Noted physician and author Dr. Helen Caldicott spoke last night at UVM, spoke Tuesday at Middlebury College, and will be speaking tonight in Montpelier and tomorrow night in Brattleboro.

Hear Dr. Caldicott tonight:  April 9 5:30pm

The Chapel, Vermont College of Fine Arts, 36 College St, Montpelier, VT

I was lucky enough to have lunch with Dr. Caldicott yesterday and to be part of a panel discussion with her that was hosted by Margaret Harrington on CCTV Burlington yesterday afternoon.  More about both those items in a later post.

Dr. Caldicott co-founded Physicians for Social Responsibility, an organization

of 32,400 medical professionals committed to educating their colleagues to the

dangers of nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The international umbrella

organization, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, won

the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.

If you miss tonight’s lecture, head to Brattleboro tomorrow, April 10 @ 7:00pm

Latchis 4, Latchis Theatre, 50 Main St., Brattleboro, VT (one door down from the main entrance)

Dr. Caldicott has spent 35 years as an advocate of citizen awareness regarding the world’s nuclear and environmental crisis. Her international campaign strives to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age and the necessary changes in human behavior needed to prevent environmental destruction.  

Trained as a physician and thoroughly versed in the science of nuclear energy, Dr. Caldicott is a knowledgeable and inspiring speaker. During the 1970’s Dr. Caldicott was an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and served

on the staff of the Children’s Hospital Medical Center. One of the most influential women of the 20th century, she has received many awards for her

work. She is the author of seven books, including War in Heaven, (published in March 2007), Nuclear Power is Not the Answer (2006), If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth (1992), and Nuclear Madness: What You Can Do (1979). She

has also been the focus of several films, including Eight Minutes to Midnight, nominated for an Academy Award in 1981, and If You Love This Planet, which won The Academy Award for best documentary in 1982.

Dr. Caldicott’s lectures are free and open to the public.

Trained as a physician and thoroughly versed in the science of nuclear energy,

Dr. Caldicott is a knowledgeable and inspiring speaker. During the 1970’s Dr. Caldicott was an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and served on the staff of the Children’s Hospital Medical Center. One of the most influential women of the 20th century, she has received many awards for her work. She is the author of seven books, including War in Heaven, (published in March 2007), Nuclear Power is Not the Answer (2006), If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth (1992), and Nuclear Madness: What You Can Do (1979). She has also been the focus of several films, including Eight Minutes to Midnight, nominated for an Academy Award in 1981, and If You Love This Planet, which won the Academy Award for best documentary in 1982.

For additional information please contact Marketing Partners in Burlington at 802-864-6710.

The Creators of Goodnight Bush: A Parody have done it again with their creation of The Official George W. Bush Presidential Librarium.

My still photo below cannot do justice to this site, so go here for the interactive version:

http://www.goodnightbush.com/librarium/

Let me backtrack for a minute.  Many of us either read the American childrens book classic Goodnight Moon by ourselves and/or to our children.  Check out the authors’ book and new website.  

I don’t know about you, but humor helps me deal with the ongoing trauma and tragedy of the Bush years.  More below the fold about Goodnight Moon and Goodnight Bush.

First published in 1947, Goodnight Moon was written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd. This simple bedtime story features the process of a child saying goodnight to everything around:

“Goodnight room. Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the moon. Goodnight light, and the red balloon…”

Goodnight Bush: A Parody was created by Gan Golan and Erich Origen, who according to Wikipedia are former employees of Donald Rumsfeld. Published on May 27, 2008, Goodnight Bush

takes a satirical look back at the presidency of George W. Bush, using the popular children’s book Goodnight Moon as a jumping off point. Described as a “traumedy” by its authors, the book touches on issues including torture, war for profit, the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, and the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Based upon the report in the Rutland Herald, it looks like the leak is in the reactor clean-up system.  In a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) water containing contaminants flows in while chemically clean but still radioactive steam exits the reactor.  This system is designed to clean up the water inside the reactor so it doesn’t become contaminated with chemical contaminants that might injure the fuel or weaken the reactor vessel.

Once again this is an example of VY’s deferred maintenance at the risk of both reliability and safety.  The reactor water clean-up is considered a safety system.

How ironic that Entergy did not release this information when the incident occurred, but waited until their weekly newsletter, which was released on the eve of two huge voting issues at the State Legislature.  I guess that ENVY is hoping the legislators will not notice the 3rd leak in 3 months.  The 2nd leak was also in this same safety related system.

I wonder if DPS was given this information and sat on it too, or not informed as has also previously occurred.

Rutland Herald:

Yankee springs another hot leak

BRATTLEBORO – Entergy Nuclear announced late Wednesday afternoon that it had another radioactive leak, this time in a filter that removes radioactivity from other water leaks.

The company, in its weekly newsletter to the media, said the leak was not affecting the operation of the plant. The leak was found in a filter in a portion of the plant that was plagued by another leak that was fixed last week after three months of leaking thousands of gallons of radioactive water…

…Today’s announcement is the third radioactive leak at the plant in the past three months.

Vermont’s Freedom to Marry Bill just passed out of the Judiciary Committee unanimously 5-0!

Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin said the Senate will take up the Bill beginning Monday.

I was at the Statehouse on Wednesday for the hearings.  The testimony by all the couples and by many children was so powerful.  

As a Burlington Justice of the Peace, who has performed numerous civil unions and weddings, I am very happy with this result and strongly believe this bill should pass into law.

