A cube has 8 faces that are all squares.
It can be a dice or a box filled with bears.
from All About 3D Shapes
written and read by Jarrett Corder
accessed on YouTube 2/24/25


    Ernö Rubik not only invented the world’s most popular puzzle, a couple of years ago he published a book about it. In Cubed: the Puzzle of Us All (Flatiron Books, 2020), Rubik shares the journey he took to invent his famous cube, his thoughts about solving problems, and how astonishing it is to have invented something so successful.
    He’s a sculptor, an architect, and a designer. He defines sculpture as a combination of art and technology. He loves to work with the design of objects and explains the art of all types of design to his students.
    His cube demonstrates the relationship between space and geometry. It is his way to explain simply and visually with material, how it feels to live in a three-dimensional world.
    It is simple and complex at the same time. “[T]his contradiction is the content of the cube,” explains Rubik.
    He likes to replace the word problem and all its bad connotations with challenge, a word that encourages using creative thinking to reach a goal. He believes that play is an important part of problem-solving.
    While math proves there are more than forty-three quintillion (mathematically 43,252,003,274,489,856,000) ways to solve Rubik’s cube, Jim Hogan learned if a solver masters only seven algorithms, the puzzle can be solved quickly no matter how it is scrambled. 
    Jim’s autistic. He’s an engineer at Google, and he says that solving the Rubik’s Cube changed his life. When he learned to solve the cube, he discovered ways to solve physical problems that he could not solve before. He needs to fidget. Playing with his Rubik’s cube, even in public, is socially acceptable. 
    At least in the Google environment.
    In our regular world, kids (mostly) practice and compete to get faster and faster at solving the puzzle. The World Cube Association lists over 48 upcoming competitions before the end of next week (3/10/25). They take place everywhere from Nairobi, Kenya to Kathmandu, Nepal, and from Bangladesh to New Zealand, and include many right here in the USA.
    The competitions emphasize speed. It takes practice and learning algorithms, the series of steps a cuber uses to move the 2-dimensional faces of each facet of the cube, to reach the goal: nine same-colored squares on each of the cube’s six sides.
    Rubiksplace.com is a website devoted to listing the qualities to look for in a cube. Speed, smoothness, corners (round or square), quality of the magnets used, customizability, and spring tension, are all both subjective and objective. A list of brands comes next followed by a list of which cubes the record-holding cubers use.
    An advanced speed cuber can solve a 3x3 cube (one that has nine squares on each face) in under 15 seconds. 
    My grandson’s record is a little over 30 seconds! He’s on his way!
    Some cubers memorize the algorithms (found on various sites and YouTube). Some practice finger dexterity. Some learn combinations of algorithms arranged as techniques. 
    Here’s  an easy and thorough example:
    In a YouTube interview, Ernö Rubik says he wants the legacy of his cube to show that people can solve problems, even difficult ones, if they are not afraid to fail on their first or millionth step. And they don’t need a teacher. Only their own combination of intuition, experience, and creativity. Each person’s solving process will be different.
    And, he adds, the more difficult the problem, the sweeter success feels when it is solved. 
    People discover a lot of things when they start to work through solving a Rubik’s cube, whether it’s an algorithm, how to get unstuck, or how to solve multiple things at the same time. It’s a discovery process where the solvers discover new things about themselves.
    Rubik admits there are many reasons to solve problems. You can meet your target by getting faster, but you can also become more capable of asking questions. And asking them, for Rubik, is more important than answering them. He notes that oftentimes, the answer is embedded in the question.
    His cube has been used to explain everything from mathematics to psychology, and physics to human intelligence. Rubik says he is not interested in how quickly his cube can be solved. He is more interested in how many different ways he can discover to reach the goal of the solve. 
    It’s the difference between taking a walk in the park to notice and enjoy the wildlife and running across a busy street to avoid being hit by a car. Both are important for very different reasons.


Because I enjoyed Liz Moore’s Long Bright River, I started her new book, The God of the Woods (Riverhead Books, 2024). When a camper is discovered missing from her bunk one morning, the search for her involves the property owners (who are the parents of the missing girl), the camp personnel, and the rookie detective assigned to the case. Family history, relationships, and intrigue come together to make this one riveting read. Recommended.
Be curious! (and look for solutions)


FB: I visited our local planetarium on Youngstown State University’s campus last weekend. It helps a little, thinking of our planet as a tiny part of a huge universe. And being with my grandsons helps my perspective in more ways than I can count.

