| How Many Nights
by Galway Kinnell How many nights
have I lain in terror,
O Creator Spirit, maker of night and day, only to walk out
the next morning over the frozen world,
hearing under the creaking snow
faint, peaceful breaths...
snake,
bear, earthworm, ant... and above me
a wild crow crying 'yaw, yaw, yaw'
from a branch nothing cried from ever in my life. "How Many Nights" by Galway Kinnell, from Three Books. © Houghton Mifflin, 2002. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)
Today is the birthday of British physicist Ernest Rutherford, born in Brightwater, New Zealand (1871). His parents moved to New Zealand, they said, “to raise a little flax and a lot of children,” and he grew up on the family farm with his 11 brothers and sisters. They were poor, and Rutherford later said that his motto was: “We haven’t the money, so we’ve got to think.” When he was 10 years old, he was given a science book, and he was so excited that he immediately began setting up scientific experiments. His first experiment was building a miniature cannon, which immediately exploded. Undeterred, he kept up his fascination with science throughout his schooling, and by the age of 23 he had three degrees from the University of New Zealand. He headed to Cambridge University to work as a graduate research assistant — the first time someone without a degree from Cambridge had won that honor. He invented a detector for electromagnetic waves, and he described the terms “alpha” and “beta” for positively and negatively charged radiation. He discovered the concept of radioactive half-life, and that atoms of one radioactive element could spontaneously turn into another. He is probably best known for developing a model of the atom, after discovering that most of the mass of an atom is concentrated in its tiny nucleus. Rutherford won a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1908. Although honored to win the Nobel, he was irritated that he had won it in chemistry, which he considered inferior to physics. He said, “All science is either physics or stamp collecting.”
It was on this day in 30 B.C. that Queen Cleopatra of Egypt killed herself with a snake she had smuggled into her chamber where she was held captive by Octavian, formerly the political rival of her lover Mark Antony. Octavian had defeated Cleopatra and Antony at the Battle of Actium and had taken Cleopatra prisoner. When Cleopatra learned that Octavian planned to parade her as part of his triumphant return to Rome, she planned her own suicide. For centuries, it was assumed that the snake she used was an asp, but it is now thought that the snake was an Egyptian cobra.
It's the birthday of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (books by this author), born Mary Godwin in London, England (1797). She is famous as the author of Frankenstein (1818), which is considered the first science fiction novel ever written. It begins: "It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. ... It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs."
It's the birthday of the journalist and humorist who said, "The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion." Molly Ivins (books by this author), born in Monterey, California (1944) and raised in Houston, Texas. She went to Smith and to Columbia's School of Journalism and spent years covering the police beat for the Minneapolis Tribune (the first woman to do so) before moving back to Texas, the setting and subject of much of her life's writing. Ivins especially liked to poke fun at the Texas Legislature, which she referred to as "the Lege." She gave George W. Bush the nickname "Shrub" and also referred to him as a post turtle (based on an old joke: the turtle didn't get there itself, doesn't belong there, and needs help getting out of the dilemma). She had actually known President Bush since they were teenagers in Houston. She poked fun at Democrats, too, and said about Bill Clinton: "If left to my own devices, I'd spend all my time pointing out that he's weaker than bus-station chili. But the man is so constantly subjected to such hideous and unfair abuse that I wind up standing up for him on the general principle that some fairness should be applied. Besides, no one but a fool or a Republican ever took him for a liberal." Clinton later said that Molly Ivins "was good when she praised me and painfully good when she criticized me." Her fiery liberal columns caused a lot of debate in Texas, with newspaper readers always writing in to complain. One time, she wrote about the Republican congressman from Dallas: "If his IQ slips any lower we'll have to water him twice a day." It generated a storm of controversy, and the paper she wrote for decided to use it to their advantage, to boost readership. They started placing advertisements on billboards all over Dallas that said, "Molly Ivins can't say that ... can she?" She used the line as the title of her first book (published in 1991). She went on to write several best-selling books, including Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush — which was actually written and published in 2000, before George W. Bush had been elected to the White House. Ivins later said, "The next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please, pay attention." Molly Ivins died of breast cancer in 2007 at the age of 62. She once wrote: "Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that." Molly Ivins once said: "I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives." Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® | 
