Juneteenth etc.

An important date in Identity history:

Today is Juneteenth, also known as “Freedom Day” or “Emancipation Day.” It’s a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. It was on this date in 1865 that Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to spread the word that slavery had been abolished. Of course, the Emancipation Proclamation had gone into effect some two and a half years earlier, in January 1863; most Confederate states ignored it until they were forced to free their slaves by advancing Union troops.

From the balcony of Galveston’s Ashton Villa, General Gordon read the contents of General Order Number Three: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”

And

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed by the United States Senate on this date, 55 years ago. It’s often viewed as the most important United States civil rights legislation since the Reconstruction, and it prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in employment, voting, and the use of public facilities. It was first proposed in 1963 by President Kennedy, but failed to pass. Lyndon Johnson put forward a more robust version the following year, but it had faced a long battle in Congress, including a 57-day filibuster organized by Richard B. Russell. Eventually, the Senate voted to end the filibuster and passed the act, with a 71-29 vote.

And

It’s the birthday of mathematician, physicist, and theologian Blaise Pascal (books by this author), born in Clermont-Ferrand, France (1623). A child prodigy, by the time he was 19 he had already perfected the first mechanical calculator for sale to the public. In the field of physics, he discovered that air has weight, and he conducted experiments to prove that vacuums could exist, which led him to formulate the hydraulic principle that “pressure exerted on a fluid in a closed vessel is transmitted unchanged throughout the fluid.” This principle is used today in devices such as syringes, hydraulic presses, automobile brakes, and aircraft controls. In mathematics, he founded the theory of probabilities and developed an early form of integral calculus.

He spent much of his life in conflict between science and religion, and was one of the first philosophers to seriously question the existence of God. But in 1654, he experienced a revelation, the account of which he carried sewn into his coat lining until his death. He came to the conclusion that there was no science to prove God exists; instead, humans must rely on their faith. He produced two great works of religious philosophy, Lettres Provinciales (Provincial Letters, 1657) and Pensées (Thoughts, 1658).

Blaise Pascal, who wrote, “In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.” [Pascal also said the stars and the vastness of space frightened him, that the heart knows things the head never can, that most of our trouble is due to our inability to sit alone quietly in a room, that
"men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction," and - in a statement that goes to the heart of the mystery of our identity as humans - "man is to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for he cannot conceive what the body is, still less what the mind is, and least of all how a body should be united to a mind. This is the consummation of his difficulties, and yet it is his very being."]

And

It’s the birthday of the music journalist and cultural critic Greil Marcus (books by this author), born in San Francisco (1945). He was named for his father, Greil Gerstley, who was killed in World War II before Marcus was born. Gerstley served on a Navy ship, one of three that were deliberately sent into a typhoon. Although the other officers urged him to mutiny, Gerstley refused, and all three ships sank. The incident inspired Herman Wouk’s novel The Caine Mutiny (1952). Gerstley’s son was born six months later, and when the boy was three years old, his mother married Gerald Marcus. Gerstley’s death was never discussed, and Marcus was an adult before he knew the full story of how his father died.

Greil Marcus said: “All our lives, from the time we became sentient beings and lost our lives to Little Richard and Elvis Presley, people were telling us ‘you’re going to outgrow this’…But when the Beatles showed up … suddenly we realized, ‘no, you don’t have to outgrow this.’ You can’t outgrow this, you shouldn’t outgrow this, and you won’t outgrow this.” WA

And

Today is the birthday of novelist Salman Rushdie, (books by this author) born in Bombay (now Mumbai), India (1947). He was born just two months before India gained independence from Great Britain. The Indian subcontinent got divided up into two countries: India, which was mostly Hindu, and Pakistan, which was mostly Muslim. Rushdie's family was Muslim... 

And here's a poem for today,

Compulsively Allergic to the Truth

by Jeffrey McDaniel

I'm sorry I was late.
I was pulled over by a cop
for driving blindfolded
with a raspberry-scented candle
flickering in my mouth.
I'm sorry I was late.
I was on my way
when I felt a plot
thickening in my arm.
I have a fear of heights.
Luckily the Earth
is on the second floor
of the universe.
I am not the egg man.
I am the owl
who just witnessed
another tree fall over
in the forest of your life.
I am your father
shaking his head
at the thought of you.
I am his words dissolving
in your mind like footprints
in a rainstorm.
I am a long-legged martini.
I am feeding olives
to the bull inside you.
I am decorating
your labyrinth,
tacking up snapshots
of all the people
who've gotten lost
in your corridors.

"Compulsively Allergic to the Truth" by Jeffrey McDaniel, from The Endarkenment. © University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008