Happy Pi Day

Math Nerd Alert! And we lost Stephen Hawking yesterday! BUMMER.

Today marked the one month anniversary (tragiversary?) of the blasting up of the school in suburban Fort Lauderdale and was marked with student walkouts across the country at 10 am sharp(ish). Some school participated with the students and held vigils for young people slain by gun violence in school. Other schools didn't have organized activities for teachers and administrators to join in with the students, and they had to all follow the same structural script (for legal purposes): "You are to remain in your seats," and then get out of the way and don't block the door. Kinda silly in the seriousness of it all.

Then, later, conversations that break your heart: "This," a young lady motioning to the skin of her face and her hair, "doesn't come off. It's never going away. How long Sherwood? How long does my little sister, or even my own kid later on have to be afraid? How are we supposed to tell an innocent little baby that society won't accept you, that you're...I dunno, not good enough? How long is it gonna take?" She wan't even visibly upset.

When typed like that it sounds like an emotional scene from a movie, but this girl asked How long Sherwood? like you'd ask Where's the pencil sharpener? Young people rarely get the credit they deserve in terms of resiliency and dealing with the realizations of the harsh reality of the world today. Sometimes you get the feeling that these young people know the truth, but they just want an adult they trust to say, "Don't worry, child, it will all get better very soon, you'll see."

But I don't lie to them, and so they'll never hear that from me. Which breaks my heart a little more. At least I know the prudence of blurting out the cynical kernel: "Well, kiddo, not in our lifetimes!"

I just shake my head and say the only soothing thing I can think of: "I know...I know...it's one of the great tragedies of our era..."

So, to end probably the saddest Pi Day post ever, let me leave us with some wonderful (by which I mean groanful) Pi Day jokes:

(Thanks mom!)(And NPR's Car Talk!)

Q: What do you get when you take the sun and divide its circumference by its diameter?
A: Pi in the sky.

Q: How do you know your math tutor is hungry?
A: She'll work for Pi.

Q. What do you get when a bunch of sheep stand in a circle?
A. Shepherd’s Pi.

Q. Why should you never start a conversation with Pi?
A. It'll just go on forever.

Q. Who was the roundest knight at King Arthur's round table?
A. Sir Cumference. (He ate too much Pi.)

Q. What do you get if you divide the circumference of a bowl of ice cream by its diameter?
A. Pi a la mode.