Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
I’ve been a member of the RASC from 1983 onward, and never have I seen the kind of vituperation and vitriol directed by those in charge toward other members of the Society.
There have been disagreements and disputes in the past, but none has ever been driven to extremes by the deliberate actions of the Executive or the Board.
More recently serious fiscal issues have overtaken the Society, driven by many of the same Board members responsible for the unseemly attacks against dedicated long term volunteers.
As an outsider, I’ve read through yours and this lunatic John Kelly’s website and the only commonality here is that you and this nut case appear to be the bullies and harassers to the people outlined in your sites and the only reason you are worried about the bylaws is because it takes away the level of protection for persons like you. There has been one side of the story posted online for the world to see by all of you tinfoil hat wearing folks. Seems a bit defamatory doesn’t it? Or is there some obscure subsection of an antiquated bylaw you can find to weasel your way out of that? Sheesh
Well, as you can see by the history of the specious complaints made against me, I’ve been the only target of bullying and harassment here.
As a Past President of the Society, I have concerns about some of the decisions the current Board has taken… and by what theory of governance should the Board be immune to criticism?
Nor have I harassed anyone, and certainly not via this website. I can’t speak for John Kelly, but I insult no one, call no one names, and have simply related how the Society has gotten into its current state.
I am happy to see that outsiders have taken an interest in these affairs. Until this RASC GA and AGM, the most popular page here was the internal report on Three Mile Island.
The membership really has a right to know what is happening, and the Board is not at all forthright about its proclivities.
Okay wordsmith, is the board “not at all forthright about its proclivities” to its members as it fits your narrative? Ever hear the expression “Can’t see the forest from the trees”. Maybe there is a good reason for the “specious amounts of complaints” against you. I don’t know anything about the society or it’s board but I do know that there are two sides to every story….I’m only seeing one.
Well, I’ve done my best to present the whole story of the official complaints here, but if you feel you’re missing ‘another side’, that would be due to reticence on the part of the Board.
Meanwhile the Board has presented to me anonymous denunciations as if they constituted poor behaviour on my part, but since those accusations have been both anonymous and unaccompanied by any substantiation, it’s been impossible for me to ask anyone about those erroneous claims. The Chinese Communist Party used the same approach during their Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.
The member at the AGM claiming to feel “unsafe” with my remote avatar around, for example, suggests that a concerted campaign of misinformation has been conducted against me behind my back, but I cannot make any of that available to you, since it’s not available to me.
In effect, the Board is hiding all the trees from me, but still claiming there’s a forest.
I am not a member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada so the board owes me nothing, I would be willing to bet that matters such as complaints normally involve the persons who are complained against and those who filed the complaint as well as a mediator or someone like that, not an entire membership.
As far as complaints being anonymous, consider this. We can both agree that those who have openly filed complaints have been subject to a smear campaign by your website creating bestie John Kelly and what I can only assume is a barrage of emails and harassment (given John Kelly, after a quick google search, was at one time a convicted criminal for just such a thing), it’s no wonder those who file complaints do so anonymously. It’s the fear of intimidation and retaliation.
Now…..comparing a group of amateur astronomers to the CCP is way out to left field, these are two diametrically different things. If you need I can post a link on how to make a tinfoil hat. Wow……just…..wow, that is certifiable my guy.
You blather on about “cancel culture” in this society, I did a little research and checked out the website, seems to me that this society is on the opposite side of cancel culture and is working hard to create a diverse and inclusive society…..something I feel you (and maybe a small band of merry gentlemen) are opposed to, hence this attack campaign. Had a peek see at your Facebook and I have to say, the proof is in the pudding.
I will no longer entertain this site or commenting on it, it went way off the rails when you compared the society to the Chinese Communist Party. Just like your take on Monkey Pox…..I’m paraphrasing here but “guess those of us who aren’t buttfucking are going to be okay” in reference to Monkey Pox being spread primarily by gay men, bad take man. I can’t BELIEVE people take you seriously.
I think RASC just gained a new member, I’ll join tomorrow!
