Dogs
by Aaron Kramer

Looking foolish next to the tree in a one o'clock rain:
umbrella aloft, the leash in my other hand—
I wanted my late-coming neighbor to understand
that dogs are worth the expense, inconvenience, and pain;

their tails are truthful, no coiled rebellion beneath
a loving look; they are quick to kiss you, and quick
to fetch for you, and —should you raise a stick
threateningly—they are quick to show their teeth;

and better still (but this I never revealed),
when you bring downfall home, the death of a hope,
their nonchalant manner does more for you than a drink;
and best of all, when triumph's to be unsealed,
such lack of respect they show for the envelope,
—your fingers halt, the brain cools, and you think.


David Kramer, "Dogs" from Wicked Times ©2004 University of Illinois Press. Reprinted with permission.

On this day in 1898 the French novelist Émile Zola was found guilty of libel for writing "J'accuse" in an open letter to the French government. It accused the government and the military court of deliberately mishandling the case of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer who was wrongly accused of giving intelligence information to Germany. People were eager to convict a Jewish man and Dreyfus was given a life sentence and sent into solitary confinement on Devil's Island. Soon after the government found conclusive evidence that another man, Ferdinand Esterhazy, was actually guilty of the crime. But to save face the military and the government produced false evidence to acquit Esterhazy and confirm Dreyfus' guilt.

Émile Zola was a prolific novelist and a well-respected public intellectual. Two days after Esterhazy was acquitted, his 4,000-word letter took up the entire front page of the French newspaper L'Aurore, with its one-word title, "J'accuse!" ("I accuse!"). Zola took apart the case, proved Dreyfus' innocence and Esterhazy's guilt, exposed the government cover-up, and directly accused government and military figures of anti-Semitism and abusing the justice system.

Zola was well-known outside of France and "J'accuse" brought the Dreyfus case to the attention of the international community. After reading it most believed that Dreyfus was innocent. Zola was arrested for libel and his trial got a lot of media coverage. In the courtroom people screamed and got in brawls and mobs tried to attack Zola as he left each day. He was convicted on this day in 1898 and ordered to spend a year in jail. He escaped to England where he lived in exile. But in less than two years a new court reversed Dreyfus' sentence and dropped the libel charge against Zola. Both men returned to France and in 1906 Dreyfus was reinstated in the army.

It was on this day in 1821, that poet John Keats (books by this author) died at the age of 25. He had been sick with tuberculosis. He was buried at the Protestant Cemetery in Rome with a gravestone bearing the epitaph: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."

The English Romantic poet is remembered for his sonnets and for long poems like "Ode to a Nightingale," "To Autumn," and "The Eve of St. Agnes." And he's remembered for having written some of the most beautiful love letters in the English language. He once wrote to his beloved Fanny Brawne in July 1819:

"Even when I am not thinking of you I receive your influence and a tenderer nature steeling upon me. All my thoughts, my unhappiest days and nights have I find not at all cured me of my love of Beauty, but made it so intense that I am miserable that you are not with me: or rather, breathe in that dull sort of patience that cannot be called Life. I never knew before, what such a love as you have made me feel, was; I did not believe in it; my Fancy was afraid of it, lest it should burn me up. But if you will fully love me, though there may be some fire, 'twill not be more than we can bear when moistened and bedewed with Pleasures."

The following autumn he wrote to her these now-famous lines:

"I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion — I have shudder'd at it. I shudder no more — I could be martyr'd for my Religion — Love is my religion — I could die for that — I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet. You have ravish'd me away by a Power I cannot resist; and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavoured often ‘to reason against the reasons of my Love.’ I can do that no more — the pain would be too great — My Love is selfish — I cannot breathe without you."

A few days later he wrote, "I should like to cast the die for Love or death. I have no Patience with any thing else."

It was on this day in 1896 that the Tootsie Roll was introduced. It became America's first individually wrapped penny candy.

It was invented by a man named Leo Hirshfield who had been trained as a candy maker in Austria and then immigrated to New York City. He held a few different patents in the candy-making world, including one for a machine that deposited candy-goo into molds and another patent for a special bonbon-dipping machine.

At the time bonbons and other chocolate candy were mostly only for rich people since there wasn't yet a process to make chocolate durable, preservable, and hardy enough to travel. Generally, it would either melt or break down and crystallize after a short time. But Hirshfield came up with a recipe that included cocoa power and a corn syrupy base and he boiled down the concoction and found a way to package it cheaply and imperishably. He named the candy "Tootsie" after his daughter, Clara "Tootsie" Hirshfield. Other ingredients include sugar, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, condensed milk, soy lecithin, and a number of artificial flavors.

In 1931 the Tootsie Pop was introduced, and it was very popular during the Great Depression because it was so cheap. During World War II Tootsie Rolls — able to withstand all sorts of heat and cold and other elements in transit — were part of American soldiers' ration kits. Now there are about 62 million Tootsie Rolls manufactured around the world each day.

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

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