Marcus' World

France Photos

Helen and I ventured to France for the first time earlier this month, for a conference and then vacation.  For Helen, it was all vacation! We spent two days in Nancy, in the northeast, and then five nights in Paris. 

Two great trips this year--To Argentina and to France.  Both were wonderful, although we did feel more free to chart our own course in Buenos Aires.  Paris has so many "must-sees" that first-timers labor under a sense of obligation that they must get to everything.

Helen has done her usual great job of organizing the photos and adding captions.  Two photo albums are available on our web site.

Here is a picture of us at the top of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, with gargoyles in the vicinity and the city below.

Introducing Open Access Librarian

I've recently joined the blogging team for Open Access Librarian, a fact I keep meaning to mention on Marcus' World.  As of today there is a link in the left-hand column of the blog.

I used to be more righteous in my support of open access publishing, which seeks to use digital technologies to increase access to scholarly literature.  Since medical research is often funded by tax dollars, it is not fair that people have to pay again to read the results of research.

I still support open access, but am trying to avoid the trap of vilifying the publishers who benefit from the current system.  The "us against them" approach might work for George W. Bush, but I'm not sure it makes sense in this case.  Either I'm getting older, or I've been affected by the musings of Scott Plutchak about these topics.

For all these reservations, I still wanted to join the Open Access Librarian team.   Heather Morrison, the creator of the blog, is a passionate advocate for open access.  Heather and I agree on ends but not always the means; it should be a fun ride.

Transit Strike Ends: Toussaint Blinks

Yesterday Roger Toussaint, the fiery leader of the Transport Workers Union, compared the transit strike to Rosa Parks's refusal to sit in the back of the bus.  The strike was against the law, but Toussaint said justice was more important than the law. 

Rosa Parks was willing to be arrested, of course.  Toussaint faced an 11 AM court hearing today,  after which he might have gone to jail.  Suddenly word of an end to the strike began to surface.  By this afternoon, it was official.  The system is too complicated to start up instantly, so I walked home again tonight.

Union members have gone back to work while pensions continue to be negotiated.  Since the union claimed they would not work one day without a contract, they ended up losing the negotiations. 

Hopefully those retailers who had counted  on a strong week will recover some of their losses this weekend.   And if city residents no longer take transit workers for granted, that would be wonderful.  Striking is like having a huge argument within a dysfunctional family; it only makes things worse, but still feels like the only way to behave.

"I Did Not Have Sex with That Woman"

Let's stroll down memory lane back to 1998, when the nation ground to a halt because Bill Clinton had an orgasm on Monica Lewinsky's dress.  At least, it ground to a halt in the eyes of some congressional Republicans.  Clinton's legalistic testimony about the matter was a "high crime and misdemeanor," worthy of impeachment.  Not to rational people, but to certain politically rabid sorts.

In 2005, the New York Times has defied the Bush administration to reveal a secret wiretap policy instituted shortly after September 11.  The president says it's a new world, and that the old rules for secret wiretaps do not apply.  But in fact, authorities can already listen to people without a warrant if necessary.  Bush had all the power he needs, and took more anyway.

That's bad enough, but Bush lied about this on the campaign trail last year.  Here's our president's version of straight talk in April 2004: "Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."

Clinton is far from an ideal husband, and he did lie.  But our current God-fearing president lied about something far more important.  I'm waiting to see when GOP leaders will file the impeachment motions.  Time's a-wasting; the nation's values are grinding to a halt.

Transit Strike Day 2

The editorialists are thundering, the city's economy is reeling, and my legs are tired.  The Transport Workers Union has lost the battle of public opinion, and people will only become more bitter as the transit strike continues.

The sticking  point had been pensions--The transit authority wanted full pensions to begin at age 62 for new workers, the union wanted to keep it at 55.  By the end of negotiations, the authority had relented and said 55 was fine as long as workers paid 6% rather than 2% into their retirement.  Although the union called this a 4% wage cut, they got the better of the negotiations.

So why did they strike anyway? As an important article in the Gotham Gazette explains, it's really about respect.  Union workers feel abused and taken for granted, and they are tired of it.  And with billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg calling them "cowards," the union does have a right to be upset.

Striking is not the solution, and I'm not sure what is.  But as the strike grinds on, I'm going to try to keep in mind that this is about re-claiming dignity.

Transit Strike

This morning the Transport Workers Union went on strike, which means that I can't take the subway to work and the bus home.  Contract negotiations broke down--Wages were a minor issue, compared to the deal-breaker of how to handle pensions for new workers.