I would be happy to involve a mediator, but (as related elsewhere), the Board refuses to entertain any sort of discussion, and will not answer any questions.
Copying out the text of complaints against me and including my responses to them can only be seen as a “smear” on the complainers if the substance of their complaints is shown to be vacuous. Calling this a “smear” is only expressing your own realization that the complaints were ill-founded. Or if you’re talking about Mr Kelly’s website, that was created in response to Robyn Foret’s attacks against Roger and Grace Nelson… and I am not in a position to address that.
I have no input into Mr Kelly’s efforts. I fail to see why you keep mentioning it.
Note that I cannot help it if the Board follows the same principles as the CCP did in “struggling” people who were accused of political divergence. That’s their doing, not mine.
What the Board sees as “inclusive” or “diverse” has never been explicitly stated by them, but it is clear that diversity of opinion is not their goal. That is the traditional target of cancel culture, the elimination of any voices outside the politically powerful chorus… though I haven’t even spoken out about the issue.
As to monkeypox, I’m not sure why you would bring that up, but people need to know WHY gay sex is the primary vector for spreading the disease, and the reason why the infected are overwhelmingly ‘men who have sex with men’. It’s fair comment, like any of my postings.
As an aside, you seem unable, or unwilling, to discuss any of the actual issues involved, and instead stray into complaints about other people, or introducing extraneous and irrelevant stuff.
I looked for any mention of “cancel culture”, and found it only in other people’s comments, and not part of the website per se. I might have missed it, though.
And why google John Kelly with respect to a conversation about complaint policies of the RASC Board? Or why bring monkeypox into the discussion?
Oh, yes, please do join the Society.
The RASC needs all the member money it can get, since for the last few years it has been diverting money away from member services and instead spending it on our charitable activities. education, publications, etc.
For years Marie Fidler ran the Society with no computer support, maintaining the membership list, depositing the cheques, addressing and mailing the Handbook and Journal, balancing the books, etc.
Rosemary Freeman, her successor, had trivial computer support toward the end of her tenure, and while Bonnie Bird was much better, she was not what one would call a ‘power user’.
Nowadays, all those tasks of serving the membership are handled by software or outsourced, and yet the budget charges far more than the one full time employee it should take to do the job.
So, please send the RASC money.
Well, the Kelly thing, there are too many coincidences for you and him to not be working together, your name is pasted all over his site as a victim, I’ve been reading sites like this and commenting for far too long to have the wool pulled over my eyes.
How do you think my calling these a smear campaign is my admission to the complaints being ill-founded? I said no such thing, you’re the one saying they are raucous and ill-founded. How would talking to someone who filed a complaint against you go? “HUB-BUB-HUB…..That is complete and udder nonsense…..so much hot air…..I shall carefully consult my thesaurus and provide a gaslighting rebuttal to make it your fault so I’m the victim” Probably something like that.
Political divergence??? My man, the biggest decisions those folks probably need to make is what next quarters budget is going to look like. They aren’t deciding the fate of an entire nation. Settle down….
Here’s my thoughts. You were a self imagined alpha in this society, so full of conceit, the master of some imagined throne. That all fell apart when people started to see who you really were (hence the monkey pox thing, a character support of a sort) and decided that you shouldn’t be in charge. You take it upon yourself to start a campaign against those who seek to usurp this self imagined position of high importance and it backfired. So like a school yard bully who had his fingers slapped you’re standing there with your hurt feelings. I could be wrong, I don’t know the whole story from those who you feel have done you wrong, just the complaints you talked about that could have been fabricated for all we know. Have a fantastic long weekend!!
Anonymous asks: “How do you think my calling these a smear campaign is my admission to the complaints being ill-founded?”
If you think retelling their complaint is a ‘smear’, you must think poorly about their complaint. Or you misspoke calling that retelling a ‘smear’.
“You were a self imagined alpha in this society…” I was happy to fade away into the background after my presidency, until people started being expelled from the Society for grossly inadequate reasons.
