Imagine being famous for your face while hardly anyone knows what you’re capable of. Hedy Lamarr was making Hollywood movies when she teame public domain image d up with composer George Antheil to develop a way to make radio-controlled torpedoes harder to jam. Their idea: have the transmitter and receiver switch frequencies together. They received a patent in 1942. Neither ever profited from the invention, which became an important contribution to wireless communications. In 1997, the Electronic Frontier Foundation honored their work—55 years later. That’s the part that gets me. People knew her face for decades before they knew what she’d helped invent. This 1940 MGM portrait is listed as public domain in the United States. Credit: MGM / Wikimedia Commons — Public domain.

If expanding the Supreme Court is about fairness, why does it have to wait until Democrats are in power? Hillary Clinton’s condition gives away the problem: the party adding the seats gets the opportunity to fill them. Would she support four additional seats if Trump were choosing the nominees? That’s the test. And once Democrats expand it, what stops Republicans from adding more when they regain control? You end up with both parties enlarging the Court until they get the rulings they want. The Supreme Court shouldn’t grow every time a political party dislikes the outcome.

You’re arguing with a convenience store employee, and suddenly it’s “What country are you from?” What does that have to do with what went wrong at the register? Being angry doesn’t automatically make your complaint wrong. But bringing someone’s nationality into it makes people stop listening to your complaint and start listening to your ignorance. We’ve all been upset and said something stupid. That doesn’t make it fair. Address how someone treated you—not where they came from.