| Inertia
by Jane Kenyon
My head was heavy, heavy;
so was the atmosphere.
I had to ask two times
before my hand would scratch my ear.
I thought I should be out
and doing! The grass, for one thing,
needed mowing.
Just then a centipede
reared from the spine
of my open dictionary. lt tried
the air with enterprising feelers,
then made its way along the gorge
between 202 and 203. The valley of the shadow
of death came to mind
inexorably.
It can’t be easy for the left hand
to know what the right is doing.
And how, on such a day, when the sky
is hazy and perfunctory, how does it
get itself started without feeling
muddled and heavy-hearted?
Well, it had its fill of etymology.
I watched it pull its tail
over the edge of the page, and vanish
In a pile of mail.
Jane Kenyon, “Inertia” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2005 by The Estate of Jane Kenyon. Used by permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org. (buy now) It's the birthday of the Irish rock star Bono, born Paul Hewson in Dublin (1960). He's the lead singer of U2, and he writes almost all of the lyrics to the band's songs. U2 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the first year the band was eligible. Albums include The Joshua Tree (1987), Achtung Baby (1991), and most recently Songs of Experience (2017). Bono is well known for his philanthropic work related to AIDS, Africa, and for Third World debt relief. Today is the birthday of Bel Kaufman (1911) (books by this author). She was born in Berlin and grew up in Odesa and Kyiv. Granddaughter of the writer Sholem Aleichem, who wrote the stories that became Fiddler on the Roof. Kaufman taught in the New York public school system for 20 years. She had a terrible time passing the oral exam to get her teaching certificate because of her Russian accent, but she finally did and eventually turned the frustrations of her teaching career into a novel. It was called Up the Down Staircase (1965), and the story was told through a collection of letters, notes, and school memos. Kaufman died July 25, 2014, at the age of 103. It's the birthday of Suzan-Lori Parks (books by this author), born in Fort Knox, Kentucky (1963). She went to college at Mount Holyoke, and while there had a chance to take a course with visiting writer James Baldwin. He asked everybody to read in front of the class and was impressed when Parks really tried to embody her characters by speaking in different voices. He suggested that she try playwriting. She hadn't been interested in drama at that point, but she later said, "When James Baldwin makes a suggestion, you listen." In 2002 she became the first African-American playwright to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama, for her play Topdog/Underdog. Her latest public work is as the scriptwriter for the film The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021). Today is the birthday of Jon Ronson (books by this author), born in Cardiff, Wales (1967). He's best known for his nonfiction book The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004) about a secret, idealistic New Age movement within the U.S. military that began in the late 1970s. The Army was interested in the military applications of the paranormal and conducted research on walking through walls and remote spying through thought. Ronson's book title comes from his investigation of a former head of intelligence, Major General Stubblebine, who believed that, with preparation and mindful channeling, thought could be weaponized. Ronson's most recent novel is So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed (2015) and his most recent publication is The Elephant in the Room: A Journey into the Trump Campaign and the “Alt-Right” (2016). It was on this day in 1893 that the Supreme Court ruled that the tomato was a vegetable, not a fruit. Their ruling was in light of a 10-year-old piece of legislation called the Tariff Act of 1883 which ruled that a 10 percent tax had to be paid on all imported vegetables. The case, known as Nix v. Hedden, was filed by John Nix and several other tomato importers against Edward Hedden, the Collector of Customs at the Port of New York. The case wound up in the Supreme Court, where Webster’s Dictionary was heavily cited. The plaintiffs argued that according to the dictionary definition of fruit — the structure that grows from the flower of the plant and holds the seeds — a tomato was a fruit. They called two witnesses, both of whom heard the definitions of "fruit" and "vegetable" out of the dictionary and were asked whether those definitions were any different in the world of trade and commerce. Both talked for a while but said no, the definitions were no different. The counsel for the plaintiff then read the definition of tomato. Each side then proceeded to read a series of Webster’s Dictionary definitions. The counsel for the defense read "egg plant," "squash," "pepper," and "cucumber" — all of which, like tomato, are fruits in the botanical sense — but which are widely considered vegetables. In response, the counsel for the plaintiff read the definitions of "potato," "turnip," "parsnip," "cauliflower," "cabbage," and "carrot," none of them botanical fruits but all considered vegetables. Justice Gray delivered the opinion of the Court, and he said: "Botanically speaking, tomatoes are the fruit of a vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas. But in the common language of the people, whether sellers or consumers of provisions, all these are vegetables which are grown in kitchen gardens, and which, whether eaten cooked or raw, are, like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, and lettuce, usually served at dinner in, with, or after the soup, fish, or meats which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not, like fruits generally, as dessert." Nix v. Hedden has been referenced in numerous cases since, including a 1990 Second Circuit Court of Appeals case about a delay in a tomato shipment. The judge wrote: "In common parlance tomatoes are vegetables, as the Supreme Court observed long ago, see Nix v. Hedden, although botanically speaking they are actually a fruit. Regardless of classification, people have been enjoying tomatoes for centuries, even Mr. Pickwick, as Dickens relates, ate his chops in ‘tomata’ sauce." The debate has continued, but the problem is that "vegetable" has no actual scientific or botanical definition — it is a culinary term. In 1987 the State of Arkansas designated the Vine Ripe Pink Tomato as their official state fruit and vegetable. Tomatoes were slow to catch on in the United States — in 1845 the editor of the Boston Courier wrote that tomatoes were "the mere fungus of an offensive plant, which one cannot touch without an immediate application of soap and water with an infusion of eau de cologne ... deliver us, O ye caterers of luxuries, ye gods and goddesses of the science of cookery! deliver us from tomatoes!" This opinion was echoed over and over again by journalists, agricultural experts, farmers, and gardeners across the country. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® | 