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.
                                   from: The Diary of a Young Girl
                                              written by Anne Frank
                                     Doubleday/Bantam Books, 1967
                                                first published in 1947
                                                 first US edition, 1952

    Yesterday (Monday), when I usually finish my thoughts, complete  editing my typos, and re-read for clarity, I decided to do none of those things.
    I had planned to post the nominations for the 2025 class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I even had some of the research ready. 
    But, like I felt a few years ago when I decided to take a break from the news and re-post pieces that still seemed relevant to me, my blog felt inconsequential, unimportant, and even ephemeral in light of the firehose quantity and quality of the current news. 
    In October 2018, when I originally posted this piece, the first Trump regime was finding its footing. Children were being torn from their families in his “zero-tolerance” policy to stem immigration. He called Robert Muller’s investigations a “witch hunt,” which fueled the Me Too movement. He nominated Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. And mid-term elections were one week away.
    In 2021, when I reposted it, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were in office. The world was still in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Biden signed a $1.9 trillion relief package into law, which worked its way to the people who needed it most. 
    The Capitol Riot/Insurrection was in our rear-view mirror working its way through the Judicial System. Key portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were working their way through Congress. Biden brought the United States back into the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organization.
    The relative calm lasted for four short years.
    Now this post feels important enough to re-post yet again:

    One of the most famous Holocaust poems of all time, "First They Came for the Jews," was written by a Lutheran pastor and theologian, Martin Niemöller (1892–1984).
    After recanting his support for Hitler and Nazism, Niemöller was arrested and confined to the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945. He narrowly avoided execution and was liberated by the Allies. He stayed in Germany and worked as a clergyman, pacifist, and anti-war activist. In his 1946 book, Niemöller talked publicly of Germany’s guilt for what Germany had done to the Jews. He was one of the first Germans to do so.
    Niemöller’s poem is especially relevant now.
                     First, They Came For The Jews
                             by Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
    I found the text of the poem and information about Niemöller on this page at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum site. Accessed on October 29, 2018. (verified October 19, 2021, and February 18, 2025)

Here is a modern adaptation:
When they came for the Jews and the blacks, I turned away
When they came for the writers and the thinkers and the radicals and the protestors, I turned away
When they came for the gays, and the minorities, and the utopians, and the dancers, I turned away
And when they came for me, I turned around and around, and there was nobody left...
(published in Hue and Cry, 1991)

You can find some other adaptations here:
http://webweaversworld.blogspot.com/2006/10/first-they-came-for-jews-variations-on.html
    Shooting and killing praying people in a synagogue . . . because they were Jewish. I never thought that could *really* happen. But, in 2018, three days before my original post, it did. In the city next door to mine. 
    In 2025, I’m struggling with how to turn my anger, fear, pessimism, and grief into action.
    Here’s my version of Neimöller’s poem:

When he fired FAA executives, I was unaware. 
    Then 67 people were killed in an airline crash. And three more in a
    helicopter.
When he cancelled DEI, I was unaffected.
    I looked away from my horror and disgust.
When he shuttered USAID and fired most of the personnel, 
    I called my Senators and Representative.
When he gave Department of Treasury access to the Musk-ovite, 
    I spoke out to my friends.
When he threatened to de-fund the Department of Education, 
    I cried.
When Amy Walter echoed Simon Rosenberg’s plea to write and call government officials, 
    I did.
When I do all these things, maybe nothing will change.
    But maybe something will.
    Please join me!

(10/19/21 update) On October 8, 2021, the director of curriculum and instruction for the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas, told a fourth-grade teacher to “make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has an opposing … perspective.” Find the article here.

(2/18/25 update): The paragraph above is right from the Education section of Project 2025.

