As imperceptibly as Grief
by Emily Dickinson

As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away—
Too imperceptible at last,
To seem like Perfidy—
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon—
The Dusk drew earlier in—
The Morning foreign shone—
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, that would be gone—
And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful.


“As imperceptibly as Grief” by Emily Dickinson. Public Domain. (buy now)

Today is Election Day. Millions of people across the country will be going to the polls today to elect new legislators, judges, sheriffs, school board members, and of course, the president. This year in particular, millions of others will have voted by mail already or dropped off their mail-in ballots.

The first federal election under the U.S. Constitution was held in 1788, and it had the lowest turnout in the history of American elections. Only 11 percent of eligible voters voted. To be eligible to vote at the time, you had to be a white male property owner. But different states had trouble defining what a property owner was.

In Pennsylvania, you just had to prove that you paid taxes. In New York, you had to prove that your estate was worth a certain amount of money. If your estate was greater than 20 pounds, you could vote for state assembly, but your estate had to be worth more than 100 pounds to vote for senator or governor. In Connecticut, you had to be a white male property owner "of a quiet and peaceable behavior and civil conversation."

In order to vote in that first election, voters had to travel many miles to the nearest polling place, which was often a tavern. There they met the candidates for their district's seat on the state assembly. In many precincts, there were no ballots. Voters announced their votes to the sheriff in loud, clear voices, and then stood by the candidate they had voted for, who usually offered them something to drink.

It wasn't until 1820 that some American voters in every state were able to vote in the presidential election. Before that, many states simply let the state legislators choose presidential electors who cast votes for president. Even after voters began choosing presidential electors themselves, different states held Election Day on different dates. The first uniform Election Day took place on November 4, 1845.

For the first 50 years of American elections, only 15 percent of the adult population was eligible to vote. Thomas Dorr was one of the first politicians to argue that poor people should be given voting rights. As a member of the Rhode Island legislature, Dorr argued that all white adult men should have the vote, regardless of their wealth. He incited a riot to protest the governor's election of 1842 and went to prison for treason, but most states began to let poor white men vote soon after. Women won the right to vote in 1920, and many African-Americans were prevented from voting throughout the South until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Widespread voter suppression still happens today, sometimes against specific groups or with specific political motivation.

John Quincy Adams said: "Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."

Rosa Luxemburg said: "Without general elections, without unrestrained freedom of the press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution." (books by this author)

Mark Twain said: "If there is any valuable difference between a monarchist and an American, it lies in the theory that the American can decide for himself what is patriotic and what isn't. I claim that difference. I am the only person in the 60 millions that is privileged to dictate my patriotism." (books by this author)

Today is the birthday of playwright Terrence McNally (1939-2020) (books by this author), born in St. Petersburg, Florida, and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas. His first play was produced in 1964, when he was 25 years old. He received generally favorable reviews, but his first big success didn't come until 1987, with Frankie and Johnny at the Clair de Lune, the story of a middle-aged cook and a frumpy waitress who find love in the diner where they both work. Kiss of the Spider Woman (1992) was his first foray into musical theatre; he also co-wrote a musical adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime (novel, 1975; play, 1997). He wrote several plays about gay life in New York City, including Lips Together, Teeth Apart (1991); Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994); and Corpus Christi (1997).

He said, "If a play isn't worth dying for, maybe it isn't worth writing."

A little dog named Laika was launched into space aboard Sputnik 2 on this date in 1957. The mission for Sputnik 2 was to determine if a living animal could survive being launched into orbit. Laika was a stray that had been picked up from the Moscow streets, a 13-pound mutt with perky ears, a curly tail, and uncertain ancestry. She probably had a little spitz or terrier in her family tree, maybe a Siberian husky or even a beagle here and there. She was three years old, a good-natured dog that came to have several nicknames: Lemon, Little Curly, and Little Bug. Her name, Laika, means "barker" and was a generic term applied to all spitz-type dogs. The American press called her "Muttnik." The Soviet space program deliberately chose strays for their missions because it was felt that they had proven themselves to be hardy, having already survived deprivation, extremes in temperature, and stress.

Laika was the first animal to orbit the Earth. She was harnessed inside a snug, padded cabin with some ability to move, but not much. The capsule was climate-controlled, and she had access to food and water, and there were electrodes monitoring her vital signs, but everyone knew the capsule was not designed to return to Earth in one piece. Knowing that Laika had little time to live, one of the scientists took her home to play with his children a few days before the launch.

For many years, reports of her death were inconsistent; one report said that she lived for six days, until her oxygen ran out. The Soviet government insisted she had been euthanized via a pre-planned poisoned food portion prior to that, to make her death more humane. In 1999, it was revealed that vital signs ceased to be transmitted about five to seven hours after the launch, possibly because the booster rocket failed to separate from the capsule, causing the thermal control system to malfunction and the cabin to become unbearably hot.

In 1998, after the fall of the Soviet Union, one of the scientists spoke of his regret for Laika. He said: "Work with animals is a source of suffering to all of us. We treat them like babies who cannot speak. The more time passes, the more I'm sorry about it. We shouldn't have done it ... We did not learn enough from this mission to justify the death of the dog."

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.^®

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