I woke up this morning really pissed off that I had to write this thread because a senior guy who doesn’t like me very much just happened to write this article about things I was tweeting about and in the process downplayed homophobia and got the story wrong 😡

I’m pissed also at everyone who read that blog entry and walked away thinking, “oh he sounds like a good guy who has been unfairly maligned who should have a space telescope named after him.” Excuse me, what?
Most of you would never been foolish enough in 2021 to say such a thing about a man who sanctioned institutional anti-Black racism but you think that’s an ok message to send to queer people, including Black queer people?
And he’s gonna get away with it too. No matter what I say, that blog entry will keep making the rounds and people will believe it even though it hasn’t been through a formal edit and fact check process.
Next time Hakeem should maybe send me an email rather than write vague, unprofessional personal attacks like: "astrophysicist who propagated unsubstantiated false information as if it were true without performing proper scientific rigor to investigate its veracity"
I should say that I have had Hakeem blocked on twitter for a couple of years and I actually really don’t want to go into why, but the Hitler was a good guy joke at the last NSBP meeting I attended was gross
I want to be clear that I interpret that blog entry as the leader of a professional society and a senior scientist going out of his way to:
- justify historic homophobia
- attack a junior queer Black woman professor for being angry about homophobia because ...he doesn’t like her
Hakeem and I once had a procedural disagreement during an NSBP business meeting in 2011 when I was a first year postdoc and *10 years later* he is writing poorly researched articles that are basically hit pieces on me, and I am fucking tired
Any astronomers who have seen the piece in circulation should speak up with their chest to people who are posting it about both its factual problems and its moral failings

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So, as the #MegaMillions jackpot reaches a record $1.6B and #Powerball reaches $620M, here's my advice about how to spend the money in a way that will truly set you, your children and their kids up for life.

Ready?

Create a private foundation and give it all away. 1/

Let's stipulate first that lottery winners often have a hard time. Being publicly identified makes you a target for "friends" and "family" who want your money, as well as for non-family grifters and con men. 2/

The stress can be damaging, even deadly, and Uncle Sam takes his huge cut. Plus, having a big pool of disposable income can be irresistible to people not accustomed to managing wealth.
https://t.co/fiHsuJyZwz 3/

Meanwhile, the private foundation is as close as we come to Downton Abbey and the landed aristocracy in this country. It's a largely untaxed pot of money that grows significantly over time, and those who control them tend to entrench their own privileges and those of their kin. 4

Here's how it works for a big lotto winner:

1. Win the prize.
2. Announce that you are donating it to the YOUR NAME HERE Family Foundation.
3. Receive massive plaudits in the press. You will be a folk hero for this decision.
4. Appoint only trusted friends/family to board. 5/

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I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x