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“The prize itself—an elite college admission—comes at a steep price. The cost of a four-year college degree from any of the top-twenty private colleges in the United States now exceeds a quarter of a million dollars, including room, board, books, and fees. The top-twenty public universities cost less, but even they average between $100,000 and $200,000 for a four-year degree, including room, board, books, and fees, depending on one’s state resident status. Society’s desire for early-blooming validation has led to—let’s be honest—price gouging by those official scorekeepers of early achievement, colleges and universities. The rest of us are stuck with big bills and massive debt. Since 1970, college tuition costs have risen three times faster than the rate of inflation. College debt in the United States is now $1.3 trillion, with an 11.5 percent default rate. By all measures, the rush to bloom early has helped create a potential bust bigger than the 2008 housing bubble.”
― Late Bloomers: The Hidden Strengths of Learning and Succeeding at Your Own Pace
― Late Bloomers: The Hidden Strengths of Learning and Succeeding at Your Own Pace
“No other influenza before or since has had such a propensity for pneumonic complications. And pneumonia kills.”
― America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918
― America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918
“When did the pandemic end? That is more difficult to say, for while flu pandemics often begin abruptly, they normally disappear only after several renewals of virulency and then a long tailing off. The pandemic of Spanish influenza subsided and sank below the level of general and even scientific perception in the United States and almost everywhere else in the world in spring 1919.”
― America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918
― America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918
“World War I killed upwards of fifteen millions, wreaked immeasurable physical, social, and psychic damage, and left most of the citizens of the belligerent powers with a deep conviction that war must in some way be prohibited.”
― America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918
― America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918
“In its first Spanish influenza pamphlet, issued in September, the USPHS recommended that those nursing flu patients wear gauze masks.37 Soon laymen decided that what was a sensible caution in the sickroom would be just as sensible in every situation. Gauze masks became a common sight in the streets and department stores of communities in the eastern United States. People could and did honestly believe that a few layers of gauze would keep out flu bugs, just as screens kept the flies off the front porch. The influenza virus itself is, of course, so infinitely tiny that it can pass through any cloth, no matter how tightly woven, but a mask can catch some of the motes of dust and droplettes of water on which the virus may be riding. However, to be even slightly effective during a flu epidemic masks must be worn at all times when people are together, at home and at work and in between, must be of a proper and probably uncomfortable thickness, must be tied firmly, and must be washed and dried at least once daily. Enforcement of such conditions is impossible and so the communities where masking was compulsory during the Spanish influenza pandemic almost always had health records the same as those of adjacent communities without masking.”
― America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918
― America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918
A’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at A’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
76 books
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70 friends
113 books
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37 friends
0 books
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45 friends
169 books
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590 friends
350 books
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198 friends
0 books
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138 friends
172 books
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91 friends
0 books
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17 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Business, Classics, Cookbooks, Crime, Ebooks, History, Humor and Comedy, Manga, Non-fiction, Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Self help, and Travel
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