You're Violating My Free Speech!

Oy vey, where to begin. So apparently some outside group invited Heather McDonald to speak at the Athenaeum at CMC. Heather McDonald massages a lot of crime statistics to come to the racially motivated conclusion that somehow black people just commit more crime, and that's why they end up in jail. Students got pissed, blocked her access to the Ath, so she gave her speech from a different room and it was broadcast on Youtube. You can imagine how that went with conservatives, who got worked up into a tizzy about free speech (forgetting that since the government didn't censor her, her free speech wasn't violated. Their grasp on the Constitution is tenuous, at best). Now, you may be thinking, "Rachel, how the fuck did this come across your radar?" Well, the free speech brigade in the Pomona College Alumni Facebook group had their panties in a twist, and CLEARLY needed to talk about how in their day this never would have happened, liberal snowflakes, safe spaces, cry babies, etc. They got called out for racist behavior, because, well, they were being racist. That did not sit well with them, because apparently you can't be racist unless you're literally in the KKK and burning crosses (unless those crosses are art pieces that you stole from Pomona students and just burnt for fun, you didn't know what it meant, honest! You're just an uneducated engineer from Harvey Mudd! Hey-oh! Look at me, insulting ALL the Claremont Colleges here). One of the alums got real mad because he got called a racist, so he claims he called the LA County District Attorney's office, and claims that they are going to investigate criminal charges. Here is how I imagine that conversation going (much of the dialogue is paraphrased from his comments):

LA County District Attorney's Office:  Hello, LA County District Attorney's Office, how can I help you?
Jake*:  There is a free speech violation going on at CMC!
DA:  Can you elaborate?
Jake:  Some protestor's protested!
DA:  Sir, that's not a violation of free speech.
Jake:  No, you don't understand, then I was called...a RACIST!!!!
DA:...
Jake:  Can you believe it?  And then some uppity bitch called me a bro!  A BRO!!!!  That's the real hate speech.
DA:  Sir, that's not hate speech.
Jake:  But I looked it up on Wikipedia!
DA, under her breath:  Please, for the love of God, make this phone call stop...
DA, aloud:  Sir, that's really not hate speech.
Jake:  But what about when they called me a racist?  I supported Black Lives Matter, for God's sake!
DA:  Support...ed?
Jake:  Well, then they interrupted St. Bernie, and so I don't support them anymore.  They're a bunch of thugs, just like the kids that shut down this talk.
DA:  So, your support of the movement was predicated on how they treated an old white guy?
Jake:  I don't know what predicated means, but it sounds like you're calling me a racist!
DA:  If the shoe fits...
Jake:  I need to speak to your supervisor!  I'm going to get you fired.  And if you're DACAmented, I'm not going to call ICE, but I'm still going to threaten to do so!
DA:  I'm hanging up now.  Goodbye.

Jake, later:  They're totally looking into this as a criminal matter.

FIN

There's so much more, but I couldn't get it all in.

*Name not changed, because Jake's an asshole.  Fuck Jake.

Astronomy Spam!

When you're an astronomer, sometimes people send you the most delightful spam. This was sent to me, my advisor, and two co-authors (weirdly, not the other four co-authors on the paper, though). This is copy/pasted directly from the e-mail. Enjoy!

The God's Code of Nature.

=.

§ 1. Vacuum: T= 0K, E= ∞ , p = 0, t =∞ .
§ 2. Particles: C/D= pi=3,14, R/N=k, E/M=c^2, h=0, c=0, i^2=-1.
§ 3. Photon: h=E/t, h=kb, h=1, c=1.
§ 4. Electron: h*=h/2pi, c>1, E=h*f , e^2=ach* .
§ 5. Gravity, Star formation: h*f = kTlogW : He II -- > He I -- > H -- > . . .
§ 6. Proton: (p).
§ 7. The evolution of interaction between Photon / Electron and Proton:
a) electromagnetic,
b) nuclear,
c) biological.
§ 8. The Physical Laws:
a) Law of Conservation and Transformation Energy/ Mass,
b) Pauli Exclusion Law,
c) Heisenberg Uncertainty Law.
§ 9. Brain: Dualism of Consciousness.
§ 10. Test and Practice: Parapsychology. Meditation.
===.
By the “theory” we were educated:
“ if we cannot observe physical phenomenon then it doesn't exist.
We can ignore this phenomenon. “
Today the situation is : there are two fundamental constants in nature:

T=0K and constant speed of photon: c-1.
=.
We cannot reach constant speed of photon c=1 but photon can
and ( thanks to Michelson ) it was observed and therefore it was accepted.

We cannot reach T=0K, we cannot straight observe phenomena in T=0K.
Any instrument does not fit. But can this mean that this continuum is abstract ?
The “vacuum fluctuations / transformations” show that T=0K isn’t abstraction
and “virtual particles” exist there and they can change situation for observation.

The “virtual particles” only seems to us abstractive.

As Niels Bohr wrote:

“ Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded

as real. If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you,
you haven't understood it yet.”

One fundamental constant ( c-1) after many years of doubt was adopted.
Sooner or later another fundamental constant of Nature: T=0K would be

adopted too.
=======..

We don't know what vacuum and quantum of light are and therefore

is possible to say: the secret of God, Soul and Existence is hidden

in " The Quantum theory of Vacuum and Quantum of Light ".

==..

