Tom Paine has almost no influence on present-day thinking in the United States because he is unknown to the average citizen. Perhaps I might say right here that this is a national loss and a deplorable lack of understanding concerning the man who first proposed and first wrote those impressive words, ’the United States of America.’ But it is hardly strange. Paine’s teachings have been debarred from schools everywhere and his views of life misrepresented until his memory is hidden in shadows, or he is looked upon as of unsound mind.
Thomas Edison, Essay in The Diary and Sundry Observations (1948) edited by Dagobert D. Runes
- Omega2 Cygni (Wikipedia)
Omega2 Cygni, Latinized from ω2 Cygni, is the Bayer designation for a solitary star in the northern constellation of Cygnus. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 5.5, which is faintly visible to the naked eye on a dark night. Based upon an annual parallax shift of 8.17 mas, it is located roughly 399 light years from the Sun. At that distance, the visual magnitude is diminished by an extinction factor of 0.08 due to interstellar dust.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Memory (plato.standford.edu)
Memory plays important roles in many areas of philosophy. It is vital to our knowledge of the world in general and of the personal past in particular. It underwrites our identities as individuals and our ties to other people.
