Robert A. Black, Mathematical Storyteller

The internet is conspiring to tell me something today, or rather, to remind me of a topic I revisit from time to time. This morning, Patheos.com had not one, but two commentaries on something written by a conservative Christian blogger calling herself "The Transformed Wife," and claiming that "Men Prefer Debt-Free Virgins Without Tattoos." One of the responses began, "My poor husband will be shocked to hear this..." and tried to refute the claim point-by-point. The other took the argument to another level, saying, "Since when is being a Christian woman about making yourself pleasing to men? Are we as Christians supposed to conform ourselves to men? Or are we supposed to conform ourselves to the Lord?" I found myself flashing back to my marriage, where my ex-wife spent a great deal of time trying to make herself into a "good Christian wife" who would appeal to a "good Christian husband." The fact that I hadn't ...

I've lost count of the number of books on my shelves that have bookmarks in them, marking where I left off reading them as I juggle and flit from one to the next. One that I've picked up again recently is Secondhand Time , the massive oral history from Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexeivich, chronicling the time between the end of the Soviet Union and the rise of Vladimir Putin. One thing that's struck me is how similar the people Alexeivich interviewed are to the people supporting Trump here in the US. It's no wonder the Putin playbook has worked so well on them. The older Russian generation, the one that remembered Soviet times, felt lost and adrift in the new Russia, and that made them long for the Soviet past. One interviewee recounted the year he spent in prison, being interrogated and beaten because his wife had been caught up in one of Stalin's purges. Despite all he went through - including the loss of that wife, who didn't survive her own impri...

Wow, look at that. It's been weeks since my last post here, and I only posted once in all of June. I've just gotten back from my annual July 4 Indiana trip, where I tried to minimize my social media exposure. I think it was good for me. I've been thinking a lot lately about how much I want to interact with this electronic beast we've created together. Right before my trip, I made what I plan to be my final post on my old LiveJournal. I was surprised by the response it got - or rather, I was surprised it got any response at all, given that I hadn't posted there since last October. At the moment, I'm working on the second of my Mathematical Lives biography series, about Florence Nightingale and her advances in the field of statistics. When she was in her early 20s, she hadn't yet decided to become a nurse. She felt a spiritual calling to do something for the poor, but she hadn't yet figured out what it was. At the same time, her family ex...