Robert A. Black, Mathematical Storyteller

"In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over." So wrote British columnist Dan Hodges, in a 2015 tweet that has since been memed around the world. To which I reply, "Not the end. Just on hold until the children were old enough to speak - and vote - for themselves." The children of Parkland, Florida, are now showing us that. Red State America, the children have been listening. They heard you say that your guns are more important than their lives - and they don't like it. What do you suppose they'll hear you say next? That your tax cuts are more important than their education and healthcare? That your convenience is more important than the health of the planet you're leaving them? Maybe you should think more about what you're saying. And they're not the only ones. For years now, I've been hearing Republicans claim that Democrats want more i...

(Not to be confused with "Girls Gone Wild," which is a topic for some other blog to write about...) Trying to forge your own writing path is hard, and it gets me down sometimes. This morning, for instance, although I'm better now. For those of you tuning in late, I've been trying to develop a way of storytelling that communicates math and science concepts, or at least inspires enough interest in them for kids to go and find out more for themselves. One thing that's hard about it is not having anything to compare myself to. Yeah, yeah, I know - "What part of 'forging your own path' did you not understand?" I knew what I was getting into, but that doesn't make it easy. One of the big reasons I've gotten into anime and other Japanese programming so much is that it's one of the few places where I can find at least a few shows that point toward what I'm trying to do myself. On Japanese TV, you can see random references to the...

This was the last open weekend in my schedule until Palm Sunday weekend, my last chance to go adventuring for the next six weeks, so even though I'd gone out only two weeks ago, I couldn't resist going out again. I wanted something a bit on the ambitious side, but not too demanding, since the sun is still going down in the late afternoon these days. My favorite hiking website, Nobody Hikes in LA , lists two different routes up to Josephine Peak, in the Angeles Forest along the road to Mount Wilson. They were about the same length, but one went up a wide open fire road while the other wound its way up the steep side of Colby Canyon. The trail heads were less than a mile from each other, so... why not both? I decided I'd park at the Clear Creek Fire Station, where the Angeles Crest Highway meets the Angeles Forest Highway, walk down to the Colby Canyon trail head, go up the canyon and then come back down the fire road, ending up back at the fire station. The Colby C...

There's a moment in the climactic scene of the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer , during the championship match where our hero, chess whiz kid Josh Waitzkin, realizes that his nemesis, the arrogant, scary, cutthroat chess whiz kid Jonathan Poe, has made a fatal mistake. Rather than going in for the kill, Josh extends his hand, offering Jonathan a draw. "You've lost," he tells Jonathan. "You just don't see it yet. Take the draw, and we'll share the championship." Jonathan will have none of it. At first glance, it looks like he's winning the game. "Are you crazy?" he scoffs. "Look at the board." "I have," Josh answers. " Take the draw ." Well, of course Jonathan refuses, and within a dozen or so moves, the sequence Josh saw plays out and he wins. The arrogant, scary, cutthroat chess whiz gets his comeuppance and skulks away. Josh gets his big trophy and also the satisfaction of knowing that...

WARNING! WARNING! Danger, Will Robinson! I'm going to talk about Star Trek: Discovery , so if you're not up to speed on the latest episodes and don't want to be spoiled, turn back now! In fact, at the moment I'm just typing enough stuff so that the link on my Facebook page won't give anything away. Blah blah biddy blah, I'm so stuffy hand me a scone. And never eat pears. By the way, does anyone else think that spin-around thing the Discovery saucer section does is really silly? Okay, that should do it. Discovery is back from its midseason hiatus now. Actually, I'm a week behind, having just seen the January 7 episode last night. And what a surprise it was. Not all the stuff with the Mirror Universe, as I'd already read about that. I'm referring to the scene where Doctor Culber gets killed out of nowhere. Doctor Hugh Culber, one half of Trek 's first canon gay couple, partner of Lieutenant Paul Stamets. I found myself having ...

Doctor King wasn't the first one to say it. He heard it from a young woman named Prathia Hall , who used "I have a dream" several times in the opening prayer of a service commemorating a church that had been burned down by the KKK. Preachers often borrow from each other (just like writers, I should mention), and Doctor King borrowed it from her. I didn't know that before yesterday. I heard it from the Rev. Traci Blackmon , who was our guest preacher for Martin Luther King Sunday. This is our second MLK Sunday with our new Rector, and I've got to say he brings in some pretty amazing guests. Last year's had a profound effect on me, too. (Yes, you can see me in the background. My seat in the choir always puts me in the sight-line of the live stream camera.) Rev. Blackmon's sermon was titled, " Where are the Dreamers? " and she pointed out that "Prophetic resistance is only possible for those who can still dream." It's ...

I discovered this past weekend that 2018 is the Madeleine L'Engle Centennial. What would have been her 100th birthday comes at the end of November. The first of what will probably be a number of podcasts about her life and her writing came out last month, when Marketplace's "Make Me Smart" read A Wrinkle in Time for their Book Club and interviewed one of her two granddaughters who collaborated on a new biography that's coming out. Give it a listen if you're so inclined. There are many different themes in A Wrinkle in Time , but one they discussed at length in the podcast was new to me - the idea of Meg having to be her own rescuer. Meg's father is missing when the story begins, and she's told he's been fighting a sinister dark force that threatens to consume all of creation. They go off in search of him, and at that point we think, "Once they find him, he'll be able to save the day." Only he can't. Meg has to do it i...