This April is checkered with notable anniversaries, some of which I’ve clustered here. Today, April 25, happens to be the 50th anniversary of the first practical solar cell, created by (no surprise) Bell Labs. Development and improvements have continued since then, to the point that we can now have solar farms to harvest sunshine, something nature has done through photosynthesis for billions of years, but we are learning.
This year notes the 300th anniversary of the birth of Emanuel Kant. His name is not a household word, but he was perhaps the first modern systematic philosopher. His ethics propounded that one’s actions must be based on principles that apply to all and which respect all persons, not merely oneself. That’s about as close to the Golden Rule as an academic mind could craft.
Tragically, yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the Columbine school massacre in which two students shot and killed 12, before taking their own lives. It was perhaps the first significant school shooting, which have continued unabated since, including the Uvalde tragedy last year. It’s hard to comprehend that our society tolerates such child sacrifice in the seeming name of gun rights.
And last, and perhaps least to most, April is a month to celebrate poetry. With that and the looming rising of two midwestern sets of cicadas, thirteen and seventeen year broods that coincide this season. Our most recent uprising in my area was brood X in 2017, in whose honor I wrote the following bit of a poem.
