Letter to the Baltimore Sun

The Baltimore Sun published a letter I wrote to them: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-rr-oprah-letter-20180110-story.html

Text reproduced here:

Dear Baltimore Sun,

Do you ever ask yourself what might have happened if, in the very early days of the 2016 presidential election, you hadn't breathlessly reported every movement and tweet of a celebrity whose only qualifications for running for national office were wealth and fame? Have you soberly reflected on dictionary.com’s word of the year for 2017, "complicit," and asked yourself to what extent you too are complicit in the current state of the world?

If you have, then, why, after everything we have all learned, did you choose to publish, "Oprah 2020: She can run, but will she?" (Jan. 9)? Before publishing this article, did you ask yourself to what extent does it report what actually happened (Oprah Winfrey gave a speech as she accepted an award at the Golden Globes), and to what extent does it fan the flames of wild speculation that a celebrity whose only qualifications are wealth and fame might run for national office?

Did you hope that reporting on Ms. Winfrey's presidential run would make the idea sound as plausible as "Icebreakers called out as cold weather persists" (also on page 6), and that two wrongs would somehow make a right?

Today I'm thankful for: The Baltimore Sun

Today (and every day) I'm thankful for the Baltimore Sun.

An independent free press is crucial for any democracy.  All politics is local, so a local newspaper is even more important.  The Baltimore Sun is still here, and I am thankful.

Today I'm thankful for: David Siffert's post on anti-Semitism and Jewish politics

Today (and every day) I'm thankful for David Siffert's thoughtful post on anti-Semitism and Jewish politics (https://www.facebook.com/siffert/posts/10101064035576000).  The ability and the choice to write with great feeling, context, nuance, and consideration for other people's feelings, all at the same, in as brutal a medium as a Facebook post, gives me hope for the future, and I am thankful.

word of the day: jeremiad

The word of the day is jeremiad:

a prolonged lamentation or mournful complaint.

in reference to Jeremiah's Lamentations (dictionary.com)

"Sahra Wagenknecht, an orthodox Marxist in a brilliant-red suit, steps behind the lectern and berates Merkel for her economic and foreign policies, which, she says, are bringing Fascism back to Europe.  'We must stop abusing a highly dangerous, half-hegemonic position that Germany slid into, in the ruthless old German style,' Wagenknecht declares.  She then cites the French historian Emmanuel Todd: 'Unknowingly, the Germans are on their way to again take their role as bringers of calamity for the other European peoples, and later for themselves.'....

"The speaker ends her jeremiad, and the only people to clap are the members of Die Linke, isolated in the far-left section of the chamber."

 - George Packer, "The Quiet German: The astonishing rise of Angela Merkel, the most powerful woman in the world", 1 December 2014 The New Yorker 

thoughts on Science's predatory journal sting

I commented on this discussion on the American Chemical Society's LinkedIn page, but I know LinkedIn posts don't stay up for long, so I thought I would preserve it here for posterity.

The post was about this story from NPR, reporting on a piece in Science about a sting to expose predatory journals.

Here's my comment:

"The fatal flaw of the spoof study was that it lacked a negative control, but so too did this piece of stunt journalism.  Maybe he told too many coworkers about his project to be able to send it to Science, but what about Science Translational Medicine, Nature, The Journal of Biological Chemistry, etc. etc.?  It's true that the rate of acceptance of the spoof paper among open access journals was shockingly high, but if he's going to make the claim that this is a problem with open access and not with publishing in general, he really needs the traditional publisher control.  Any sort of argument that traditional publishers don’t have the same financial incentives to publish bad papers as open access journals that charge publication fees, and therefore are unlikely to accept the spoof study, is cute, but is not science.  Besides, many subscription-based publications, such as The Journal of Biological Chemistry, also charge publication fees, too, and have the same financial incentive to publish as many papers as possible.

"Predatory journals are an important issue, and I’m glad he’s raising awareness about it, but I’m not convinced this was the best way to do it.  In particular, I’m puzzled as to why he pretended to be from Africa.  He says “My hope was that using developing world authors and institutions would arouse less suspicion if a curious editor were to find nothing about them on the Internet”, but I thought the whole point was to reveal that editors of some journals don’t even bother to do even the most basic homework on the papers submitted.  By deliberately making the manuscript difficult to read, he undermines his claim that “This sting did not waste the time of many legitimate peer reviewers.”  I fear that this sting could very well erode trust in the scientific process, and might make Western journals even more suspicious of papers submitted from developing countries, simply because they are from developing countries."

Word of the day: picayune

The word of the day is picayune:

Etymology:  < French regional (southern, especially Savoy) picaillon, pécaillon, picayonorig. and chiefly U.S. (1643 as †picailloux in a Lyonnais source, denoting a small coin of foreign origin; compare French picaillons (plural), a slang term for ‘money, cash’ (1746 or earlier in this sense)) and its etymon Occitan picalhon, denoting a Savoyan-Piedmontese coin (see note), and in the extended sense ‘money’, of uncertain origin, probably < Occitan piquar to ring (bells), to knock, strike (1509; of imitative origin) + a suffix, the coins being so named because they would jingle in the pocket.
A. n.1.a. Originally, in southern United States, esp. Louisiana: a Spanish half-real. In later use: a 5-cent piece or other coin of little value. Now hist. 
b. colloq. A very small or the least amount of money, wealth, etc. Chiefly in negative contexts, as not worth a picayune, etc. 
2. colloq. A worthless or contemptible person; a trivial or unimportant matter or thing
3. With the: that which is picayune. 
B. adj.  Of little value; paltry, petty, trifling; unimportant, trivial; mean; contemptible. (OED)

"On a day that would be known as the Father’s Day Massacre, he vetoed eighty-two bills.  Perry had been a nonentity during the session, and few Texas politicians had heard his views on any of the pending bills...  The reasons that Perry gave for targeting many bills were picayune, and his vetoes seemed personally directed at lawmakers, of both parties, who had fallen from his favor.  The long-term effect was that Perry got the respect, or the fear, that he sought."

 - Lawrence Wright, "A different kind of Texan", 29 August 2011 The New Yorker