Archive for the Politics Category
In the Name of JWST
Posted in LGBTQ+, Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags ESA, James E. Webb, James Webb Space Telescope, NASA, RAS, Royal Astronomical Society on October 25, 2022 by telescoper
JWST – nice telescope, shame about the name
I’ve blogged before about the problematic naming of the James Webb Space Telescope. Its name was changed in 2002 from the Next Generation Space Telescope to the James Webb Space Telescope after James E. Webb, a civil servant who was NASA’s chief administrator from 1961 to 1968.
It’s not uncommon for scientific space missions like this to be named after people once the proposal has moved off the drawing board and into serious planning. That happened with the European Space Agency’s Planck and Herschel to give two examples. In any case Next General Space Telescope was clearly never anything but a working title. Yet naming this important mission after a Government official always seemed a strange decision to me. Then news emerged that James Webb had enthusiastically cooperated in a McCarthyite purge of LGBT+ people working in government institutions, part of a wider moral panic referred to by historians as the Lavender Scare. There have been high-profile protests (see, e.g., here) and a petition that received over a thousand signatures, but NASA has ruled out any change of name.
The main reason NASA give is that they found no evidence that Webb himself was personally involved in discrimination or persecution. I find that very unconvincing. He was in charge, so had responsibility for what went on in his organization. If he didn’t know then why didn’t he know? Oh, and by the way, he didn’t have anything to do with infrared astronomy either…
I still think it’s a shame that this fantastic telescope should have its image so tarnished by the adoption of an inappropriate name.
Anyway, yesterday I saw that the Royal Astronomical Society has issued a statement about this issue, which I encourage you to read in full. It begins
At its meeting in July the governing council of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) took a decision to write to the UK Space Agency, the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA to express its concerns about the original JWST naming process, the apparent failure to investigate James Webb’s background and the dismissal of requests to rename the telescope.
Until that investigation takes place and the results are made public, the RAS now expects authors submitting scientific papers to its journals to use the JWST acronym rather than the full name of the observatory. In this case, the previous requirement for the acronym to be spelled out at first mention will not be observed. This change will also be reflected in our communications more generally.
This does at least acknowledge the problematic nature of the name and the message it sends to LGBT+ scientists around the world and it the statement as a whole is to be welcome.
I think I’ll continue to use the name James Webb Space Telescope on this blog, though, as a reminder that the name should just be changed. Even in shorthand it’s an insult.
Remembering Violet Gibson
Posted in History, Politics with tags Benito Mussolini, Dublin City Council, Merrion Square, Violet Gibson on October 23, 2022 by telescoperA few years ago I posted an item about Violet Gibson. Last week Dublin City Council unveiled a plaque in her memory, outside her childhood home, which reminded me of her story.
The story of Violet Gibson is both bizarre and tragic. She was born in 1876 into a well-to-do family living at No. 12 Merrion Square in Dublin, where the above plaque is now located. Her father, Edward Gibson, was made Baron Ashbourne in 1886. To cut a long story short, Violet Gibson turned up in Rome in 1926 where, at 11am on 26th April of that year, she attempted to shoot Fascist Leader Benito Mussolini with a pistol. She only failed in this task because Mussolini moved his head at the instant she pulled the trigger, and the bullet just grazed his nose. She tried to fire again, but her gun jammed. She was then seized by the angry mob of fascist supporters with whom she had mingled to get close enough to shoot. She was almost lynched but saved by the police. Eventually, the authorities came to the conclusion that she was insane and she was sent back to England. She spent the rest of her life in a psychiatric institution in Northampton. She died there in 1956, at the age of 79.
P.S. If you want to find out more about Violet Gibson, I recommend a book about her life called The Woman Who Shot Mussolini by Frances Stonor Saunders.
Follow @telescoperA New Head for the UK
Posted in Biographical, Politics with tags Lettuce, Liz Truss, UK Politics on October 21, 2022 by telescoper
Although I no longer live in Britain, every morning I look at the UK news media to check the previous night’s football results and find out who is the latest Prime Minister.
I had a quick look this morning before work and unless I’ve misunderstood things, Liz Truss has been replaced as PM by a lettuce.
I think we need to know whether the lettuce voted leaf or romaine ‘cos the answer to that little gem could be the tip of the iceberg that may end up determining whether its popularity will rocket… (continued, p. 94)
Follow @telescoperBuilding Momentum
Posted in Biographical, Maynooth, Politics with tags Building Momentum, IFUT, Irish Federation of University Teachers on September 29, 2022 by telescoperThere may be no longer be any momentum in the direction of building a new Student Centre at Maynooth, but over the last few days I’ve been studying the details of the review of the “Building Momentum” pay proposal for public services employees over the next couple of years. The proposal has been put to a ballot of members of various public sector unions, including the one to which I belong, the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT).
Unlike what happens in the United Kingdom, there is a single agreement covering all public sector workers and the unions that represent them and, also unlike the United Kingdom, University staff are treated as public sector employees, rather like civil servants. We are all members of the same pension scheme too, also unlike the UK.
Back in August, there was talk of industrial action over the inadequacy of the Government’s existing offer given the recent increases in the cost of living, but the ballot on that was suspended to allow voting on the revised offer that emerged from a review, perhaps in response to union pressure. As IFUT explained,
Arising from this review a set of proposals were agreed in August which include additional pay increases for members in 2022 and increases in 2023. When the additional increases are taken into account, members’ pay would increase by a minimum of 9.5% during the period covered by Building Momentum (2021 – 2023).
Although expressing reservations, which I share, IFUT states
After careful consideration and scrutiny of the proposal, and taking into account the views of the membership as expressed by our Council, the Executive Committee advises that IFUT members should vote to accept these proposals.
