Robert A. Black, Mathematical Storyteller

Back in ancient times, when I was married and trying to be an Evangelical - and not doing very well at either - I heard a lot of talk about "witnessing" . That is to say, essentially giving people a sales pitch inviting them to "accept Christ into their lives" (or "be washed in the blood of the lamb," for the more poetic types). Having been raised a properly low-key Episcopalian (not to mention being an introvert), that kind of thing was just too weird for me. But I remember this one "tract," one of the little pamphlets you could buy and hand out to people as part of your routine. It depicted God as this brilliant light that was too wonderful to take your eyes away from, and it depicted non-Christians as standing with their backs to the light, stubbornly refusing to turn around and look. How ironic, then, that I find myself thinking of this tract when it comes to the people who want to Make America Great Again, many of who are white Evang...

My weekend had a bit of craziness to it, and not just because I was getting over a cold. I took an unexpected loop around my brain and ended up with some renewed writing motivation. And it was all thanks to my Number One Anime Nerd Girl of Science . Okay, some background. Kemono no Sou-ja Erin or Erin the Beast-Player was a 2006 anime fantasy series about a girl growing up in a world with giant lizards called "touda" and giant wolf-headed eagle creatures called "beast-lords." We follow Erin from her days as a curious ten-year-old in her home village, through various adventures until she ends up as a twenty-year-old teacher in her kingdom's beast-lord refuge. What struck me about Erin was that she's a passionate scientist through-and-through. She may be dealing in made-up science about made-up creatures, but her methods of scientific inquiry and deduction are real-world solid. As I've said before, if we had more characters like Erin in our f...

"Only a fool fights in a burning house." That pearl of wisdom came from Klingon Captain Kang in the closing episodes of Star Trek 's original series. These days, it's a standard part of the Trek fan's phrase book. You can even get a teddy bear that says it. As the Trumpocalypse grinds on, I've found myself thinking about that proverb a lot. It's foolish enough to fight in a burning house. How much worse is it when the person your fighting insists the house isn't even on fire? Or claims the fire is a good thing, not a bad thing? Or what if you don't want to fight at all, but instead want to put out the fire or at least save the other person from it? And what if that other person doesn't even want to do that? What if that person runs around setting more things on fire, and laughing when you try to put them out? These days, we are all in a burning house. In fact, you can take your pick of burning houses. The President is a Rus...

The fate of this country - perhaps the fate of the entire world - will be decided by white Americans. When the media talks about America being "deeply divided," they mean white America. Americans of color may not be unanimous on anything, but you can't say they're "deeply divided" when ninety percent or so are on the same side. The fate of the entire world ? Seriously? Yes, seriously. Most times, that would be hyperbole, but in this case one of the things at stake is control of enough nuclear firepower to blow up civilization several dozen times over. What's also at stake is control of an economy large enough for its energy choices to tip the global climate balance one way or another. So yes, the fate of the world. Seriously. My fellow white Americans, it's all on us. Again and again lately, I've been hearing and reading commentators saying that the people Red State Americans really don't like are... white Blue State America...