A sad, sad tale of woe

[Anaxagoras]

Came across this interesting story about a Harvard professor. Thought you might be interested.

The Most Gullible Man in Cambridge

It's quite long, but here's one tiny excerpt to whet your appetite:

Zacks pushed Hay to ask for a paternity test, but Hay wouldn’t have it. Not only did he trust Shuman, he felt it would have been insulting for a heterosexual cisgender man to question a professed lesbian as to whether she’d had sex with other men. He believed her when she said her sexual relationship with him was an exception.

Afterwards (or even before, it works either way) you might want to read this Op-Ed about the late Justice Scalia authored by Bruce Hay, who once clerked for Scalia, but wasn't much of a fan of the late justice.

[Pyrrho]

That Harvard professor was profoundly foolish.

<insert quote from Kurosawa epic>

[Doctor X]

A long life eating millet would have been better.

--J.D.

[Anaxagoras]

Indeed, but I didn't want to spoil all the good bits. :)

[Anaxagoras]

Zacks pushed Hay to ask for a paternity test, but Hay wouldn’t have it. Not only did he trust Shuman, he felt it would have been insulting for a heterosexual cisgender man to question a professed lesbian as to whether she’d had sex with other men. He believed her when she said her sexual relationship with him was an exception.

Key word highlighted.

Of course we live in an age where a woman can get pregnant without ever having sex with a "man".

[Anaxagoras]

Or indeed a woman could impregnate a man. All bets are off.

[Witness]

Of course we live in an age where a woman can get pregnant without ever having sex with a "man".

Hey, you heathen, there is historical precedent! :x

That story is utterly funny (or sad, if you prefer) as he was suckered precisely in his domain of "expertise". And he goes on teaching it. :roll: Well, we all want to be loved…

Historical cases abound, one of my favorites is Michel Chasles, a great mathematician who fancied himself an expert on historical documents:

https://i.imgur.com/uG5upjp.jpg

Nice stare, uh?

From his Wiki page:

As described in A Treasury of Deception, by Michael Farquhar (Peguin Books, 2005), between 1861 and 1869 Chasles purchased some of the 27,000 forged letters from Frenchman Denis Vrain-Lucas. Included in this trove were letters from Alexander the Great to Aristotle, from Cleopatra to Julius Caesar, and from Mary Magdalene to a revived Lazarus, all in a fake medieval French. In 2004, the journal Critical Inquiry published a recently "discovered" 1871 letter written by Vrain-Lucas (from prison) to Chasles, conveying Vrain-Lucas's perspective on these events, itself an invention.

When I first learned about that… I had some trouble believing it. :mrgreen:

[Witness]

Witness: You historical example sucks because no amusing degeneracy and degradation.

SC isn't tabloid enough for you? :P

[Anaxagoras]

Free Republic discovers this story.

https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3767195/posts

Heh.

A sample of the responses:

"That’s a lot of words."

[Anaxagoras]

Just a follow-up story, if anyone's interested:

The Harvard Professor Scam Gets Even Weirder Six other men describe their encounters with the same mysterious Frenchwoman.

Two weeks ago, New York readers were introduced to Bruce Hay, the Harvard Law School professor who had a brief affair with a young woman named Maria-Pia Shuman and suddenly found himself drawn into a combative relationship with her and her wife, a trans graduate student named Mischa Haider, that would unravel his life, leaving him indefinitely suspended from his tenured teaching job, temporarily homeless, and with mounting legal bills that eventually exceeded $300,000. Since the publication of “The Most Gullible Man in Cambridge” on July 22, six other men have come forward with accounts of Shuman’s attempting to pick them up, including one who says that, as with Hay, she told him she was pregnant with his child.

[Doctor X]

When a scam works, particularly a classic honeypot. . . .

–J.D.

[shuize]

I read about this when the article came out. At the time, I sort of felt bad for Prof. Hay, fool that he was.

Then I read Anax’s link of Hay badmouthing Justice Scalia after his death.

Talking shit about the guy who gave you a Supreme Court clerkship in order to “virtue” single for a piece of shit con artist who later ruined your life.

Fuck you, Hay.

[Anaxagoras]

I read about this when the article came out. At the time, I sort of felt bad for Prof. Hay, fool that he was.

Then I read Anax’s link of Hay badmouthing Justice Scalia after his death.

Talking shit about the guy who gave you a Supreme Court clerkship in order to “virtue” single for a piece of shit con artist who later ruined your life.

Fuck you, Hay.

Yeah, the irony is very thick in that one. He mentions how kind and decent the Justice was to his clerks and to others, helping them get dream jobs. But to somehow blame him for the career choice of another person (who turned out to be just a con artist, and not a "brilliant mind" anyway. I highly doubt that "she" would have made any meaningful contribution to physics).

[shuize]

I read about this when the article came out. At the time, I sort of felt bad for Prof. Hay, fool that he was.

Then I read Anax’s link of Hay badmouthing Justice Scalia after his death.

Talking shit about the guy who gave you a Supreme Court clerkship in order to “virtue” single for a piece of shit con artist who later ruined your life.

Fuck you, Hay.

Yeah, the irony is very thick in that one. He mentions how kind and decent the Justice was to his clerks and to others, helping them get dream jobs. But to somehow blame him for the career choice of another person (who turned out to be just a con artist, and not a "brilliant mind" anyway. I highly doubt that "she" would have made any meaningful contribution to physics).

I never had the opportunity to meet Justice Scalia. But a very liberal friend of a friend met him and said although she wanted to dislike him, he was so charming to her and so kind to his wife when nobody else was around (so it apparently wasn't an act), she couldn't help but like him.

A few years ago I had the honor of meeting Justice O'Connor. She was also an exceptional individual and actually did me a personal favor. Even if I disagreed with her politics, I wouldn't dream of waiting until she passed away and then writing shit about her to score points with my political tribe.

"Progressivism" is mental illness.