[Taxacom] Clash of Titans: Univ. Calif. vs. Nature Publishing

[Kenneth Kinman]

Dear All,
      I'm not sure if the battle between Nature Publishing and the Univ,
of California is (1) just a negotiation being waged in public, (2) Univ.
of California libraries suffering "price gouging", or (3) Nature
Publishing tired of giving UC a sweetheart deal year after year.  Or
maybe it is a combination of the above.  The charges and counter-charges
have been going on most of the week.      
       I personally suspect that small library systems have been
suffering such price increases for many years, but now the biggest and
squeakiest wheel might get the oil.  In any case, is Nature Publishing
pricing itself out of business in the very long run?  Or will these
titans kiss and make up, negotiate yet another deal, and leave the
smaller universities subsidizing them both?           
     In any case, it perhaps seems to be a sign of the future.
Eliminate the middle man and publish more directly.  The middle men
(Wall Street is an excellent example) seem to often be over-paid,
bureaucratic, inefficient, and have no conception how much their bloated
salaries are parasitic upon those they purport to serve.   
      But I am not going to shed a lot of tears for California either.
It has frankly seemed to have been sucking more than its fair share of
wealth (especially from the Federal Government) for decades, and now its
extravagance is catching up with it.  Not that I would be pointing the
finger at California librarians who might now be caught between a rock
and a hard place, but some of the biggest universities that they serve
might be a bit spoiled and would probably rather cut library funding
than their sports programs.  Sports always seem to trump academics,
competition always seems to trump cooperation, and warfare always seems
to trump peace (a number of California corporations have been
particularly big on warfare technology since before WWII).  Maybe it
would be appropriate for some of their defense contractors to fund their
libraries instead of the extravagances of their many of fat-cat
investors (many indirectly getting undeserved benefits of federal
corporate welfare).  Eisenhower's warning about the Military-Industrial
Complex is still a valid concern today, and universities are no doubt
more dependent on it than funding for biodiversity studies or even the
humanities.   
          ---------Ken Kinman         
P.S.  Maybe if corporations pumped less money into sports, excess
profits, and influence peddling, they could actually worry more about
the safety of their workers and the consumers they purport to serve.
And presently, the shortcomings of BP in particular perhaps make both
Nature Publishing and the University of California, which are titans in
their own fields, look relatively benign in their own efforts to
dominate the less powerful (who actually have more reason to complain,
but whose complaints go unheeded year in and year out).  California, New
York, Nevada, and even Florida, your real estate woes seem to be largely
of your own making, but it is usually hard-working Americans nationwide
(not to mention the poor workers in the developing world) who pay the
ultimate price.  Of course, even that is well beyond the price that the
non-human species of world are increasingly paying for human greed in
its most extreme manifestations.  When it comes to human greed, I will
criticize it in spite of nationality---America, British, Chinese,
Russian, or any other major player.  Greed seems to be widespread and
regretfully spreading.  It seems to increasingly be more a battle of
financial class than of nationality.  For every rich person willing to
give back to society, there seem to be several who are more intent on
acquiring more and more wealth and could care less about the future of
humanity or planet Earth.  Not all humans are parasites, but the
parasitic seem to always have more influence and power than those
actually care about most others and the future in general.  END of RANT
against the biggest parasites.