By the end of the beating, his body was just trying to survive. You left him out there by himself, but he wasn’t alone. There were his lifelong friends with him—friends that he had grown up with. You’re probably wondering who these friends were. First, he had the beautiful night sky with the same stars and moon that we used to look at through a telescope. Then, he had the daylight and the sun to shine on him one more time—one more cool, wonderful autumn day in Wyoming. His last day alive in Wyoming. His last day alive in the state that he always proudly called home. And through it all he was breathing in for the last time the smell of Wyoming sagebrush and the scent of pine trees from the snowy range. He heard the wind—the ever-present Wyoming wind—for the last time. He had one more friend with him. One he grew to know through his time in Sunday school and as an acolyte at St. Mark’s in Casper as well as through his visits to St. Matthew’s in Laramie. He had God.

I feel better knowing he wasn’t alone.

Matt’s beating, hospitalization, and funeral focused worldwide attention on hate. Good is coming out of evil. People have said “Enough is enough.” You screwed up, Mr. McKinney. You made the world realize that a person’s lifestyle is not a reason for discrimination, intolerance, persecution, and violence. This is not the 1920s, 30s, and 40s of Nazi Germany. My son died because of your ignorance and intolerance. I can’t bring him back. But I can do my best to see that this never, ever happens to another person or another family again. As I mentioned earlier, my son has become a symbol—a symbol against hate and people like you; a symbol for encouraging respect for individuality; for appreciating that someone is different; for tolerance. I miss my son, but I’m proud to be able to say that he is my son.

After six months of intensive study, repetition of incantations, and ascetic exercises, the oldest of the three students [studying the Kabala with a Kabalist], Yiddele, fell inexplicably ill. He lost his power of speech, his will to live, and subsided into what seemed to be a near-catatonic state. Psychologists and neurologists were consulted, prayers were said, but to no avail. Yiddele never recovered. After another interval, the second student, Sruli, fell ill, with similar symptoms.

[...]

[Eliezer] says that he was sure that had the Germans not entered Sighet [his hometown, where he lived] the following spring in 1944, he would have suffered the same fate as his two comrades. "Thus it was the killers who 'saved' me," he says now with deep irony. "Woe unto me, it is to them that I owe the fact that I was spared."

For many Jews in Auschwitz that thought came to them in blinding rushes, not as piety (God suffering as a human being), nor as a poetic reflection of man's inhumanity to man. Wiesel found himself the youngest witness to an amazing "trial" one evening in which three fellow concentration camp inmates, rabbinical scholars, actually "sued"—to use Wiesel's own words—God. They asked Him to answer why He had allowed such indescribable suffering to happen to His own people. Later, Wiesel developed this profound and anguished questioning into a play, The Trial of God, which transposes the "trial" he himself witnessed to a Jewish community in Shamgorod, the Ukraine, after an actual pogrom in 1649.

"Yes, we practiced religion even in a death camp," he wrote. "I said my prayers every day."

He and Elie had somehow stuck together for the seven months they had been in Auschwitz and had even survived the nightmarish evacuation to the West. But though he was seriously ill, the medical staff considered him too far gone to bother trying to keep alive. Even in his last few hours, animal-like neighbors on the boarded bunks stole from him the last crumbs of bread and soup. At night he was still barely alive, but by dawn, when Wiesel awoke he had died and they already had dragged his body away. "I did not weep," Wiesel wrote in Night, "and it painted me that I could not weep. But I had no more tears."

A chance photograph of Wiesel with other young orphans in a French newspaper brought him back into contact with his sisters. His eldest sister, Hilda, who had married another camp survivor, had moved to Paris to live. She had seen Elie's picture in a newspaper article about the orphans and contacted the orphanage director. The following day she and Elie met in Paris and embraced in mutual anguish. She told him that Bea, Elie's other sister, was also alive, but was living in a Displaced Person's Camp in Kassel, Germany.

One day, providentially, as he thought, he attended a reception at the Israeli Embassy in Paris and ran into France's most recent Nobel laureate for literature, François Mauriac. At last, Wiesel thought to himself, a chance to get to Mendès-France. Mauriac and he were known to be very close. Affably, Mauriac agreed to an interview with the young reporter and set a day and a time. A devout Roman Catholic whose behavior during the German occupation had been impeccable, he was used to being interviewed on his past, on literature, and on events in contemporary French political life. He was an expert on this too. He didn't know that Wiesel only wanted to use him as a slingshot to get to Mendès-France.