I would have preferred if a bit more could have been done for University teachers at the lower end of the pay scales but, on balance, together with the cost-of-living measures announced in Tuesday’s budget, I think it’s a reasonable compromise, which will bring some degree of certainty to the financial situation of many people. I have therefore voted to accept the offer.
Follow @telescoperThe Matter of Enoch Burke
Posted in LGBTQ+, Politics with tags bigotry, contempt of court, Enoch Burke on September 8, 2022 by telescoperNot surprisingly, the right-wing press is attempting to portray the intransigent bigotry of the teacher Enoch Burke as some kind of heroic stand against “woke ideology”. I’ve lost track of the number of articles that claim that Mr Burke has been sent to prison for “refusing to use the pronoun they” or for his religious beliefs; he is some sort of Evangelical Christian with extreme political views on a range of subjects as do the other members of his family.
The facts of the matter are that Mr Burke was suspended (on full pay) pending a disciplinary hearing following a confrontation with his school’s principal. He was instructed not to attend the school during the disciplinary process (which is quite normal). Burke refused to comply so the school went to court to get a court order to keep him off the premises. He ignored the injunction so was arrested for contempt of court. He was then sent to Mountjoy Prison where he will remain until he purges his contempt.
The person you should have sympathy for in this case is not Mr Burke who deliberately provoked this incident by breaking the law in order to court controversy, and who deserves everything he has got as a consequence, but the kid at the centre of this case who has done nothing wrong at all. I hope they have plenty of support from their friends and family and the sensible teachers in their school.
Follow @telescoperEthics and the SpaceX Business
Posted in Biographical, Euclid, Politics with tags Arthur Loureiro, Euclid Consortium on September 6, 2022 by telescoperSix months ago when Russia invaded Ukraine there was considerable debate about the practicality of sanctions on Putin’s regime. The discussion largely centered around whether economic sanctions would be effective and whether they would harm the nations imposing them more than they would Putin. At the time it seemed to me this was the wrong way of looking about it. The main issue as far as I was concerned was not their likely efficacy, but the ethical and moral dimension of doing business with a warmongering state. A similar issue came up frequently in the 1980s over South Africa, for example. The issue was not for me whether not buying South African oranges would end apartheid; it was about whether I personally felt morally comfortable with doing business with a racist state. Russia is not the only country or entity nowadays with whom I would feel very uncomfortable being involved, but it is one.
Ethical considerations are however often compromised by practical issues. A complete ban on Russian oil and gas imports would cause devastation in the short term, for example, so Western sanctions on Putin have concentrated elsewhere.
Individuals also make ethical decisions about what products they buy, which employers they work for, which countries they visit, and so on. These are of course private matters but people have a right to voice their opinions and argue their case.
At least an individual can decide their own position with unanimity. It’s somewhat more complicated in an organization or group as there are likely to be dissenting views. Nevertheless, I think it is good to have these discussions out in the open. That’s what should happen in a free society and in a well-run organization.
You may nor may not agree with the blog post by Arthur Loureiro about Elon Musk and SpaceX that was published here last week, but I think it raises a similar question: with whom do you feel comfortable doing business?
I suspect that I’m not alone in agreeing with Arthur’s discomfort about Elon Musk. As a matter of fact I think he’s a thoroughly nasty piece of work. Many people no doubt also felt moral discomfort at the prospect of Euclid being launched on a Soyuz spacecraft. In the end the decision will probably be based on pragmatism rather than ethics, but I think it was right for Arthur to raise the issue publicly and I am glad to have been able to make his views public via this website. There are limits and we need to discuss where those limits lie.
P.S. I am glad that the Euclid Consortium has stated aims to be as diverse and inclusive as possible. I am also aware that there are members of the Consortium who disagree with its EDI policies. I’ve observed in many organizations that those who disfavour diversity and inclusion often complain about having diversity “forced upon them”. I shall refrain from commenting further.
Follow @telescoperThe Consequences of Decoupling
Posted in Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags BrExit, Cosmology, decoupling, Uk Exports on July 11, 2022 by telescoper
I was struck by the similarity between the UK’s export performance post-Brexit (left) and the behaviour of radiative perturbations in the post-recombination Universe (right). It seems that, in different ways, they are both consequences of some form of decoupling…
Follow @telescoperThe Johnson Song
Posted in Music, Politics with tags Boris Johnson, Go Now, Moody Blues on July 7, 2022 by telescoperMeanwhile, back at Covid…
Posted in Covid-19, Maynooth, Politics with tags Covid-19, SARS-Cov2 on July 6, 2022 by telescoperWhile the Tory Government on the other side of the Irish Sea appears to be collapsing I’ve trying not to laugh too loud so have distracted myself by updating my Covid-19 page with the latest data for Ireland. The summary figure is this:
You can see that cases (blue curve) are still rising (up 5.8% on last week) but the increase may just be slowing. I only show PCR-confirmed tests so interpretation of these is complicated by the lack of general PCR testing. The testing positivity rate is 38.5% and there are many more positive antigen tests not confirmed by PCR. There are now over 900 people in hospital with Covid-19 and 37 in intensive care. The mortality rate (orange curve) however remains steady.
I’m a bit concerned that case numbers are so high, especially as there are so few people taking precautions. I know this is purely anecdotal but I do know several people in Maynooth who have come down with fairly nasty doses of Covid-19 in recent weeks. I also know of many people who have travelled to conferences for the first time in a couple of years only to come down with Covid-19 in the process. The high incidence of Covid-19 is causing staff absences elsewhere that are disrupting many organizations and businesses. I do hope we’re not in for another surge before the start of term in September!
Despite all this (and the fact that I have been fairly lax about wearing a face covering myself) I still have not experienced Covid-19. I’ve never had symptoms and never tested positive. Have I just been lucky, or is there more to it than that?
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In the Dark 