Best wishes.
Israel Sadovnik Socratus

===…

BU Astronomy has Lady Problem

There hasn't been a single woman graduate student entering the astronomy department at BU since the fall of 2011. That class had one woman. She left after the first year to go be with her boyfriend. My class entered in the fall of 2010; there were 9 women. Of these nine women, one has left by choice, and four others have been asked to leave. As with UCI, the number of women that are asked to leave is disproportionate. A higher percentage of women leave than men (in my informal tally). Why is that? I don't believe that it's because the women aren't smart enough to get through. There is something systemic going through the department. And now apparently they are raising the minimum physics GRE score to 50%. The argument is that there is a correlation between GRE scores and success in classes, comprehensive exams, and research. But it is fairly well established that standardized tests are biased towards men, and it's a correlation, not exact. I would not have gotten in had that been the cutoff when I applied. However, I have the highest GPA that the BU astronomy department has seen in 15 years. 15 years! I passed the comps on the first try. I have a published paper, and a second one in the docket. If the cutoff had been in place, BU would have missed out on an excellent student. After a rocky start at UCI, I have excelled at BU. I wish they would be able to see past the test scores, etc. and not be so rigid about this. This policy will continue the trend of not having any women in the department. The few that do get in notice that there aren't very many of us. I'm not going to lie if I get asked about it. This is bullshit and it cannot continue. Either BU will have to change its policies, or they can deal with the consequences.

It concerns me that I know lawyers that don't seem to understand the Constitution. Well, most people don't seem to understand it. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. As long as the government isn't infringing upon your speech, anyone else is free to tell you you're being an asshole. They're even free to fire you.

Love Is...

Not supposed to be hard. This is not to say that it doesn't take effort to maintain a relationship, but the back and forth, will-they/won't they of movies doesn't work in real life. Rarely do you break up with someone multiple times and still have that person be a good match for you. Generally, you break up with someone for a good reason, and you should never look back. Good relationships should make you the best person you can be, and they should elevate you. They shouldn't make you miserable or unhappy.

I Like Pink. I Like Princesses. I'm an Astrophysicist.

Deal with it.

This video has been getting lots of shares around Facebook, which is not surprising, given that I know a lot of ladies in science:

While I don't have problems with the product, I've been getting more and more prickly about the presentation. See, every time people try to talk up how awesome science is, they have a tendency to put down things like "pink" and "princesses." It makes things that are traditionally "feminine" into something that's bad, like there's something wrong with it. That the ideal state is "masculine." And that's pretty bad, too. And as someone who likes those things, it makes me feel like I'm not a "real" scientist.

I've always been traditionally "girly" and "prissy." As a baby, my mom would try to get me to play in the dirt. I didn't want to get dirty. When I had the ability to pick out my own clothing, it was strictly pink and skirts and dresses until 2nd grade, when I occasionally started to wear stirrup pants and bike shorts under giant, baggy t-shirts(it was the early 1990s; please don't mock my sartorial choices). I refused to wear jeans until I was 12 or 13. When people asked me my favorite color, I would say "Pink, blue is for boys." (I eventually grew out of that, and I wasn't getting that attitude at home, so clearly, there was some socialization going on.)

When it came to toys, maybe choices were less gendered than they are now, but when I was very young (pre-school age) all of the toys my parents had for me were gender-neutral. Legos, train sets, giant colored blocks, this set that you made towers with and then dropped marbles down the track (my mom LOOOOVED the noise that made!). I concede that it is entirely possible that my parents actively avoided the gendered toys, but I have to believe these items still exist for children. There were also toys like Lincoln logs and tesselation blocks, which I wanted so badly but never got. I really liked these toys, but I also really liked playing dress-up in my sparkliest, most princess-y outfits. My mom wouldn't buy me Barbie dolls, although family members did, so they weren't verboten. As I got older, I tended towards these more feminine toys. I had a lot of barbies and barbie accessories (including Disney princesses!), American Girl dolls, and one of my favorite games was Pretty Pretty Princesess.

Despite all these gendered toys that I preferred as I got older, I still managed to do science. We had elementary school science fairs, and my projects in 5th and 6th grade were pretty kick-ass. Ask me about my 6th grade project on the fat content in ice cream. I was doing extremely sophisticated sampling for a 6th grader. Even though I didn't play with "science" toys, my parents still encouraged me to keep up my interest in the subject, while simultaneously not keeping me from the more "girly" things that I enjoyed. I think that's what's missing from the discussion. Rather than discouraging girls from liking pink and princesses, we should let them know that it's ok to simultaneously like math and science. This requires parental guidance, but I'm guessing that the people who are buying their kids educational toys and who are interested in these issues are able to put that kind of effort in their parenting. There's really no need to put one thing down to build something else up. Just keep an open conversation with your kids about these issues, and they'll turn out fine. And if it turns out they like princesses AND science (or even just princesses), they'll know that there's nothing to be ashamed of.

Fuck Everything

Fuck Republicans. Fuck the Tea Party. Fuck rape culture. Fuck victim blaming. Fuck the patriarchy. Fuck misogyny. Fuck classism. Fuck racism. Fuck sexism. Fuck all of the other "isms." Fuck the little asshole football players in Steubenville and Maryville who get away with rape because they're local Gods. Fuck not taking "no" for an answer. Fuck the fact that the government shutdown is costing the people I care about their livelihood. And it's costing me mine.