Wiesel showed up nervous and chain-smoking at the appointed time at Mauriac's Paris apartment. The older man was gracious and quickly put Wiesel at his ease. Instead of sitting back to receive the reporter's questions, through, he began to speak with even greater passion about his favorite topic, Jesus Christ. He spoke warmly about his feelings toward Israel, toward the Jews in general, a people, he said who had been martyrs throughout history. For Mauriac, Wiesel noticed with some irritation, it was as though everything in creation had some connection to Jesus.

"Every reference led back to him," Wiesel wrote in one of his earliest accounts of the meeting. "Jerusalem? The eternal city," Wiesel describes Mauriac as continuing, "where Jesus turned his disciples into apostles. The Bible? The Old Testament, which thanks to Jesus of Nazareth, succeeded in enriching itself with a New Testament. Mendez-France? A Jew both brave and hated, not unlike Jesus a long time ago. ..." As for Jesus, Wiesel wrote later, "when [Mauriac] spoke his name, his smile seemed to turn inward. Once started, he had no wish to change the subject."

The monologue, however eloquent and fascinating it was, finally triggered something off in Wiesel. All of his anger at Christian anti-Semitism over the centuries, his own accumulated grief from Sighet, Auschwitz, and Buchenwald, suddenly boiled over. He closed his notebook and stood up angrily. "Sir," he said to the still-seated Mauriac,

You speak of Christ. Christians love to speak of him. The passion of Christ, the agony of Christ, the death of Christ. In your religion, that is all you speak of. Well, I want you to know that ten years ago, not very far from here, I knew Jewish children every one of whom suffered a thousand times more, six million times more, than Christ on the cross. And we don't speak about them. Can you understand that, sir? We don't speak about them.

Mauriac went pale. He said nothing, but still seated on the sofa with a woolen blanket around him, he gazed back at Wiesel, as if expecting to hear more. But Wiesel was already on the way out, closing the apartment door after him and pressing the buzzer for the elevator.

The door behind him quietly opened again, and there was Mauriac, gently taking Wiesel's arm and asking him to come back into the apartment once more. After they had both sat down without saying anything else, Muriac began to weep, still looking at Wiesel, but engulfed in grief. For a long time the tears simply streamed down his face. Wiesel began to feel remorse for his own rudeness and harshness.

Wiesel wanted to apologize, but Mauriac wouldn't let him. Instead, he wanted to know everything about Wiesel's experience, his parents, the trains, the camps. He asked why Wiesel had not written all of this down. Wiesel told him about his vow to remain silent for ten years. Mauriac wanted to know about this too. Then, escorting him back to the elevator, he told the much younger man, "I think that you are wrong. You are wrong not to speak. ... Listen to the old man that I am: one must speak out—one must also speak out."

[...]

"The fact is that, practically, I owe Francois Mauriac my career," Wiesel has said. "He was a Christian, and we were very close friends. Had it not been for Mauriac, I would have become or remained an obscure writer, a journalist." "I owe him a lot," Wiesel freely admits about Mauriac. "I don't know how I would have fared without Mauriac. He kept a watchful eye on my literary efforts." Very specifically, it was to Mauriac that Wiesel first sent the manuscript of Night in its first French edition (La Nuit), a year after their first meeting. It was to become the launching pad of Wiesel's rapid rise to international fame as a writer.

Willie Mays was not the first black ballplayer, but he had his own barrier to break through, a kind of gentle, good-natured racism, but racism nonetheless. Remember, when he came up, people would say, "What an instinctive ballplayer he is. What a natural ballplayer he is. What childlike enthusiasm."

Well, 30 years on, we can hear, with our better-trained ears, the racism in that.

He was wonderfully gifted, yes. Great natural gifts, yes. But no one ever got to the major leagues -- no one got to the major league -- on natural gifts without an awful lot of refining work.

Sure he was a great instinctive ballplayer, but he was also a tremendously smart ballplayer. As a rookie, he'd get to second base, watch two batters come to the plate, and he would go back to the dugout having stolen the signs and decoded the sequence, he'd know the indicator sign from the other signs.

Willie Mays, natural ballplayer, sure.

Hardest-working ballplayer y'ever saw.

For Oberlin, the first shard of evidence of the town's involvement in the Underground Railroad comes a private letter about an 1837 event. At that time, there were few, if any, black families in Oberlin, and only a handful of students of color in the college and its preparatory department. But one Saturday, a former Oberlin student brought a wagon load of escapees through Oberlin; they took supper in the college dining hall, where students crowded around them. On the Sabbath, they rested in Evangelically correction Oberlin, and on the following Monday were sent on their way with a guard of students assuring their safe passage.