Honesty and Integrity compel me to stand up for what’s right, even if I find myself standing alone.
If you’re referring to your web bestie Kelly’s [ https://rascrenegades.ca/ ] site about the member expulsion, (a superb read I must add….delusional to say the least) then again, there has been no accounting anywhere I can find on the site of the actual complaints, just spewed nonsense of illegal acts etc. if that was the only thing anyone read of course it would be unfair….not given both sides of the tale in that one do I can’t pass any judgment. Alas we have come full circle to the gaslighting portion of the comments section and I can no longer participate. I will leave this party with a quote from the late Mark Twain.
“Never argue with idiots, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience”
Hope you have a wonderful summer and good luck with your campaign or whatever this is.
Note that I believe in kindness, compassion, politeness, and inclusivity… so I don’t mind arguing with idiots.
Looking at some of the phraseology they’ve used, and their deep familiarity with the RascRenegades website, it appears to me that this ‘anonymous’ commenter is in fact closely involved not just with the Society but also with the expulsion issues, and not an outsider as claimed.
The only person known to have stalked my FaceBook page, and considered the contents thereof to be germane to anything involving the RASC, is Robyn Foret.
My conclusion is that this commenter is likely Robyn himself, venting his frustrations and animosity.
It has been suggested that I redact the irrelevant parts of his remarks (those involving RascRenegades, monkeypox, etc), but their presence so refutes his claims to being an ‘outsider’ that I’ve left them in.
Anonymous writes: “If you’re referring to your web bestie Kelly’s site…”
Well, no, I’m not. Only you seem obsessed with it.
As to Kelly and his website, I have no influence over what he puts out there.
Other than in some of the comments, he appears once, or maybe twice in my website… hardly a major concern of mine.
How are you gonna edit Anonymous’ comment to include a hyperlink to site they were referencing and expect your readers to believe everything written on this site as well as you not collaborating with the author of that site. What else have you altered to sway readers to your narrative. Makes one think….
That’s a valid concern.
It is true that anyone who administers a WordPress site can edit anything they want to, including other people’s comments. As I mentioned in a previous remark, I was urged to redact Robyn’s comments, but refrained from doing so.
It was not I who referenced Kelly’s site, but the ‘anonymous’ Robyn Foret who did so. I only added the link in case anyone was wondering why he remains upset about it. I’m not surprised he’s upset, as the site is intended to be upsetting. In that sense it’s a success.
The tone and style of that website is quite aggressive, though its existence is in large measure Robyn’s doing, as it was not launched until after Robyn ambushed Roger Nelson at the November 2019 RASC Board meeting. Robyn (and the Board, too) might be able to do something towards getting that site taken down, but he refuses to consider anything other than continued recalcitrance
Meanwhile the tone and style of my website is noticeably different from that of John Kelly, and while both he and I are supportive of Grace and Roger Nelson, we do nothing together. There’s just an overlap of a part of my website with his.
Of course, the rest of the material on my site, including the accounts of complaints against me and my responses to the Board are easily confirmed from the Board, which has all of those emails (and more) relating to disagreements.
Hey there “victim”!! How goes the gaslighting campaign….good I hope! Listen…I don’t know the board, nor will I….simply because I don’t care about the ramblings of narcissists…..there’s a good chance you’ll edit this comment for your benefit and that’s why I’ll screen shot it for my YouTube channel!! How’s that whole campaign going to make you and the other aggressors look like victims….all quiet on the home front?? It’s almost like this website was written by an Australopithecus…..Ask Kelly about my YouTube channel!! #tinfoilhatlosers
Heh heh heh… this is probably Robyn Foret again… still obsessing about Mr Kelly.
Neither I, nor the Nelsons, started any aggressions against anyone, but rather have defended ourselves as best we can.
Robyn, for example, launched himself into a months long series of attacks against Roger and Grace Nelson, and there is clearly a campaign of anonymous bullying against me going on within the Society.
BTW, your ‘youtube channel’ is not as available as you might have hoped.