the guy by the door …

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Desiree Goodwin and Geoff Carens, her Union Representative leaving Federal Court [the House that Joe Moakley’s bricklayers built. Both are more handsome irl. :(]

Librarian and Information Science News reports:

“Talk about adding insult to injury, Desiree Goodwin , who lost her case for promotion against Harvard University and still retains the same low-paying job, has been told by her attorney, Richard Clarey, that Harvard has sent her a bill for $3,319; the legal expenses incurred during her civil rights trial against them.”

“I’ve seen it done in very big cases involving very big corporations,” said Clarey, vowing to oppose the motion. “But I’ve never seen it done in the case of a corporation whose assets (are) in excess of $23 billion. I’ve never seen it done against a plaintiff who has nothing.”

The guy by the door commentary: There were five lawyers retained by Harvard in the courtroom for the 10 days of the trial - Judith Malone of Palmer and Dodge, Richard Riley and John Coakley from Murphy and Riley, Eileen Finan from the Harvard Office of the General Counsel, and a jury consultant who declined to identify himself to me. A crude estimate of Harvard’s expenditure in the face to face portion of the trial;

[There must be an industry standard multilplier to get the real cost. Anybody?] So what is the significance of $3,319? It may be all that they can hope to win legally. How does it compare to the cost of the meetings and research to make the decision and file the court papers? I will complete my account of the trial posted at OpenHUCTW and keep you aprised of further developments here.

The top story in today’s New York Times Science section is the closing of Harvard University’s [Cambridge, MA] Oak Ridge Observatory in Harvard, MA. The reason? Light pollution due to encroaching development. The article mentions efforts by Arlington and West Medford Representative Jim Marzilli to address light pollution by requiring larger reflectors on streetlights that cast more than 30% of their energy upwards. The lighting industry has defeated his efforts several times. My question for the environmentally inquisitive; With crude oil trading at close to $60 per barrel [[[I’m old enough to remember $5 per barrel.]]] would the savings of these better street light fixtures make sense to municipal budgets and the balance of trade, [not to mention lessen the need for military incursions?] Anybody?

Update 7/8: The connection between U.S. domestic energy usage and Middle East foreign policy has been acknowledged by an apostle of the mainstream media. TV newscaster and author of “The Greatest Generation”, Tom Brokaw said on David Letterman, “If we don’t get our snout out of the oil trough, our relationship with that part of the world will continue to be … uh.. complicated.” I had asked a question pursuant to this of  former Chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisors and current Harvard economics professor N. Gregory Mankiw. Unfortunately, in his view of journalistic ethics, I’m not allowed to tell you. More as the situation develops.

On comparative economic systems. Young Dr. Rainer thinks he knows what I think. He is probably wrong.
I will not presume to deny the barbarism that his relatives may have
suffered due to Joseph Stalin. I am in general
unequivocally opposed to denying
holocausts. However, capitalism as currently configured does need more
than a light rinse. The Russian economy, however, is a problem. If
Prof. Cohen is right, that it cannot be considered capitalism by any
reasonable standard, is it an outlier? Millions of peoples lives
reduced to a dot that the “rational mind” should ignore. Weird
“science”. Worse than dismal.

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Perhaps something like this will make a cleaner wash.

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further, this is being done by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. [I’ll look into the treatment of the Electrical Sisters.] This windmill is in Dorchester at the Freeport Street headquarters of Local 103. [And management says labor is Luddite!
Pishtosh I say! ] So bravo for the Brothers and Sisters. But are the
rest of us moving fast enough to avoid the further ravages of peak
oil?  Dr. Hubbert turned out to be right about U.S. oil production and predicted a similar phenomenon for world oil production. I can prove his theory. It was mentioned in an episode of the West Wing. Qued Erat Demonstrandum. I’m betting with him.

Like everything else in my life, this is a work in progress. I need to
see what fraction of GDP goes into the financial services sector before
deciding if the “free market” is really a costless allocator of
capital. The “empiricists” are loathe to consider this. Also, I need to
consider whether the $0.3 Trillion “incursion” in Iraq can be ignored
as a perturbation or be renormalized away, before I decide if the “free
market” is unconstrained. The answer from upstairs so far, “That was
done by another department.”