I'm walking everywhere, indefinitely. I'm looking at it as a chance to get some exercise, rather than focusing on the fact that it's cold outside and the city's economy is suffering.

Last week the city filed a motion seeking to charge the union $1 million a day in fines, and each transport worker $25,000/day.  The average yearly salary of the workers is $55,000, and so these figures are absurd and inflammatory.  It caused me to have more sympathy for the union, even though the transit authority is right that pensions must come under control in future years.

Today Mayor Bloomberg took a page from George W. Bush, and called the strike a "cowardly" act. How so, Mayor Mike? The transit workers face hefty fines and public scorn, and they decided to take a stand anyway.  It's anything but cowardly, even if it's not wise.

Living in Manhattan, I can get to wherever I need to go.  Friends in Brooklyn and Queens are having a huge challenge, and the library's staff is much depleted.  Telecommuting was invented for days like this, but NYU is too old-fashioned to allow that. 

The last strike, in 1980, lasted 11 days.  If that happens again, it will end on New Year's Eve just in time to shuttle the throngs to Times Square.  Merchants will be irate at their losses, and many people would have lost their jobs.  I hope the strike ends quickly, but it doesn't look like it will.

Scientific Integrity

This evening I returned from the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association. It was in Philadelphia, a city with an unsettling Benjamin Franklin fetish.  I actually heard the word "Benergy" while I was in town.

APHA offered many excellent sessions about the misuse of science by policy makers in the Bush administration.  Scientists are often ignored when their data doesn't support preferred policies, but at least the data is represented fairly.  Today they are facing unprecedented distortion of their work, and being asked to endorse these distortions.  I knew this before coming to the conference, vaguely.  But now I realize how serious the problem has become.  The Union of Concerned Scientists has documented the abuses, and is spearheading a vigorous effort to restore scientific integrity in federal decision making.

Health sciences librarians trust that the peer-review system is the highest form of  scholarly evidence, and we select materials based on that premise.  Peer-review is not perfect, but it has worked well for over 300 years. The current administration appears to have less respect for that system than anyone before it, Republican or Democrat.  Library organizations, such as the Medical Library Association and its Public Health/Health Administration Section, should lend our support to besieged scientists.  Since I'm an officer of the Public Health section, I hope that we can do something early next year.

Greetings from France

Helen and I have had the great fortune of traveling internationally this year.  In April we ventured to Buenos Aires, where we stretched our s0-so Spanish to the limit.  Now we are in Paris, and our non-existent French is sometimes embarrassing.  We tried to learn the basics in the weeks before leaving, but a few hours with a CD is no match for formal Spanish education.  Contrary to the general image of French superciliousness in the face of those who don't know the language, I have found most people to be friendly.  Tonight our waiter patiently translated every item on a menu--a short menu, admittedly--for us.  Perhaps we look helpless.

We came to France because I participated in the Seventh International Conference on Grey Literature. The conference was in Nancy, in the province of Lorraine, close to Luxembourg. By the end of our two day stay Helen seemed to know every corner of Nancy, as she strolled its streets while I was at the conference. We left Nancy right after the conference, and made it to our hotel late Tuesday night.

The hotel is right by the Sorbonne, and students going to classes dominate in the morning. It is our first international hotel to have in-room wireless access, and we love it! The homepage for Helen's laptop is Google, and here it defaults to Google France.

Thus far we have done the "Welcome to Paris" version of being a tourist: Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, Orsay, Montmartre.  Tonight we did venture to the outskirts of town, where we met that friendly waiter.  I bet that we'll chart a more idiosyncratic course for the remainder of the trip. 

Au revoir for now.

God Bless America

Early this morning Kenneth Boyd became the 1,000th person executed in the United States since the reinstatement of the death penalty.  Although most advanced nations have moved past the Middle Ages, America continues to believe that state-sponsored murder is appropriate.

This week a thug in New York City,  Allan Cameron, killed a police officer named Dillon Stewart.  He  has been implicated in the wounding of another officer a few weeks ago.  Governor Pataki responded by saying that New York should reinstate the death penalty, so we can kill Mr. Cameron to show that killing is wrong. That won't bring back Officer Stewart, but it would increase barbarism in our state.

DNA testing has shown many times that innocents are on Death Row, and most evidence shows that the death penalty is no deterrent.   This is why the rest of the world recoils at our backwardness, which places us in the company of dictatorial regimes like Iran and China. It's eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, depravity for depravity.