Amongst our cards this season was one from Severo Ornstein, son of Leo Ornstein (1893--2002), well-known composer, and Laura Gould,
Years ago, Severo, Laura and I were co-workers at Xerox. I was perplexed by a Russian book that seemed to derive an important hypergeometric identity from a mysterious integral transformation. Laura said, "My mom's a Russian mathematician, I'll bet she can help." I was later flabbergasted to read the signature of Emma Lehmer on a note patiently explaining that the book's "derivation" was merely a misleading juxtaposition of separate results. I also had the pleasure of visiting Severo and Laura in their amazing spider-plant-shaped house in Portola Valley. But as a staunch conservative, I must agree that Severo's protest song is in bad taste, in that the "bomb Iraq" refrains are not immediately followed by (Boom, Boom) sound effects. It's still math-fun when the math and fun are separate. --rwg PS, that same Russian book presented two binomial coefficient sums as the "Moriarty identities". Suspecting (again incorrectly) that the authors had been hoaxed, I Smearoxed* the page to Martin Gardner. This got me a CC of a crazy letter from the Baker Street Irregulars warning the CIA that the fiend Moriarty was aiding the Soviets. * The corporate lawyers warned us: NEVER use "Xerox" as a verb.