The cost of discrimination

Tax day is a good time for a reminder about the "Gay Tax".  The NY Times estimated the life-time cost of discriminatory laws to a typical white-color gay couple:

We gave our couple an income of $140,000, which is about the average income in those three states for unmarried same-sex partners who are college-educated, 30 to 40 years old and raising children under the age of 18.  Here is what we came up with. In our worst case, the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs.

Obama orders hospital visitation rights for LGBT Americans

From CNN:  Obama ordered the Dept of Health & Human Services to establish a rule: if hospitals accept Medicare/Medicaid funding, they must let partners visit gay patients.

Obama requested that the regulation make clear that any hospital receiving Medicare and Medicaid funding, which includes the vast majority of U.S. hospitals, must allow patients to decide who can visit them and prohibit discrimination based on a variety of characteristics, including sexual orientation and gender identity.

To quote the vice-president, "This is a big fucking deal."  For years, LGBT people have petitioned hospitals, counties, and state governments to allow us to visit our sick partners in the hospital.  In the back of our heads, there's the worry that we might die like Lisa Pond, alone, with our lover barred from the room, without the chance to say goodbye.  Or that when our partners need us, we'll be barred from telling the doctor our partner's medical history and allergies.

Many gay people travel with our wills & durable power of attorney paperwork tucked into our suitcases, just in case.  Here's hoping that Obama's order works, and we can travel lighter.

Is Space Boring?

This talk from the SpaceUp Ignite series argues that Space is Boring -- or at least, manned spaceflight as presented to the public by NASA.  Discuss.

Strangely, the speaker hardly discusses Mars rovers, other robotic planetary exploration, or space telescopes.  Given that the shuttle program is almost finished, with no replacement in sight, that seems strange.

Update on the academic astronomy job market

From the Women in Astronomy blog comes Hannah's summary of the employment session of the winter American Astronomical Society meeting.  Wow:

Ulvestad estimated that the ratio of new PhDs to faculty openings was about 4:1, based on AAS membership data. If you counted non-university positions, it came up to closer to 2:1. Beckwith said that in steady state, the U of C system should be hiring about 7 astronomy faculty every year, but failed to mention anything about current and future hiring freezes until pressed during the question session.

Beckwith also had the audacity to tell a room full of young scientists, half of whom would likely leave astronomy, that our outlook is positive, that our PhDs would serve us well in jobs outside astronomy also. He gave an anecdote about his daughter who was an artist, and was waiting tables to make a living. To which one at least one person noted that she hadn't spend 12 years in school in order to wait tables.

That factor of 2-to-1 is roughly consistent with the numbers in this recent whitepaper by A. Seth et al.