Endless fraud of fee-for-up-load Open Access 'publishing'

So, for your enjoyment, here's the latest instalment of the fee-for-upload 'open access' publishing industry. I received this just now. Make sure to read beyond the invitation-to-submit reproduced below. It gets more interesting.

"Dear Dr. Udo Schüklenk,
Greetings from the Journal Palliative Medicine and Nursing: Open Access (PMNOA).
We would like to introduce Aperito Online Publishing which is dedicated to the scientific community. Our motto is to provide the easily accessible research information worldwide.
For this we have chosen the selective scientists who have enormously contributed to the scientific community to have their work published in our Journal. You are requested to send any type of articles (Research; Review; Case Report; Mini Review; Short communication; Opinion; Letter to Editors, etc) to the Journal to increase the visibility of our Journal.
You can submit your article by sending an email to mailto:editor.pmnoa@aperito.org. The article submission date is 09 October 2014. The articles which will be submitted on or before 27 September 2014 will be waived 50% & the articles which will be submitted on or before 04 October 2014 will be provided 25% off over publication fee. The Publication fees are as follows.

Country Type	Research/Review Articles	Case Reports	Mini Review/Letters to Editors	Short Communications
High Income	$909	$549	$500	$400
Middle Income	$729	$459	$400	$300
Low Income	$549	$369	$360	$200

Note: If required we can also extend the date of submission as per your convenience.

You are requested to send an email for the confirmation within 48 hrs.

Best Regards
Sophia Elena
Aperito Online Publishing
1999 S. Bascom Avenue,
Suite 700, Campbell, California, 95008
USA

So, I'm selective scientist (I'm not a scientist, I'm a philosopher), and if I submit before September 27 (!!!) I will get my up-load (aka Open Access fee) reduced (aka waived) by 50%. The motto of this fee-for-upload publication is 'easily accessible research information worldwide'. Cool. Why should I bother? Right, the journal wants my fee-for-upload 'publication', so that it can increase its own 'visibility'. Gotcha.

Remarkably, this SPAM outfit boasts two University of Toronto academics on its Editorial Board. I wonder whether they are aware of the nature of the publication that they're listed on the Editorial Board on: Peter C Coyte, Vincent Maida. Other academics are listed without the academic institution even being mentioned. The usual. A hastily copy-pasted-together 'journal' website aiming to get suckers to send their articles and credit card details…  Why do academics support these kinds of outfits - well, do they? I'm not so sure even about that. Oh, in case you want to know where this prestigious academic journal is supposedly or really physically located, this is what a quick address search offers, an insurance broker, probably fully unaware of the fact that they're sharing an office address with this prestigious Open Access journal. Ein Schelm war bosses dabei dent.

Oh, and in case you wonder, of course there are academics that fall for such fraudsters, as this 'publication' in one of its journals demonstrates.

Thousands and a million spectators at Toronto Gay Pride

Hey, I had a great weekend! I went to join in the fun that's Toronto's gay pride party (and march) this last weekend. Great stuff, lots of stages with non-stop events, and security asking for my ID to check my age (trust me, when you are about to turn mid-40s you do appreciate that someone is kind enough to check whether you've reached maturity).

Well, the march was ... long, very long, something like 4 hours (my mid-40s feet started hurting eventually), and ... ummm ... somewhat boring. Compared to the in-your-face kinkiness that Sydney and Berlin tend to offer to the (very much suspecting) public, this was a sedate affair, all in all. The occasional naked marcher popped up, even some leather folks, as well as a naked pre-op transsexual. And that was that. In any case, it's been a great great show that these volunteers put on. I am truly grateful for the time people put in in order to make this a memorable gay pride. This being the mainstream event that it is, even my bank had its own little float, as had other banks, radio and TV stations, the armed forces, firefighters, huge contingents of the Liberal, NDP and Green parties (kindly the Conservatives decided not to show up - this should conserve its Western prairies votes quite nicely - well done Mr Harper!), as well as the police, nurses and the list goes on and on and on. Mind you, even the hotel where I was staying, the downtown Hilton had its own contingent in the march. Good on them! There were even gay Christians like Catholics, Anglicans and assorted other Christian sects (they should really have another look at their God's bible, my hunch is that they just might have missed something there...)

The guy leading the march was a Jamaican gay activist (probably looking for asylum in Canada, seeing how militantly homophobic that creepy little island state is). No doubt this has been a very smart choice as it keeps reminding people how terrible the situation for gay people in even reasonably close-by places is. You'd find in the local Toronto papers suggestions that Canadian tourists should boycott Caribbean tourist destinations that do not protect the human rights of their gay citizens. Great idea!

