The message of MADMATH is that a subject -- very much misunderstood, distorted, neglected -- namely, MATHEMATICS -- can provide MODELS for the PATTERNS we would make of our lives that we might realize our potentials. But (alas!) this may not be possible if one is, say, a political prisoner.

Yes, some adult political prisoners have created in prison. Miguel Cervantes (x-y), for example, wrote Don Quixote in prison. John Buynan wrote Pilgrim's Progress in prison. And other such achievements exist. But these achievers were ADULTS.

Ok. You say that we have no political prisoners in this -- a democracy. Well, apart from the perhaps legitimate complaints of some "minority" citizens, we have many political prisoners in this country -- CHILDREN!

Weeping in the Playtime of Others, America's Incarcerated Children, by Kenneth Wooden, 1976, tells the poignant story of children imprisoned for transgressions which are forgiven or dismissed when committed by adults. ("Forgive us our transgressions as we forgive those who transgress against us" means, for some, "adults only".)

I remember waking on the morning of my 18th birthday, July 8, 1938, and thinking that my mother could no longer so easily frighten me with imprisonment by the single word "incorrigible" to describe my love of learning and scholarship -- my love of music -- and my membership in the Presbyterian Church. Terrible offenses!

From age 9, Mother would sometimes say, "I only have to go before a Judge and have you declared 'incorrigible' and they'll put you in a Juvenile Detention Home until you're 18!"

In fairness, late in life Mom was diagnosed as manic-depressive and "put on lithium for life". As with some manic-depressives, Mom was a genius -- as a dressmaker. If you brought her a photograph of a Hollywood creation or drawing of a Paris original, Mom could easily duplicate it. But she had a greater gift. Back of every great dress designer (such as Chanel) was a great cutter who not only cut the cloth so that it "hung elegantly" but also minimized the material used. Mom could do this -- a great talent in a Depression Era. But she couldn't "manage" and couldn't supervise helpers, so eked out a living by long hard hours of work.

I didn't understand manic-depression, and thought this a peculiarity of my mother. She'd sweetly make me breakfast and kiss me off to school. But, returning from school in the afternoon, she might be screaming and throwing things.

She professed to believe that "Schools are the invention of The Devil!", often saying, "I'd rather have a bank-robber for a son than one who always has his nose in a book!" Her many brothers and sisters often said, "Any boy who likes to read and gets all 'A's' in school will become a 'homo' and kill some one!" For I lived under the shadow of the infamous 1925 Leopold-Loeb case. And any of my teachers who tried to intercede for me would quail before my mother's verbal abuse.

So I was not free to develop the dreams that began, at 14, when I discovered Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy. By the time I was 18 and 19, the "World" was hurtling into War, and voluntary military service offered an escape from daily poverty.

Education at Columbia U. and NYU, under the "G.I. Bill", after the War, should have put me in touch with the vaunted "academic freedom", but only brought the "8 years of fear and loathing" I describe elsewhere. And teaching -- but forbidden by porlocking colleagues to achieve my goals (pedigogicus interruptus) -- made me feel like Sysyphus in Hell, rolling a stone up a slope only to have it, repeatedly, topple downhill.

Only in the past two years, with a multimedia computer and HTML and Internet, could I return to those dreams of a 14-year-old.

So it is not only my stewardship to hold up the "MADMATH" ideal, but also to speak up for THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN, in order that the first pursuit shall not have been in vain!

Can we build a HOMEPAGE FOR CHILDREN'S RIGHTS?