 Dr. Hubbert was not an economist, but a geophysicist. But he had an interesting idea about the interaction between physics and economics
or more correctly matter-energy and money.  Matter-energy, of
course, is conserved. Money presumably is tied to real physical wealth,
but the events of late 2001 clearly show how elastic that connection
is. Growth is assumed to be unbounded. [I guess we all agree that the
first derivative is bounded.] I think Dr. Hubbert is onto something,
but should really factor in labor. Marx had to exist, because Smith
understood the power of the division of labor, but not the power of
what was being divided up. This will, of course, get you a job as an
economist, but does it really lead to maximum productivity?

In the U.S. economy over the last three and a half decades wealth has
moved into fewer and fewer hands near the top of the distribution.
[There was a brief uptick in the Gini just before the crash of ‘01. The
undergraduate who argued that this was proof of “all boats being
lifted” never came back for re-examination. ] This may have
supported the illusion among the movers and shakers that growth is some
kind of magic that is immune to physics. There is something special
about life that it can appear to violate the 2nd Law [entropy]. But,
that is only apparent. And we can no longer afford the illusion.

[Tired. Later.]

This is DotArt:

Faces at DotArt
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and this is DotArt:

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and this is a very enticing DotArtist.

Is she, per chance, single?

Is this DotArt?

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Savin Hill Red Line Station closed for renovation. Definitely Dot, but is it art?

This is honoring the fallen:

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This is finding young ones to fall:
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What were you thinking?

On my way in to the City Clerk’s office at 12:50 P.M. today, I saw a Cambridge Police Officer leaning on the handrail of the great stairs. He was playing with a switchblade knife. This seemed inappropriate to me.

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THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED
June 22
250 Jefferson Lecture Hall
Harvard University, Physics Dept.
Cambridge, MA
7:00pm-9:30pm
17 Oxford St. (near Science Center)
Suggested donation $5

HUGO CHAVEZ ELECTED PRESIDENT OF VENEZUELA IN 1998, IS A COLORFUL, UNPREDICTABLE FOLK HERO, beloved by his nation’s working class and a tough-as-nails, quixotic opponent to the power structure that would see him deposed. Two independent filmmakers were inside the presidential palace on April 11, 2002, when he was forcibly removed from office. They were also present 48 hours later when, remarkably, he returned to power amid cheering aides. Their film records what was probably history’s shortest-lived coup d’�tat. It’s a unique document about political muscle and an extraordinary portrait of the man The Wall Street Journal credits with making Venezuela “Washington‚s biggest Latin American headache after the old standby, Cuba.”

guy by the door commentary: The Bush administration, in the person of Colin Powell, took the trouble to denounce this guy in the press. He must be doing something right.

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Dr. Gerson simply must play himself in the movie. No casting director
could improve on what the Society of Friends has already done.

My Communication to City Council about the Arrests.

The Mayor made an elaborate claim of no wrong doing. At best he proved misfeasance. Stay tuned.

Prologue: 9:45 AM Hey! Leave those kids alone!!

“>	“>
Photos: jonny rebellious	Boston Independent Media Center

Climax 11:00 AM Boston Independent Media shows some [more] of the seven arrests and the relative turnout of protester vs. supporters. [Lots of pics, scroll.] The Smedley Butler Brigade was there.

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Mayor, band - command performance.	All volunteer audience.

Anti-climax 12: 30 PM My Law and Lunch shows the strength of support for the war.

For epilogue, I appeal to the blogosphere and to English Lit to enlighten me on the quote “Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge.”
Does this mean what the folks at the National Archives seem to think it means?

“You! You’re out!”
“Why?”
“Because!”
Officer More Temperate [also not wearing his badge] said, “Because you’ve been asked.”

Officer UDHBN then pushed me 30 or  40 ft to the gate. I noticed
an Officer wearing his ID. He identified himself to me as Sargent
Ahern. Later he posed for me. I met the ACLU lady. If any onlookers
have pictures of me being ejected from the Free Speach
Zone, I would appreciate your sending them to me. We really do need to
identify Officer UDHBN. I do have pictures for you, but I have to write
up a more detailed
statement for the ACLU.

We don’t need no thought control.

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All in all it’s just another brick in the wall. -Pink Floyd

I missed the BlackHawk helicopter. A deputy Rumy came.