Denise has a good post at Corante about a New York Times Style article that stylishly engages in a little blogger bashing, an article that fails to use information from Dennis Kennedy that would have made it even more stylish and more informative.

Today Doc Searls sent me a URL for the 35th Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, delivered by author Tom Wolfe last week.

So begins a May 16 post on the Krugle blog by Chris Locke. I’ve admitted shame-facedly that I don’t use an aggregator. Even if I did, how could I possibly read everything of interest? I’m pleased to have run across this gem less than two weeks after Chris posted it, less than three weeks after the incomparable Tom Wolfe made his speech (even though it shows that I have been absent from the world live web and out of the conversation and so forth. Life ain’t no ice scream stand so don’t ’spect no scoop).

Chris’ post spins a tangent from the Wolfe speech, a tangent that vectors in on the topic of open access to refereed science publications. A few years ago, as a consultant engaged by the president of an East Coast land grant university, I ran across the bizarre electronic serials acquisition expense structure that prevented researchers at the University from sharing journals online through the University library that were acquired for their colleagues at a private lab, and vice versa. My sense of this was that the publishers had a profitable lock on what is essentially a niche market. I was familiar with software licensing schemes that are just as limiting and just as bizarre. The status aspects of library accessions hadn’t occurred to me until I read Wolfe’s piece, but now the importance of the leveling aspect of open access has been made quite clear!

And this clarity came to me through the linkage made by blogger Locke, the linkage to an open access publication, a scientific paper published in a manner that sets the entire status structure of scientific accessions librarians and their patrons on its ear. This may be way short of an epiphany, but it is a pleasant gestalt: the assemblage of Locke’s insights regarding open access publications, Wolfe’s status thing, and my own modest experience with a consummately bureacratic queen bee of a librarian and the scientist drones who fed her ego.

I had hoped my big “take-away’ from Wolfe’s address would be a good book. He touts Born Fighting by James Webb. So I went to Amazon, and after reading a little about the book, I’ve decided a novel about an old man with daughters and an elephant and a grove of ripening lula avocados will be more to my taste.

…and so to bed.

[From Tim Karr]

A critical vote is going down in Congress right now and we need you to get phones ringing off the hook on Capitol Hill.

The House Judiciary Committee is beginning to “mark up” a good Net Neutrality bill at around 11am (EST) this morning. Then they’re going to vote on whether to bring it to the full floor. Many in the Committee are being pressured by AT&T, Verizon and other major telcos to vote down the net neutrality provisions in this bipartisan bill.

Below are the members who need to hear from you and your readers to support this important bill. Urge them to support the Sensenbrenner-Conyers “Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2024″ (HR 5417) in the Judiciary Committee — and to support it without amendment. (Saying without amendment is key as the telcos want to re-write it in a way that guts Internet freedom).

Here are the members who need to hear from you right now:

Marty Meehan (D-Mass. 5th)
Phone: (202) 225-3411
Fax: (202) 226-0771
http://www.house.gov/writerep
martin.meehan@mail.house.gov

Howard Berman (D-Calif. 28th)
Phone: 202-225-4695
Fax: 202-225-3196
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

William Delahunt (D-Mass. 10th)
Phone: (202) 225-3111
Fax: (202) 225-5658
William.Delahunt@mail.house.gov

Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas 18th)
Phone: (202) 225-3816
Fax: (202) 225-3317
http://www.jacksonlee.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=jacksonlee&type=Let%27s%20Talk

Bobby Scott (D-Va. 3rd)
Phone: (202) 225-8351
Fax: (202) 225-8354
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Chris Van Hollen (D-Md. 8th)
Phone: (202) 225-5341
Fax: (202) 225-0375
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Maxine Waters (D-Calif. 35th)
Phone: (202) 225-2201
Fax: (202) 225-7854
http://www.house.gov/waters/IMA/issue.htm

Mel Watt (D-N.C. 12th)
Tel. (202) 225-1510
Fax (202) 225-1512
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y. 9th)
Phone: (202) 225-6616
Fax: (202) 226-7253
weiner@mail.house.gov

Robert Wexler (D-Fla. 19th)
phone: (202) 225-3001
fax: (202) 225-5974
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Howard Coble (R-NC 6th)
phone: (202) 225-3065
fax: (202) 225-8611
howard.coble@mail.house.gov

Elton Gallegly (R-CA 24th)
phone: (202) 225-5811
fax: (202) 225-1100
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Bob Goodlatte (R-VA 6th)
phone: (202) 225-5431
fax: (202) 225-9681
http://www.house.gov/goodlatte/emailbob.htm

Steve Chabot (R-OH 5th)
phone: (202) 225-2216
fax: (202) 225-3012 (fax)
http://www.house.gov/chabot/email.html

Dan Lungren (R-CA 3rd)
phone: (202) 225-5716
fax: (202) 226-1298
http://www.house.gov/lungren/feedback.shtml

William Jenkins (R-TN 1st)
phone: (202) 225-6356
fax: (202) 225-5714
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

John Hostettler (R-IN 8th)
phone: (202) 225-4636
fax: (202) 225-3284
john.hostettler@mail.house.gov

Mark Green (R-WI 8th)
phone: (202) 225-5665
fax: (202) 225-5729
mark.green@mail.house.gov

Ric Keller (R-FL 8th)
phone: (202) 225-2176
fax: (202) 225-0999
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

For updates throughout the day, visit www.SavetheInternet.com. Also, you can watch the hearings live at http://judiciary.house.gov/ (scroll down below the calendar to live webcast link).

Beth said, “When we go to Woods Hole this fall, let’s take some time and visit Nantucket.”

“Only if we can have a Limerick writing contest,” said I.

And speaking of Limerick…