Celebrity Academics

A million years ago when I was employed be a certain academic institution that will go unnamed, they had a fetish for hiring people who were clearly there to retire and play golf while earning a nice salary. Good for them! I'm not bothered by people profiting off the grift, though I was a bit puzzled by the willingness of the powers that be to starve everyone else while sending wheelbarrows of money to the retirees. Academia is complicated, but like most careers there are rules for celebrities and rules for everyone else. Still I puzzle at places like Harvard and Stanford which seem to be obsessed with trolling the universe by saying "lol losers there's nothing we can do to tarnish our reputation."