P.S. The tactic in my previous email is one I got from the neo-Confederates. The Vanderbilt student newspaper called the chairman of MIT's math department, David Logan, before I even got to MIT (as the newspaper reported in an article entitled, "Farley Heads to MIT"). I have no idea what they said, but I'm sure it wasn't good:
In my first discussion with Logan, he spoke so little I thought he was European and simply did not know English. But in fact as I learned months later he's American. So one can speculate what caused him to be that way my first meeting with him.