Quotation: Henry David Thoreau about Unjust laws

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Discuss

 

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Today’s Birthday: LOUISE ARNER BOYD (1887)

Louise Arner Boyd (1887)

Boyd was an American explorer of Greenland and the Arctic and the first woman to fly over the North Pole. After the deaths of her parents and brothers, she inherited the family fortune and chartered the ship of famed explorer Roald Amundsen for a trip to the Arctic. She gained notoriety for hunting polar bears and was called “The Girl Who Tamed the Arctic.” She later canceled another expedition, stating, “How could I go on a pleasure trip when those 22 lives were at stake?” What had happened? More… Discuss

 

THE GRITO DEThis Day in the Yesrteryear: DOLORES: BATTLE CRY OF MEXICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE (1810)

The Grito de Dolores: Battle Cry of Mexican War of Independence (1810)

The revolutionary movements in the US and France did not go unnoticed in Mexico, which had been subjugated by Spain centuries earlier. When Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808, many Mexicans saw an opportunity to claim their own freedom. In 1810, revolutionary priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla launched the Mexican War of Independence with his Grito de Dolores—”Cry of Dolores”—a call to freedom that roused the peasants to action and became their battle cry. How is the event commemorated today? More… Discuss

 

Schrödinger’s Cat in Popular Culture

In 1935, Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger applied quantum-mechanical indeterminacy to an admittedly “ridiculous” thought experiment in which a cat is closed in a box with a vial of poison that will smash if a radioactive atom decays. The two possible yet mutually exclusive states—the cat being alive or dead—coexist until the box is opened and the cat’s fate is seen. Writers have pounced on the idea, weaving it into TV shows, books, and movies. What TV character referenced it after a kiss? More… Discuss

 

Word: STAID

staid 

Definition:	(adjective) Characterized by sedate dignity and often a strait-laced sense of propriety.
Synonyms:	serious, sober, quiet, calm, grave, steady, composed, solemn
Usage:	I instinctively stood up a little straighter when the staid duke entered the parlor. Discuss.