Friday
Feb. 15, 2002
709 Publication -- is the Auction
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Poem: "Publication is the Auction Of the Mind of Man," by Emily Dickinson.
Publication is the Auction Of the Mind of Man
Publication-is the Auction
Of the Mind of Man-
Poverty-be justifying
For so foul a thing
Possibly-but We-would rather
From Our Garret go
White-Unto the White Creator-
Than invest-Our Snow-
Thought belong to Him who gave it-
Then-to Him Who bear
Its Corporeal illustration-Sell
The Royal Air-
In the Parcel-Be the Merchant
Of the Heavenly Grace-
But reduce no Human Spirit
To Disgrace of Price-
It's the birthday of cartoonist Matt
Groening, born in Portland, Oregon (1954). Inspired by his cartoonist
father, he grew up drawing. He spent his college years at Evergreen State University,
in Olympia, Washington, then moved to Los Angeles where he developed a comic
strip he called "Life in Hell" (1980). Within a year, the strip was
syndicated in 20 newspapers. In 1987, he created an animated family he named
"The Simpsons" for the Fox
network's The Tracy Ullman Show.
It's the birthday of American composer and
pianist Harold
Arlen, born Hyman Arluck, in Buffalo (1905), the son of a musician.
In the mid-1920s he met lyricist Ted Koehler; together they collaborated on
such tunes as "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" and "I've
Got the World on A String." Among his many Broadway and Hollywood songs
are "It's Only A Paper Moon," "That Old Black Magic," and
"Somewhere Over the Rainbow."
It's the birthday of American reformer Susan
B. Anthony, born in Adams, Massachusetts (1820). She was a schoolteacher
and liberal Quaker who opposed slavery and favored 'temperance.' She campaigned
all her life for women's rights, including the right to vote. In 1869, she organized
the National Woman Suffrage Association with her friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
At 80 she retired as president of the National Woman Suffrage Association, but
remained an advocate and public speaker until her death in 1906.
It's the birthday of John Sutter, born Johann August Suter, in Kandern, Germany (1803). He came over to California, got 49,000 acres of land from Mexico, and built a sawmill, Sutter's Fort (1841), where gold was discovered in 1848. It was the beginning of the Gold Rush of 1849.
It's the birthday of Italian astronomer Galileo
Galilei, born in Pisa (1564). He devised a simple open-air thermometer
(1607), but his greatest breakthrough was to improve the refracting telescope
(1609). It made possible his confirmation of the theory of Copernicus, who insisted
that Aristotle was wrong: it's not the Earth that's the center of things, but
the Sun. Galileo's books were banned, and he was summoned to Rome to be tried
for heresy. In 1633 he was convicted, sentenced to house arrest for life, and
his books were ordered burned. He was forced either to renounce all his Copernican
beliefs or be tortured on the rack. While signing his declaration that the earth
was stationary, he muttered, "And yet
it moves." Confined to
his home, he continued to study physics and astronomy, until, in his seventies,
he grew completely blind.
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