I just finished reading an historical fiction for young readers, Freedom’s Game by Rosanne Tolin (Reycraft Books, 2024). The story takes place after the German occupation of France and tells of some children who were moved to a chateau a couple of years before the end of WWII and the Resistance workers who ran it. Well-developed characters and tight writing make a tension-filled read, even though we all know how the War ends. It feels very timely. Recommended.
                                         -—Be curious! (and involved)

    “Kid, your project is a hazard to the whole science fair,” [the custodian] said. 
    “They’re just a couple of plants,” said Michael[.] …
    “They’re not normal,” said the custodian. “Mark my words. Something else is going to go wrong.”
                            from The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks
                                                 by Nancy McArthur
                                                  Avon/Camelot, 1988

     Daffodils are my favorite flower for a variety of reasons, mostly their cheerful color and the way they nod to me in a gentle breeze. 
     I love tulips’ soft colors, but I stopped planting them because of my huge chipmunk population. Sometimes they eat the bulbs. Sometimes they just move them around underground. Spring is full of surprises, some better than others.
     I’ve tried many different kinds of perennials and annuals, too, with an uneven success rate. 
     The hyacinth, according to Rockets Garden, “is a genus of bulbous flowering plants in the asparagus family.” 
     They are a later harbinger of Spring, and I have planted some pinks and purples throughout the years. I refuse to plant yellow ones. That color I dedicate to my daffodils. 
     While they are a non-native species (from the eastern Mediterranean region), hyacinths are easily controlled and pose no threat to our gardens.    
     And they keep coming back, right where I planted them.
     But I won’t plant water hyacinths. They are a totally different species.
     “Unlike [garden] hyacinths, which grow in the ground, water hyacinths have a unique structure that enables them to float. Water hyacinths have rounded, glossy leaves and produce [beautiful] spike-like clusters of lavender-blue flowers. Native to the Amazon basin, these are free-floating aquatic plants that can cover entire surfaces of water bodies” (again from the Rockets Garden site).
     Water hyacinths are considered invasive in many parts of the world. Due to their rapid growth, they choke out native aquatic plants, which threatens the environment.
     According to the National Wildlife Federation, an invasive species “can be any kind of living organism—an amphibian [like cane toads], plant [like water hyacinths and kudzu], insect, [like spotted lanternflies], fish, fungus, bacteria—that is not native to an ecosystem and causes harm. They can harm the environment, the economy, or even human health.” 
     They grow and reproduce quickly and spread aggressively. 
     Water hyacinths were brought to the US for the World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in 1884-85. Its beautiful bloom made it a fast favorite among the attendees. 
     Although invasive, they are appropriate for an indoor aquarium or outdoors in a water garden. They proliferate quickly, and if unchecked, they will speedily exhaust the water’s oxygen and nutrients. Any life in the container, fish, frogs, or other water plants, will be harmed or destroyed.
     Along with lots of other invasives, water hyacinths were brought to the United States on purpose as ornamentals and simply got out of hand. 
     They are among others like English ivy, purple loosestrife, and even kudzu, also known as “the plant that ate the South,” that can still be purchased at garden stores. 
     According to a study done by the University of Massachusetts in 2021, 61% of 1,285 plant species identified as invasive in the U.S. remain available … including 50% of state-regulated species and 20% of federal noxious weeds[.] Since there are few ways to enforce rules prohibiting or limiting their purchase, we’re on our own.
     My suggestion? Go native. So many native species are available. They attract native pollinators, they provide food for native wildlife. And they thrive right where you and I live.
     And, finally, some surprising, good news. A study reported in ScienceDirect.com published online 1/3/25, describes how water hyacinths can help our environment. “It can absorb pollutants and heavy metals from contaminated waters, … and produce biogas [used for fuel].” 
     Both of these endeavors are in their infancy. They are labor intensive and require lots more study and funding, but even baby steps in the right direction help move us in the right direction.

