Some insight into the mind and moral character of Joshua Boger, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated founder + member of the board of fellows of Harvard Medical and Celebrity Series executive board

Wednesday 4/9/25

It's interesting how unintelligent some supposedly smart people really are, and how entitled people of prodigious means can reveal themselves to be when they find that the ring is not automatically kissed, which has a tendency to produce anger.

The other day, I shared an email that went to Gary Dunning and Nicole Taney, the president and executive director and artistic director of the Celebrity Series of Boston respectively, about David Sedaris--who had a Celebrity Series event on Sunday night--and his mocking of the disabled, which we are all able to see in his own words, with an earlier entry in these pages.

They ignored this email, because, really, what could a person say without inculpating themselves? That what Sedaris stands for--again, via his own words--isn't that bad? Anyone who sees those words knows how heinous they are.

There's nothing short of, "We're doing something about this" that one can say, without appearing to defend those words.

"Eh, get over it."

Can't say that.

So what was going to happen next? It's fine? You skate?

Well, that page is up here in this record, and as I suggested, I think we'll find that it's impactful at some point.

Right now, it's just me. But that doesn't mean it's always just going to be me.

If there were numbers here, that event doesn't happen. Being made aware of what Sedaris said and going ahead anyway, is a matter of evaluating risk and trying to get away with it.

"He's just one person, we'll probably be fine."

Okay.

This morning, I sent an email to seven executive committee members of the Celebrity Series of Boston. I've looked into matters. I see the eight million dollar homes in Brookline. You wouldn't be surprised to be met with a barrage of the prototypically classist attitude, where people think that money cancels out anything else--including ethical matters of right and wrong--but you have to let it play out. Give people a chance. You may suspect, but you don't know--at least not completely--until you do.

But it's conceivable that someone says, "Hey, thanks for bringing that to my attention, that was bad, here's what we're going to do about it..."

That person is not going to be one Joshua Boger, the only board member thus far to have responded, because, I would venture, he couldn't help himself and he's used to having things a certain way, given that it's him, as if by feudal decree.

Not because of right and wrong and simple human decency, to say nothing of common sense.

He's seventy-three-years-old and the founder of Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated. You can read all about Joshua Boger in his bio over at Harvard and also on his Wikipedia page, which has a philanthropy section, of all things, considering.

A person like this possesses a moral compass whose needle spins in a disorienting blur. They don't know which way is north, which is to say, what any reasonable, ethical person knows to be right.

This is the email--which was titled, "Charles Dunning and Nicole Taney"--that I sent to the seven executive committee members of the Celebrity Series of Boston:

Seems not so great. Shameful and indefensible, in fact. You are being made aware of this so that it is, at the least, a matter of record that you are aware of it and that information may be publicly relayed as such.

https://www.colinfleminglit.com/post/gary-dunning-and-nicole-taney-of-boston-s-celebrity-series-two-people-who-don-t-object-to-the-mocki

Pretty reasonable, right? Even-toned. No threats. Nothing false. Nothing histrionic. An alerting. A bringing to attention.

This was a single email. And clearly the sole email that would be forthcoming, sans response, because there was nothing else to say. The information had been imparted. The ball was in the court where it needed to be.

I did not write what Sedaris wrote. I do not believe those things. I think the disabled have every bit as much right to work and live their lives as anyone else. I think they deserve decency and certainly don't deserve to be belittled.

This was Joshua Boger's response to the above email:

Please remove me from your email list.  I do not tolerate personal attacks.  Your blast email could be considered as harassment.  Any further emails to me from you will be treated as such. Suggest you get legal counsel.   Ironically, your scree is indefensible. 

Sent from my iPhone XIV

Joshua.Boger@gmail.com

You like that, do you Harvard?

You will note the Boomer understanding--or lack thereof--with terms such as "email list"--that's not how how email lists work; those are things you get again and again from, say, a publicist; ditto "blast email." That wasn't a press release or part of a marketing campaign. It was a one-off alerting to something that is clearly very bad to the people with the power to do something about it.

This was a note that took one to a link where execrable behavior--a countenancing of mocking the disabled, as evinced by the two people presumably put in charge by the board on which Boger sits--was detailed, which itself included a link that took one to a page where one could read, for themselves, David Sedaris' very clearly expressed thoughts about the disabled and what they deserve in life.

Again, I did not write these words that Sedaris wrote.

Imagine seeing that from Sedaris, and determining that I am the monster here. The villain of the piece.

Like I said: the needle of the moral compass of a Joshua Boger just spins and spins and spins, because it is a broken compass.

The bluster, the oblique threats. It could be considered as harassment? By whom? The dark little demon on your shoulder that thinks you're entitled to whatever you wish something to be no matter what it actually is?

And my "scree"? Typing too angrily to get that "d" in there? He put his email address there by the way--that wasn't me.

Let's not overlook the allegation of that personal attack.

Against this person, Joshua Boger? They weren't even mentioned. Or is the nebulous reference to some would-be personal attack against David Sedaris, who said the disabled shouldn't have jobs if that means he has to interact with and, in his view, be inconvenienced by them in the smallest ways--ways that aren't even ways to rational people?

Or are we angry and used to having the ring kissed and going off because someone like this thinks they can intimidate someone into whatever they wish, no matter how in the wrong they are?

One would think that being all of theses supposedly great things--I feel like Mark Antony here--and seventy-three-years-old, that it'd be smarter not to wrap matters up with a "I know you are but what am I" type of comment.

Ironically.

I have not made a single allegation. I shared text from a book. I opined--it would seem reasonably--that those are the words of a bad person. I have alleged nothing about Joshua Boger. Anybody. I have said that people should get out more and elevate their standards artistically and morally.

Does that mean I've cast allegations against, what, the world at large?

This is just a man using terms. Throwing them around.

Here's another way you're wrong, Joshua Boger: You got the wrong guy if you think you were going to intimidate this person.

I'm prepared to put each of these people up on here one by one if need be.

Everything I have said is true. I've shared what I sent, what I got back. There it is. There isn't anything else. I have alleged nothing. I've shared words verbatim that already existed, and I've opined. I think someone like this--who mocks the disabled--isn't a good person. Is a bad person. I think most of us would agree that mocking the disabled is wrong and sickening.

Thinking as much, and saying as much, doesn't exactly isolate you on the most attenuated branch in the world, does it?

But that's the bad guy?

That's not the bad guy.

It's pretty clear who that is here.