Frazz by Jef Mallett for December 03, 2012

“This is the mystery of the quotient…” ~ Led Zeppelin

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.

Her number’s up!

Mrs. Olsen could observe that being able to divide two numbers just might turn out to be a lot less “pointless” than making it to the far end of the pool before the other guy.

Well… If there’s a hungry shark in the pool, you’d want to make it to the far end before it divided you into bite-sized pieces…

@ailurophile17‘Or as W.C. Fields was wont to say, “If at first you don’t succeed, give up. There’s no use making a damn fool of yourself.”’

WCF got into show business as a juggler. I doubt that he took that advice himself.

“if at first you don’t succeed, don’t try skydiving”

@Sharuniboy

“Just ask a generation of those caught in that experiement how well it can balance its checkbooks, even after shifting over to simple drills.”

I wonder how many of them do anything at all with their checkbooks! They’re too busy for that old-school stuff, preferring to use debit cards (without recording anything) and check their accounts online. Of course, you’re talking about a generation back, and I’m thinking of the kids I know now. My college student was in elementary school in the 90s, and she got a pretty standard version of arithmetic at her ultraconservative Core Knowledge charter school. Wasn’t the “new math” a 70s thing? Maybe 80s? When I was a kid in the 50s, we memorized “math facts,” and I can still compute some things faster in my head than my daughter can on her high-tech calculator.

More to the point, how long has she been teaching Caulfield!? Is that kid determined to stay in the 6th grade (or whatever) for the rest of his life?

@Redkaycei

And in 1963 I was in the 9th. Missed it altogether. So the “new math” is actually quite a bit older than I thought! How widespread was it? When I first heard about it, I had the impression it was sort of a west coast thing. Writing poems about “4,” and all that. Come to think of it, that particular bit might have been just a California phenomenon. Whatever the new math is, I missed it by a few years, but maybe by geography, too, eh?

Ooten Aboot: I have seen parts of his act. He was quite good. Comedy is a good way to cover juggling misses. Fred Allen also started in juggling. Will Rogers was originally a trick rope artist, and quite amazing in some of his tricks. Comedy fits most variety acts that don’t require the mouth at the same time.

we all do pointless things with no real improvement. running races, swimming, working, buying lottery tickets, sleeping, etc.. but, we do them anyway..