Once again professor steev, the clown, price has proven his penchant for twisting the truth and exaggerating RK's claims his continued posing on the Internet should be seen as anything other than a rug idiot mouthing off are false and slanderous. We also claims his website is equally inexpert and it presents a false impression of historic Oriental Rugs to anyone who happens to visit it.
Today price posted the following in defense of our claims:
“Hi People
Cassin posted more nonsense on his "forum" about our interaction today, and here's an interesting excerpt from it:
Acts of malice? Lies? Misrepresentations? A steady stream of them?
Phuleeze, professor clown provide some proof ... everything we write is true and factual.
That should leave anyone breathless in disbelief. I don't want to list all of it here, but here's enough to make the point. Let's start with lies:
1. He informed the world that all of my academic credentials came from "podunk colleges". Not as opinion, as fact. This was before he learned that I hold two advanced degrees from Princeton University. The legal term for such disinformation is "reckless disregard for the truth."
2. He informed the world that I had never published anything in my professional career. Not as opinion, as fact. Nobody here cares about the details (at least, I don't see any reason why anyone should), but the list of publications on my CV occupies about 10 pages.
3. He informed the world that I had never received any professional awards in my career. Again, details are irrelevant, but my CV lists eleven "Honors and Awards", including three from foreign organizations, five from the federal government, and three from my institution. This doesn't include consultantships to various government agencies or private companies, research grants, or election by my colleagues to the highest office open to a member of the graduate faculty at my institution.
4. He informed the world that I was blacklisted as a research grant applicant by the National Academy of Sciences. In fact, that isn't a granting agency (except for a few specialized areas, none of which have anything to do with my field).
How about malice?
1. He has, on more than one occasion, contacted some of my colleagues, my departmental chair and assistant chair, and my university's president, by e-mail and by telephone. In each case, the message was that I should be terminated, my obvious incompetence being an embarrassment to my department and to my university. This amounts to malice even in the restricted meaning applied to it under the law. The formal term is "tortious(sic) interference with (my) livelihood and reputation".
2. He has posted my likeness, without my permission, on his website. It identifies me, and has been altered with the obvious intent to humilate(sic) (my recollection is that I hold a sign announcing that I am an idiot, or some such thing). This, too, easily meets the legal test for malice.
So, when Cassin announces (as he did this morning) that everything we write is true and factual, he's just lying again.”
Anyone who has read what we have said about price knows he is stretching our words and even worse fabricating others we did not say to further his feeble attempt to prove we are slandering and maligning him.
Frankly, if what price wrote was true he would have superior grounds to silence us legally and seek damages.
But, because, as we have said over and over, our statements about him are factual and true, that avenue is not open to him.
In fact, should he ever try to legally silence us we have a stronger case for malicious use of the law because everything we have said is true.
Regardless of any discussion concerning the picayune facts of price’s less than stellar career as a “scientist” and an educator, forget his claims to any expertise as a rug expert, we will now publish the letter we sent to his department chair, Dr Biber, that had a copy cc to his university’s president.
Have a read and you will note how price’s characterization of our words are as bent and twisted as the rest of his claims we are bullying him.
Dear Dr. Biber:
cc. Eugene Triani:
Your university must have very liberal regulations governing the conduct and activities of the professors it employs.
I have already spoken in the past to several member of your Physiology Department and found the situation that is the impetus of this email, Dr. Steve Price's extracurricular activities, are already well known.
Perhaps my describing them as the butt of some humor amongst these colleagues of yours might give a succinct picture of what I learned from those calls.
I would also imagine Dr. Price’s less than sterling professional record and accomplishments as a scientist and an educator, no only his outside activities, are also part of that levity.
Dr. Price is clearly running a personal business out of his office and, while that business does not trade or deal on any commercial level, it is a business in the sense he is selling himself and his illusionary knowledge about Oriental Rugs to all who might be unlucky enough to come into contact with him.
Granted, I have expressed my dismay and dislike of Dr. Price's activities to him directly and, at times, the tenor of those missives has been brutal.
However, Dr. Price's replies and his continuing assault on my integrity and professional achievements, which by the eclipse anything Dr. Price could ever, or has ever, achieved in any realm, have demonstrated conduct on his part that is entirely unbecoming and unprofessional.
In fact, Dr. Price has often raised the ante with his disgusting and vile replies to my requests he cease and desist from presenting himself to the public as something he clearly isn't -- knowledgeable about Oriental Rugs.
I have included below a sample -- an email Dr. Price sent me in 2002. I have many others with far more recent dates.
In that email not only does he falsely attack me with outrageous claims that have no substantiation but also in the same breath he likewise defames a world famous archaeologist, my colleague and friend, Professor James Mellaart.
Mellaart's discoveries in Turkey of the Neolithic sites of Hacilar and Catal Huyuk not only revolutionized the archaeological record of that country but also, in fact, have changed the entire face of what is known about the Near Eastern Neolithic and Early Bronze Age periods.
To refer to me in the terms Dr. Price has could be overlooked but the continuing and ongoing defamation, without ever providing a shred of actual evidence, is untenable.
I can no longer stand silent.
The foul language and libel Dr. Price seems to feel he can spill with impunity will, I trust, make you understand the severity of my claim.
This is but one of many such emails I have received.
Clearly, no tenured professor who is entrusted with the duty of supposedly molding the youth of our country into their roles as adults should ever act in the manner Dr. Price has adopted.
Truly, what he has done in the past, and continues to presently, is a disgrace not only to these woven artworks and me but also to your University and specifically to your department.
Dr. Price is a clown and allowing him to cavort like that while ostensibly he is working as an educator or scientist is something I am sure you need to address and to do soon.
I have spent almost 40 years of my life working to raise appreciation for these objects and having a boorish lout like Dr. Price tramping on these grounds is something I cannot countenance any longer.
Nor will I, and that is the reason for my writing to you today.
I have voluminous proof to substantiate my claims and would, with pleasure, be glad to share more of that with you at any time.
Not to make this email any longer than necessary I will close now and hope what I have written will spur you, or the administration at large, into taking some action.
I have sent a copy of this to the Office of the President, Eugene Triani to assist you in any efforts you feel might be necessary to address this situation.
Sincerely yours,
Jack Cassin
founder
Weaving Art Museum
a nonprofit art organization
http://weavingartmuseum.org