I never got the chance.

I have a soft spot for upright pianos. I learned to play on an upright of the brand Red October as a child in Soviet Odesa. Upon coming to the U.S., my parents bought an upright piano for me with the $200 they carried with them through months of immigration, so that I could continue my musical training. It was the only money they had.

On that piano, I learned Chopin’s etudes, Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 1 and Beethoven’s sonatas. An upright can sound intimate and warm but also quite powerful in a small room. As a penniless immigrant kid in Chicago, I struggled to assimilate into the privileged North Shore. While classmates told me to “go back to Russia” (nobody knew the difference between Ukraine and Russia back then), music was my respite, thanks to that piano.

Classical music is losing audiences because of its perceived elitism. I believe this stems from the lack of early music education in schools, among other factors. Classical music stops being a closed world when the music is shared generously and with passion. And music’s most eager audiences are children. But how do we musicians share music with children when it’s so hard to do so?

Middle and high schools in Los Angeles and other places pride themselves on expanding their STEM curriculum and budget. School ratings are primarily determined by STEM scores; art and music are lowest on the totem pole. Are kids paying for adults’ lack of support for the arts? Hearing music in childhood can be a game-changer for them.

Playing for children is immensely gratifying for a musician, because nobody absorbs with greater speed, responds with more excitement or explores the nature of music with fewer preconceptions.

Leonard Bernstein’s 53 Young People’s Concerts greatly increased children’s exposure to music through national televised broadcasts. Nothing of this magnitude exists in the U.S. today.

In Venezuela, El Sistema, the world-renowned national music program that nurtured the L.A. Philharmonic’s conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, provides a musical upbringing to children in a politically and economically challenged landscape. Surely, the world’s richest country could commit to enriching its children’s lives in a similar way.

The lack of classical music in schools is emblematic of a larger trend. We have become tethered to quantifiable, competitive ways of judging how we educate our kids. Classical music and most other art don’t fit into that box.

It’s the escape from the box that challenges, inspires and allows the expression of genuine individuality. Getting to know classical music early on can serve as preparation for a life in the music industry or theater, or not. It can simply be a creative, sensory immersion that engages one’s emotions and expands the mind. It’s our responsibility to educate our children. But perhaps even more important is our duty to nurture their souls.

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Inna Faliks is a professor and head of the piano department at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. She is the author of “Weight in the Fingertips – A Musical Odyssey from Soviet Ukraine to the World Stage.” She wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times.