Of course, gay events and alcohol go well together, so the main sponsor of much of this seems to have been the producer of a drink called xyz ice or something. No idea what it is, but whoever they were, they certainly splashed out, trying to persuade the partying crowd to buy their 7$ a pop drink. No doubt there were hidden stickers saying 'drink responsibly'. And you know what, people even party responsibly in Canada. I saw very very few people who were seriously over their limit. All in all, it's been a family friendly event (and I don't necessarily mean gay families, but any kinds of families). Nice one!

Oh ye, about the heading of this blog entry, check out this link... CTV, the media sponsor of this year's pride kinda couldn't decide how many people lined the streets to cheer on the marchers. The title says 'thousands of spectators', in the articles it says 'a million spectators'. I do accept that many thousands eventually translate into a million (and potentially more than that), but it's odd nonetheless.

On that note, glad I went. I even bumped into a colleague from Toronto Uni. Small world.

Racism alive and kicking - why every ethnic group is capable of being racist

This is Evon Reid, a political science studies graduate from the University of Toronto. Evon shot to unexpected (probably international) fame because a government employee responsible for managing a recruitment process (and his job application) referred to him as a 'ghetto dude'. The Toronto Star newspaper reports the story today. Here's a brief excerpt:

'Evon Reid couldn't believe his eyes yesterday morning when he opened an email from the Ontario government's cabinet office where he'd applied for a position. "This is the ghetto dude that I spoke to before," said the email to the University of Toronto honours student from the very person handling his job application.
... Ghetto dude? It means I'm black. It's very insulting," Reid told the Star yesterday. "It's still pretty shocking to me." As he sees it, the email explains why he hasn't gotten a followup interview for a job as a media analyst. He applied July 3 but missed a July 10 call from Aileen Siu in the cabinet office. Although he called her back and sent followup emails, there was no response. Until yesterday's email. "Based on my resumé I deserved to be called, but I was not worthy of being called back once they heard my mother's voice and my voice," said Reid, 22. "She has a Jamaican accent and it's about the way I talk. There's a nuance." ...

The email was never intended for Reid, according to Siu, who learned she had sent it to him only when the Star telephoned yesterday. An acting team leader in cabinet office hiring, she said she was "multi-tasking" Thursday when she hit the wrong button and copied Reid on an email she was sending to a job-search colleague. "It wasn't directed at Evon at all. That was internal ... It didn't have anything to do with any of the applicants," said Siu, 26, and a recent U of T political science graduate. She insisted the email didn't refer to anyone "outside my circle of friends."
Siu acknowledged the term is negative but said, "I don't even know what nationality he is, right?" She added she's of Asian descent and doesn't want anyone to think she makes racially based judgments.'

There we have it... a truly neat example of somebody one would think would have reached the bottom of the pit that she's dug herself into, but then she musters all her strengths and continues digging even deeper. First Ms Siu is pointing out to us that he wasn't meant to see the message and that it was directed at someone else in her office. Obviously, one should be concerned about the culture in her work environment, because seemingly such language and conduct must be considered acceptable there. Perhaps talking in suitably derogatory socially charged terminology about job applicants is one of the hallmarks in this government office.

Secondly she proposes that she couldn't make racially based judgments because she is of Asian descent. I have heard all of that before, in South Africa. Many 'black' folks, while talking in the most racially charged terminology about 'white' folks, insisted that they couldn't possibly be racists by virtue of their ethnicity. In fact, seeing the history of that country, one shouldn't be too surprised about such conduct. Also, lest someone charges me with being biased, in that country, I also heard 'whites' making racist comments about 'blacks', folks of East Asian descent would make nasty comments about both of the just mentioned groups, and so did folks that go under the label of 'coloured' in South Africa. My main point is that ethnicity (minority or otherwise) does not in its own right prevent racist conduct. Just think of continuing conflicts between African American and South Korean migrants in the USA... - So, Ms Siu's remarks are not only ill-considered, they also make one wonder about the quality of a political science degree at the University of Toronto. Surely one would expect graduates of such a programmes to be aware of such issues.

As a post scriptum: A few of the comments I received since I posted this comment, naturally anonymised.

'Thank you for sharing your solid view on the shocking attitude that exists
within Queen's Park. Since I am not a highly educated person I tend to keep
fairly basic in my thinking, as it serves me well. It struck me that Aileen
Siu would not have made that comment, unless she sincerely believed that it
was the type of grammar her 'job search colleague' enjoyed.'

'I just read your BLOG I totally agree with you. As a black Canadian male I see it all the time with my friends and society in general. Stereotyping other racist and nationalities it sickens me that someone young would have thoughts like this, if it was someone older you can at least use age or a generational gap as part of their ignorance.'