Monday, June 15, 2015

This week's C&EN

A few articles from this week's C&EN:

26 comments:

  1. C&EN's editrix seems to be one who lives to be outraged.

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    1. Were you planning to elaborate on that?

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    2. Probably the Hunt saga... The poor old macho, now at least he can enjoy his retirement and do what he likes best - drink and chase skirts outside the lab.

      (I made once a female colleague cry at work. But recently I gave her a hug, after winning a game of darts and drinking about eight beers on Friday night. That's the difficulty with female colleagues, if they are good looking.)

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    3. Milkshake, you need to be blogging that stuff.

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    4. Wait, did you drink the beers or did she? Just trying to ascertain whether the hug was consensual...

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    5. She let me win, and it was Friday night, so I presume one bearhug was not too much of an advance. (Instead of me, she could have played darts with our exchange student who apart from being more handsome, is also a nicer person and does not steal hugs from girls under the excuse of being plastered.)

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    6. You presumed too much! Ignorance of what "no" means, what "yes" might mean, and what "maybe" might or might not mean, is no longer an excuse!

      Maybe if you first got her to sign an iron-clad personal liability release...

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    7. Anon 8:49, what beer are you on?

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    8. It's a Monday, so none. I'm like this sober.

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    9. Figuring out whether this is a "yes," a "no," or a "maybe" before the bearhug is still not an option? It's probably a "no," then.

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    10. Even if the answer was "yes" or "maybe," I'd bet the outcome of the eventual sexual harassment lawsuit on it.

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    11. Not sure I'm following you.

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    12. Which beer are you on?

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    13. With that attitude, you would do us all a favor by assuming the answer is always "no."

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    14. Actually, with that attitude I would do you all a favor by having you assume the answer is always "no."
      Just trying to keep us all out of the clutches of all those underemployed lawyers, semi-autobiographical-fiction-penning wackos, and reporter hacks trying to gin up mag sales.
      Think of Bill, he's got women coming out all over saying, "I said no, back in the 1970s, before anyone."
      I mean, think of what would happen to milkshaken if Rolling Stone got hold of this... or the Duke University faculty...

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    15. I agree that false accusations do irreparable harm.


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    16. Because when the accusations are true, many assume that they are not because of Rolling Stone, etc.

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    17. Hence the need for the signature on the iron-clad personal liability release. And a chaperone - no, chaperones. And a supervisor - no, a diverse committee of supervisors. And DV. Even then, I'm not sure that you wouldn't run into trouble. It could always be claimed that the release was signed under duress. Or that there was exertion of patriarchal male authority. Or that an oppressive atmosphere of compulsion was suddenly manifest.

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    18. That's a little overboard, don't you think? What do you really propose? How do we dinstinguish harassment from false accusations?

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    19. I am assuming you wil be civil in your answer because this is important. I'm serious. There's a balance that needs to be struck between protecting victims and preventing lives from being ruined because of false accusations. Really. I'm sorry for accusing you of being drunk. So what do we do? Obviously we aren't going to go around pulling out written consent agreements.

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    20. Yes, there was an attempt at humor there. For a while I thought that might have gone unrecognized. You didn't call me drunk and I wouldn't have cared if you did, so you don't have to say sorry.

      Yes, in reality it's a serious issue either way, with devastating consequences for the victims.

      Taking this seriously, I'm not sure that anything can be done. 88 Duke faculty signed a published statement that pretty much said, "the accused are guilty." Before the trial. The kicker is, the Group of 88 never recanted. Bill Cosby, in many people's minds, is guilty before any court findings and the primary evidence for this is the number of accusers. Lena Dunham sold a lot of copies before her veracity became an issue - and she's still on the air. There were quite a few accusations about frat behavior after the Rolling Stone article, before it was pointed out that the story was physically/medically impossible. When this goes so far as to restrict a college student not for being but for resembling the attacker of another student, as happened in Oregon, there may be no balance to be struck. The best answer may be if there's physical contact involved of any kind, just don't do it.

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    21. I do owe you an apology. I had interpreted your earlier remarks to mean that you believed that women do not send clear signals and then make false harassment accusations after welcoming intoxicated advances. Something that happens, I am sure, but it's not the conclusion we should jump to. You're right. When in doubt, best to avoid any physical contact.

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    22. Actually, I was saying something along those lines, but trying to be humorous about it, in the spirit of the original conversation. It was not meant to be taken seriously, at least not entirely. That said, I also think there is usually some truth in good humor (pity we don't have such...). Somewhere I'm sure someone's written or acted out a really good parody involving two coeds with moderators trying to hash out some ridiculously formalized dating agreement before they can hold hands. Wait, isn't that basically the plot of '50 Shades of Gray?'

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  2. Even before eight beers, he probably has no idea.

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    1. Aren't there way too many underemployed lawyers, to ever want to be in that position?

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20