News From Oberlin

Oberlin brought me good and bad news this week. This observation in the math department alumni newsletter made by day:

Here's a proof that we can be optimistic about love in the world:

Pull the petals off a daisy, one by one, alternating "She loves me," "She loves me not," etc. (Substitute the pronoun of your choice.) We would like to end with "She loves me," which requires an odd number of petals. It is known that the number of petals on a daisy is a Fibonacci number. But two-thirds of the Fibonacci numers are odd (exercise), so QED.

-- Arthur T. White, Oberlin College class of 1961.

The bad news, an Oberlin alumna was investigated by the FBI and New York City police department terrorism task for based on obviously humorous statements on her myspace page and those of a friend of hers (her Daily Kos diary on the subject was the most recommended at the popular site for a while).