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A recent cartoon by Conservative Glen McCoy shows newly-confirmed Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos being escorted by four faceless men in suits past a wall spray-painted with the graffito “Conservative.” DeVos was recently blocked from the front entrance of a school in Washington, D. C. The cartoon’s historical reference is to Norman Rockwell’s “The Problem…
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[mathjax]In this entry, I’m going to start with a concrete problem and develop an abstract generalization. The starting problem: Given isosceles trapezoid \(ABCD\) with an altitude of 6. Point \(E\) is on \(\overline{DC}\) such that \(DE = 3\), \(EC = 8\), and \(\angle AEB\) is right. Determine \(AB\). We can solve this by placing points…
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A viral video recently circulated showing a black male teacher greeting each student in his elementary school class with a different handshake. It was praised as a teacher engaging with his students on their own terms. Shortly after, a second video emerged. I will discuss the second video, but my comments on it require some…
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It’s said that a picture is worth a thousand words. I recently saw a photograph whose context spoke volumes. A little over a week ago, Donald Trump issued an Executive Order regarding the entry of non-citizens from seven countries. Even long-term residents holding green cards were at risk of being detained at the border. In one…
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When Chuck Todd of “Meet the Press” accused Sean Spicer of spreading “falsehoods,” Presidential spokesperson KellyAnne Conway called them “alternative facts.” Social media erupted with mockery of the term, making up other wishful thinking “falsehoods.” This is the next step in the evolution on the ongoing attempt by certain portions of society to undermine the importance of…
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[mathjax]I was recently asked for an elegant proof of the following problem. It’s based on a construction challenge from Euclidea. Given: Circles A, B, and C, such that point C is on circle A, point B is on circles A and C, point E is on circles B and C, and point D is on…
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This year began with a brutal, violent act: Four black adults apparently tortured a white man with special needs for several days in Chicago, livestreaming on Facebook portions of the assault. The next week, in a superficially unrelated story, a white man was sentenced to death for killing nine black people in an attack at the Emanuel…
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I recently posted a meme on my personal Facebook account admitting to having an anxiety disorder. I prefaced it with a paragraph of neurotic text criticizing the meme for being the wrong color, then faux-mocking myself for the meta-criticism. I am a highly sensitive person with social anxiety. I use humor to deflect from dealing…
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Welcome to 2017. At long last, 2016 is over. Last year saw the election of a President seen by many people as representing some of the worst aspects of what it means to be a man: Sexually aggressive (in word, at least), dismissive of women, bullying the vulnerable, and aggressive towards criticism. In the wake of…