Rachel Moss

😂 they can fall back on their collagen and natural energy reserves and make space for some older folks

I enjoy @theguardian.com Blind Date, but why do they keep setting up people in their 20s?! These are not the people who need the intervention of the media to find love.

If there is evidence of irregularities at some polling stations at the Gorton and Denton byelection, then that evidence should be properly and promptly investigated in accordance with due process by the proper authorities. And that is what is being done. Any denunciations of the election result should thereby await the result of this process. The losing party spokesperson candidly admitted the day after the election that any irregularities were not enough to have affected the result, which was emphatic. But this did not prevent the losing party’s leader from loudly promoting grave allegations of sectarian voting, corruption and dishonesty. Yet if the irregularities are not upheld on investigation as invalidating the result, it is unlikely that those findings will be shouted about. And such a response is irresponsible. Parts of the United Kingdom have a history of sectarian violence. Parts of the United Kingdom have histories of racial tension. Responsible politicians should not exploit such allegations for partisan advantage. Making such allegations is to play with fire, literally. Responsible politicians should be careful to avoid subverting the very fundamentals on which a functioning democracy rests. Such “poisoning of the wells” is familiar to those following the politics of the United States, and it lay behind the lethal violence that took place in Washington DC on 6th January 2021.

New

The poisoning of the wells

Why discrediting election results without waiting for due process is unhealthy for a democracy

This week's Weekly Constitutional by me at @prospectmagazine.co.uk

the amount of Islamophobic content they've managed to generate out of a historically left-wing constituency voting for a left-wing MP is astonishing

Just had some very good tech help from Vodafone so I offered to leave the guy good feedback and he seemed genuinely surprised and pleased. Come on, people, be nicer to customer service!!

So nice to chat to @amyfuller.bsky.social today (with @rebeccarideal.bsky.social on tech duty!) for her upcoming podcast series!

Thiiiiiis

I have seen a lot of cursed stuff in my time in academia but this is among the *most* cursed.
Grammarly is generating miniature LLMs based on academic work so that users can have their writing ‘reviewed’ by experts like David Abulafia, who died less than two months ago.

perfect

Another thing to warn students (and colleagues tbh) about!!

so, torture. they’re torturing them as federal policy. entirely predictable, but that doesn’t make it any less evil

Is ‘America First’ Over? Trump promised to stop wars. His grip on his base is being questioned now that he’s started one.

America First was always about bigoted and belligerent unilateralism. Pacifism never had anything to do with it, so could journalists please stop repeating Trump’s framing as if it was real? www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

Got a (vaguely spammy) email addressed to "Dear respectable Prof Dr Rachel Moss", which has made me smile today! I think I would prefer "resplendent" to "respectable", plz make a note.

I'm sorry, Jane. I have a bowel disease so I also have a paranoia that I would overlook symptoms like this! I hope diagnosis and treatment improve for everyone, and I wish you the best outcomes possible.

Ovarian cancer is a scary one because all these symptoms are easily attributed to other things, especially in women my age-ish. It can go undetected for so long. But if you're persistently dealing with these symptoms, do speak to your GP!

This is one of the most frustrating things about taking a terf stance (not merely a transphobic one): the myopic inability to recognise that bodily autonomy and legal protection benefits EVERYONE and conversely, reducing those for 1 group also impacts on ones you personally care about

Thank you! :)

Ah thank you! I always feel under-published compared to my peers but hopefully I can make a good case for it :)

Yeah I assume so! I will hopefully apply for P in the next year or two since AP is explicitly intended at my institution to be a staging post en route to P. But many people at Oxbridge will never be professors. All very confusing

I did see "high protein cheese" in the supermarket the other day which seemed to be cheese with additional whey protein added. Why???

It's all very annoyingly inconsistent! It took me 2x promotion rounds to get to AP. My uni has: L, SL, AP, P. Many unis now omit SL so AP is equivalent to SL. Oxbridge meanwhile seems to increasingly hire at SL level (in terms of pay & expectations) which they call AP but not have L posts at all.

got her first choice! :)

great news!

Today's think piece seems designed to pit ECRs against mid-career colleagues but really, as Dr Davies points out, the sector is in freefall. All of us are in danger!

Certainly not everywhere. I have been promoted twice to reach AP, after entering at Lecturer. There are lots of inconsistencies across HE, of which this is one of many! Another is where these roles sit on salary bands, which can also vary wildly (so the article's assumption about paycuts is wrong).

It's National Offer Day for secondary schools in the UK today - hope anxious parents and grandparents on my list got the offers for their kids they were hoping for!

Omg same

thank you! Right back at you.

Thanks friend! Xx

What I choose to focus on today isn’t systemic stuff I have no control over & which doesn’t reflect my value as a researcher, teacher and colleague. Instead I’m glad that despite all these problems colleagues have supported me & valued my contributions. Thanks to them ❤️