I’m reading Long Bright River by Liz Moore (Riverhead Books, 2020). It’s the story of two sisters, one a cop and the other a drug addict. Although clocking in at almost 500 pages, the writing is tight, and the action is packed. Besides being an engrossing thriller, it is also a character study of each of the sisters and their relationship to each other. I learned about police departments in general as well as the underside of the Philadelphia street scene.
                                          Be curious! (and go native)

Ma and Pa kissed baby, 
Then they tucked him into bed
With dreams of polka parties 
Still a-dancing in his head.
                                     from Baby Danced the Polka
                                       written by Karen Beaumont
                                       pictures by Jennifer Plecas
                            Dial Books for Young Readers, 2004
                                     accessed on YouTube 1/26/25

    Last week, my husband and I went to our favorite Mexican restaurant for lunch and, not for the first time, I commented on how much Mariachi music (playing in the background) reminds me of the polkas that my parents loved so much.
    Maybe it was just the accordion and the upbeat tempo, but I kept wondering if I was the only one who noticed the similarities. And I found out that, no, lots of people have wondered and have written about it, too.
     Somewhat tangentially, my older daughter’s favorite color is polka dot. She loves them. All colors and all sizes. I wondered why, but really, what makes a color or a number or a shape anyone’s favorite anything? That will have to be a whole different rabbit hole, I mean blog topic.
    And here’s another surprise (for me anyway). Polka dots are connected to the music.
    Toward the middle of the 1800s, so the story goes, a music teacher, Josef Neruda, noticed a young Bohemian woman, Anna Slezáková, dancing to a local folk song. Her dance was so lively and spry that Neruda wrote down the steps and taught others how to do it. 
    At the same time, in the same place (Bohemia is now a part of the Czech Republic), a new fashion trend came onto the scene. It was a revival of a much-maligned pattern of the Middle Ages. Then, dots were hand-drawn on fabric and necessarily unevenly spaced. Because they reminded people of the pox rashes that were so deadly, the pattern fell out of favor quickly.
    But, thanks to the Industrial Revolution (~1760 to ~1840), machines could weave polka dots into fabric evenly spaced, and so, they gained back their popularity.
    Historians tell us the word polka, whether the dots or the dance, comes from the steps of the dance itself. It’s a quicker version of the ever-popular waltz and refers to the half-step taken between the two longer steps when performing the dance.
    Coincidentally, the dance craze was coming into its own at the same time. So the dots were labeled “polka dots,” presumably to take advantage of the marketing potential. Yes, even then.
    The craze caught on quickly, spread in part by the Romantic Period, which elevated common folk and emphasized the peasant culture as an ideal. The polka was danced in the ballrooms of Prague, Vienna, and Paris. Soon it was all the rage in London, too, and swam across the pond to our own receptive shores.
    But lest we be Americo-centric, lots of immigrants landed on Mexico’s shores, too. And they brought their music with them. 
    Before the 1820s, only about 50 Germans had found their way to Mexico, but by 1939, the German population in Mexico had grown to 3,000 people. One of the first, Karl Sartorius, was a political refugee from Prussia. When he was able to buy a tract of land, he started what became a very successful sugar cane and coffee plantation. (Slavery, while flourishing in the United States, was barely known in Mexico.)
    The increasing demand for coffee brought other immigrants to Mexico, too.
    Many Germans fled poverty and Hitler’s persecution. Mexicans called them “trade conquistadors.” They wanted to get rich quick. Textiles, hats, and furniture were some of the German items now manufactured in Mexican factories.  
    Here’s what else I found out from an interview that Renee Montagne of NPR conducted with Felix Contreras, host of NPR’s podcast Alt.Latino.    
    Most of the Germans who came to Mexico settled in northern Mexico and southern Texas (still part of Mexico at that time). They brought beer, of course, but they also brought their accordions. 
    And their music.
    But even though the music mashed-up, the people, by their own choice, stayed apart. Mexican folk musician Narciso Martinez (1911-1992), is considered the “father of conjunto music,” a lively, Mexican style of accordion playing. He says when he was young, he and his friend would sneak into the German quarter to listen to the bands. When they got home, his buddy would whistle them to Martinez. Then, Martinez picked the notes out on his accordion, plucking out the bottom tuba notes and the higher sounds of trumpets. 
    He quickened the tempo from the 3/4 time of a waltz to a common 2/4, and the polka was born.
    Voilá! (Oops, that’s French.)
I'm finishing up Steve Inskeep's Differ We Must (Penguin Press, 2023). It's an interesting study of how the people in Lincoln's life helped him shape his politics and Presidency. It's an interesting read. Recommended 
                                             Be curious! (and dance)