In 1974, Spear became the first openly gay male legislator in the nation. He served for many years in the Minnesota Senate, ultimately as President, and was the chief Senate author of Minnesota’s 1993 GLBT rights bill, extending protection from discrimination in employment, education, and housing to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Minnesotans.

I went to a gay dance there once -- the first memorial Anita Bryant Gay Dance. Had fun. Nobody pressured me to do anything, which I liked. [My mother was raised in a military family, and socialization was often ... encouraged regardless of if one was going to have any fun doing it.]

Lots of flamingly gay men there -- especially organ majors, who seem to be gay almost everywhere. One of the other classics majors (which counts Greek, Latin, and classical civ. as classics) wore a button that said "How DARE you assume I'm heterosexual?"

It's still known as being academically very selective, but I don't think it's as selective as it used to was. It's huge on minorities, unless of course you're a Christian or pro-life or something; then you're kind of suspect. Same for Republicans. Straight people are okay.

There's a rock in Tappan Square (center of town, edge of campus) that people paint when they feel strongly about something. But that's probably pretty standard. Lots of places have that kind of thing. The college came before the town; the town exists because of the college. Still, there's the usual town-gown tension. But it's not as bad as it could be, because students aren't allowed to have cars on campus without a really great reason, like "I have to go to a psychiatrist in Cleveland every week."

And the town is probably still dry -- you can check that out. So there's a restaurant about .25" north of town that serves liquor, where of course my dad always had to take us. Anyway, you need to be friends with somebody over 21 and with a car to get liquor. Booze wasn't hot when I was there. Pot was. I remember I put some soil in a potted plant I had (a hoya plant) and after a few weeks, pot grew!

[My mother took the plant home, with the help of her boyfriend and his very, very conservative parents, who didn't know it was pot.] My mother used to not water it and hope it would die. And then she'd take pity on the poor wilting plant and water it, and it would perk right up again. You understand, I never smoked pot, but it was everywhere at Oberlin.

And I really never did smoke it, honey, but I'm one of about 10 people in my generation who didn't. Considering the drugs I'd been on for asthma, with their scary side effects, I wouldn't do drugs. It wasn't worth it for me. I wonder if they're big on drinking now, as every other college seems to be

My friend Alvin was the one who was taking tennis but had bad hand-ball coordination. He was gay. He'd tell people three things within 20 minutes of meeting them: he was gay, high church Episcopalian, and a fiscal conservative.

Bell Ringer Henry Stone machined the crack into a half-inch slot 24 inches long and inserted two, copper rivets to prevent the two edges of the crack from rubbing together. The filings were collected and cast into a small bell.

The [b]ell was sent from England on the ship Hibernia, captained by William Child.

I 'membahs de time when mah mammy wah alive, I wah a small chile, afoah dey tuck huh t' Rims Crick. All us chillens wah playin' in de ya'd one night. Jes' arunnin' an' aplayin' lak chillun will. All a sudden mammy cum to de do' all a'sited. "Cum in heah dis minnit," she say. "Jes look up at what is ahappenin'," and bless yo' life, honey, da sta's wah fallin' jes' lak rain.* Mammy wah tebble skeered, but we chillen wa'nt afeard, no, we wa'nt afeard. But mammy she say evah time a sta' fall, somebuddy gonna die. Look lak lotta folks gonna die f'om de looks ob dem sta's. Ebbathin' wah jes' as bright as day. Yo' cudda pick a pin up. Yo' know de sta's don' shine as bright as dey did back den. I wondah wy dey don'. Dey jes' don' shine as bright. Wa'nt long afoah dey took mah mammy away, and I wah lef' alone.

*(One of the most spectacular meteoric showers on record, visible all over North America, occurred in 1833.)

I remember the time when my mommy was alive. I was a small child, before they took her to Rims Creek [Valley, North Carolina?]. All of us children were playing in the yard one night. Just running and playing like children will. All of a sudden, mommy came to the door all excited. "Come in hear this minute," she said. "Just look up at what is happening," and bless your life, honey, the stars were falling just like rain. Mommy was terribly scared, but we children weren't afraid, no, we weren't afraid. But mommy, she said every time a star falls, somebody's going to die. Looked like a lot of folks were going to die from the looks of those stars. Everything was just as bright as day. You could have picked a pin up. You know the stars don't shine as brightly as they did back then. I wonder why they don't. They just don't shine as brightly. Wasn't long before they took my mommy away, and I was left alone.

