Hy is rapidly approaching 80. If his cyber footprint is anything to go by, as @Saul Goodman stated, he's always been a bit "eccentric." But I'm starting to believe the man is truly senile---at this point, anyway---because that's the only thing that makes sense.
Let me put it this way---my mom works in academia. Roughly ten years ago, she was friends with a fellow doctor who was very well-respected & had a lot of clout. This poor woman was dying of brain cancer, but still insisted on working until the very end. If I recall, outside of the university, she also volunteered with my mom at a free clinic (you have to have work in a practice if you're trying to stay certified as a nurse practitioner). However, this woman---I'll call her Dr. V---was experiencing terrible lapses in judgement, could barely speak coherently at times, & definitely should not have been seeing patients. As she had literal holes in her head. But no one wanted to challenge Dr. V on this because she was, again, very well-respected, & she was one of the higher-ranking faculty, for lack of a better term. Everybody tried to force her to retire, but what ultimately ended her career was her death not long after.
Years later, at the same university, a woman I'll call Dr. T, the dean of nursing, been exhibiting signs of dementia. She was in her seventies. My mom's one of the better researchers in her field, & old people brain problems are her bread & butter, so she noticed right away. Mom & two other colleagues were only one who tried to persuade Dr. T to retire---albeit to no avail---as everyone else in the department didn't want to challenge the dean. Dr. T was also in complete denial about her cognitive state, or lack thereof, as she was a respected researcher & had been in the field for almost fifty years & had been a dean for two of those decades, etc., so where do you get off trying to tell me I can't do my job?
As far as I know, Dr. T is still the dean of nursing there. & the department's tanking pretty hard. But again, no one will challenge the dean, because she's the dean. & can fire them.
TL;DR I think that's what's going on with Hy. He may not be part of the firm now, but in his heyday he was blah blah blah whatever. & everybody just lets him do his thing, because it's much easier than trying to talk him out of it.
banner is my new hero.
