Month: September 2024

Constitution Week (Mesa, Arizona)

Mesa, Arizona, has consistently celebrated the Congressionally established Constitution Week for over 30 years. Held at the Mesa Amphitheater, the celebration includes a school band concert, a Constitution Quiz, a Boy Scouts parade of flags, the high school color guard ROTC, and live music. Educational activities include information about the lives and activities of America’s Founding Fathers and an in-depth examination of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Mesa students at all grade levels learn about the U.S. Constitution during the week. Discuss

James Dewar (1842)

Dewar was a British chemist and physicist best known for his work on the properties of matter at very low temperatures and the liquefaction of gases. In the course of his work, he liquefied and solidified hydrogen and invented the Dewar flask. Used for storing liquefied gases, his Dewar flask—a double-walled flask with an insulating vacuum between the inner and outer walls—became essential in low-temperature scientific work. What everyday item was patterned after Dewar’s flask? Discuss

The Loudness War

The music industry’s tendency to record, produce, and broadcast music at progressively increasing levels of loudness to create a distinct sound is known as the Loudness War. Because the maximum amplitude of recorded music cannot be increased, overall loudness can only be boosted by reducing the dynamic range of source audio and distorting recordings, leading to complaints from some audiophiles. What 1997 remix of a 1973 album is considered by some to be the loudest rock CD ever recorded? Discuss

"Mama" Cass Elliot (1941)

Elliot was an American singer and member of the vocal group The Mamas & the Papas. After the group broke up, she had a successful solo career, releasing several studio albums. In 1974, after a series of performances at the London Palladium, Elliot was found dead in an apartment loaned to her by singer Harry Nilsson—the same apartment where drummer Keith Moon died four years later. Although Elliot died from a heart attack, an often repeated urban myth states that she died by choking on what? Discuss

Synchronicity

A term coined by psychologist Carl Jung to describe what he called “meaningful coincidences,” synchronicity is the experience of two or more causally unrelated events that are conceptually similar and have very little chance of occurring together randomly—such as the discovery of the same idea by two different people at approximately the same time. Although Jung had introduced the concept of synchronicity in the 1920s, he did not fully explain it until when? Discuss

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Is Formed (1998)

ICANN is a nonprofit corporation that manages domain name systems, the assignment of IP addresses and protocol parameters, and root server systems. The original mandate for ICANN came from a US government proposal to privatize the management of Internet names and addresses to allow for the development of competition and to facilitate global participation in Internet management. Its functions are now performed under US Government contract. What are some criticisms of the organization? Discuss

Samuel Johnson (1709)

Johnson was a British man of letters and one of the outstanding figures of 18th-century England. In 1755, after eight years of work, he published his monumental Dictionary of the English Language, considered the first great English dictionary. His aphorisms helped make him one of the most frequently quoted English writers. His biography, written by his contemporary James Boswell, is one of the most admired biographies of all time. How many entries did Johnson’s dictionary include? Discuss

Wish Trees

Identified by the faithful as possessing special spiritual value, wish trees are individual trees which have been distinguished—often by species, position, or appearance—as the objects of wishes. Visitors commonly offer up coins, liquor, and other gifts in order to gain fulfillment of their desires. Among the most famous wish tree visitors was Queen Victoria, whose 1877 visit to an oak in the Scottish Highlands brought it much fame. How are Christmas trees connected to the concept of wish trees? Discuss