When de day begin to crack de whole plantation break out wid all kinds of noises, and you could tell what going on by de kind of noise you hear.

Come de daybreak you hear de guinea fowls start potracking down at the edge of de woods lot, and den de roosters all start up 'round de barn and de ducks finally wake up and jine in. You can smell de sow belly frying down at the cabins in de "row," to go wid de hoecake and de buttermilk.

Den purty soon de wind rise a little, and you can hear a old bell donging way on some plantation a mile or two off, and den more bells at other places and maybe a horn, and purty soon younder go old Master's old ram horn wid a long toot and den some short toots, and here come de overseer down de row of cabins, hollering right and left, and picking de ham out'n his teeth wid a long shiny goose quill pick.

Bells and horns! Bells for dis and horns for dat! All we knowed was go and come by de bells and horns!

The grandson of former slaves from Holly Springs, Miss., [Roy] Wilkins was born in St. Louis, where his father worked himself to sullen exhaustion in a brick kiln across the river. The boy's mother died of tuberculosis (as would his sister and brother) when he was 5, but the children were blessed with a secure and happy upbringing in the St. Paul, Minn., home of their childless Uncle Sam and Aunt Elizabeth. Sam Williams, a railroad steward, taught Wilkins two unforgettable lessons: always to keep his fingernails clipped and clean and to do his best at school, because ''no one can ever steal an education away from a man.''

According to Wilkins, his was, for the most part, a pleasant childhood in a loving family, though not without its trials. His uncle, Sam Williams, worked for the Northern Pacific Railroad, managing the personal railroad car for the company president. The family was far from wealthy, but did not lack any of the basic necessities. Wilkins stayed close to his own “quiet neighborhood” and away from “the turf belonging to the Rice Street Gang, the toughest kids in the city,” where “the word ‘nigger’ was part of the equipment, along with other brickbats.” Despite these constraints, Wilkins would later say that it was in St. Paul that he first learned it was not impossible “for white people and black people to live next door to one another, to get along—even to love one another.”

As an editor at the Call, Wilkins waged a campaign to defeat racist Senator Henry J. Allen. This effort caught the attention of Walter White (see), executive secretary of the N.A.A.C.P., who urged Wilkins to move to New York and become his chief assistant in 1931. As White had done, Wilkins went on assignment to investigate lynchings and working conditions for African-Americans in the South. His 1932 report, "Mississippi Slave Labor," is credited with bringing Congressional action to improve the working conditions for blacks in levee labor camps.

Phenolphthalein is synthesized by condensation of phthalic anhydride with two equivalents of phenol under acidic conditions (hence the name). It was discovered in 1871 by Adolf von Baeyer.

Indol consists of shiny white laminae, which, however, soon assume a dark color under the influence of light and air. They melt at 52°, b. p. 253 to 254° (corr.). It is readily soluble in hot water and is volatile with water vapor. The common commercial article has an exceedingly disagreable, fecal odor. It is only when carefully purified that a product is obtained the odor of which is not decidedly disagreable and which when properly diluted reveals a floral odor.

Indole was first obtained by Baeyer by distilling with zinc dust, either oxindole, C4H4CH2NHCO, or the product obtained by reducing indigo with tin and hydrochloric acid.

At high dilution indole has a pleasant odor and is used in perfumery. Indole sticks around for ages and can be thought of as a fixative or base note in perfume. Apparently, it actually turns up in jasmine and orange blossom, of all things. I take this on faith, because the only times I’ve smelled indole in my lab, it’s been not-so-dilute, and I was wishing for that mediciney urinal cake smell to cover things up.

A German chemist, Adolph von Baeyer, founder of what was to become the Bayer Chemical Co., who in 1905 won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, happened in for some celebrating of his own. It was on that day that he had synthesized "malonylurea" from a reaction of urea with malonic acid, a chemical found in apples. No one knows exactly what he was trying to accomplish, but malonylurea became known as "Barbituric acid", making St. Barbara Day even more important!

In 1903, Fischer and von Mering were the first to synthesize a therapeutically active "barbiturate" by substituting two ethyl groups for two hydrogens attached to carbon. When they administered this new barbiturate to human subjects, the compound was found to induce sleep. The term for a drug that causes sleep induction is known as a somnolent or a hypnotic.

In the case of the death of my said Nephew without leaving a child or children, or the death of the child or children he may have had under the age of twenty-one years or intestate, I then bequeath the whole of my property subject to the Annuity of One Hundred pounds to John Fitall, & for the security & payment of which I mean Stock to remain in this Country, to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge among men.