This is a civil rights issue.  I am proud to be a Vermonter.

What are your comments?

______________________

UPDATE From Freedom to Marry – see below the fold:

Marriage Bill Clears First Hurdle. Calls needed NOW

Senate Judiciary Committee Approves S.115 5-0! Calls Needed!

Stay apprised via Freedom to Marry site:  http://www.vtfreetomarry.org/

A unanimous Senate Judiciary Committee just voted to support S.115. The Committee approved minor edits to the bill, and rejected a proposed amendment for a statewide non-binding referendum by a 4-1 margin. When Senator Sears called the question, each Senator in turn voted to support the bill. The full Senate is expected to debate and vote on the bill Monday at 3:00 p.m. We urge you to attend.

We’ve successfully cleared the first hurdle – and it’s time to double-down! This weekend is our last chance to reach out to our Senators – each and every one of them. It’s vitally important. Our future, and history, depend on it. Those who oppose our full equality will be extra motivated; we must be, too. Even if you’ve contacted your Senator before, please do it again. Click here for a list of Senators and their contact information. And if you haven’t contacted your Representative for awhile, please do so. This is it!

UVM and its President Daniel Mark Fogel are all over today’s press.  WCAX just announced that UVM is in line for federal stimulus funds, which if granted may be able to stop the next round of layoffs scheduled for April.  

However, at the same time, AP launched a frontal attack regarding the number of UVM administrators and their high-powered salaries.

Fogel himself put out an email [in its entirety below the fold] to all UVM faculty and staff claiming that he is responsible for the new positive changes.  I’m not buying it.  I know faculty that has been laid off, and I remember Fogel’s earlier statement that he would not consider any salary cut in order to retain faculty.  Now AP is showing just how bloated UVM’s administration really is, and our federal tax dollars will go to UVM to support that bloat while regular underpaid professors remain laid off.  Add in the Ben Stein fiasco and UVM’s image is certainly taking hits along with the newly unemployed faculty.  No one is denying that the economy is in trouble, but in a state like Vermont that means that we all must pull together as a community rather than paying big bucks to only a few, or in this case, many in the recently created upper echelons.

According to AP,

The faculty union has accused the school of having too many vice presidents, jumping from 3 in 2002 to 22 in 2008.

The University of Vermont is being criticized for the number and salaries of administrators as the school makes millions of dollars in budget cuts.

According to information obtained by The Associated Press, 28 of the 36 administrators earn $150,000 or more. Of four vacant positions, at least two had salaries exceeding that amount.

The administration’s budget for top administrators rose to $6.6 million for fiscal year 2007-2008 compared to $4.7 million for fiscal year 2002-2003.

The faculty union has accused the school of having too many vice presidents, jumping from 3 in 2002 to 22 in 2008.

UVM President Daniel Fogel says the amount hasn’t changed but some titles have. And he says salaries generally are below comparable institutions.

Fogel email to UVM faculty and staff:    

March 9, 2009

To the University of Vermont Community:

           Throughout last fall and this winter, I have sought input from all corners of campus on the challenges before UVM, particularly from governance leaders. At the UVM Board of Trustees meetings in early February-where I heard very important statements from student, staff, and faculty governance leaders and from faculty members at large-it became clear I needed to intensify my attempts to listen as well as to communicate our current situation and challenges. Realizing that I had to seek out even more actively the thoughts of our campus community, I embarked on a listening tour that has taken me to many meetings with the leadership of campus governance groups and to college and school faculty meetings (four college/school meetings to date, with more to come) as well as numerous one-on-one conversations with members of the campus community. I am writing to give you a brief report on some of the thoughts occasioned by-and some of the topics covered in-that listening tour, focusing on the areas of greatest concern and on the steps we are taking to address them.

           The ongoing budget reconciliation process looms over all discussions as the decline in the national economy deepens. We must balance revenues and expenditures, though we are drawing on up to $19.6 million in institutional reserves this year and next to lessen the extent and slow the pace of the cuts required to do so. We are working closely with the deans and with the Faculty Senate and other governance groups to ensure that everyone has all information required to understand and assess the measures that are under way and what they mean for academic quality. To ensure that academic quality is not compromised, and within budget constraints, we are open to making adjustments responsive to this collaborative process of assessment and analysis, including changes in the allocation of budget cuts and in the methodology for calculating student-faculty ratios. We have agreed with Faculty Senate leadership that the long-term academic-impact analysis will be conducted by a task force including members of two Senate committees (Financial and Physical Planning and Curricular Affairs) and representatives of administration. Measures preparatory to that work are under way, even as we continue to assess whether we will need to move to phase 2 budget reductions in April.

           We share the view that the size and cost of senior administration should be held to the most moderate levels compatible with the continuing success of UVM as a competitive national university for the benefit of Vermont. We have in progress a benchmarking study comparing UVM to relevant peers for both metrics-size and cost of senior administration-and we will share the results of that study widely in short order so that the community can assess the findings. We are committed to taking appropriate measures in response to those findings.

We also intend to address the issues of executive compensation that have occupied so much recent community discourse. Today the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees approved my recommendation, developed in consultation with senior Board leadership, that performance bonuses and other non-base elements of administrative pay will no longer be used at UVM except to honor existing contracts or, going forward, except when reviewed by the Board, and then only with full public disclosure and only when demonstrably required to be market-competitive in the context of higher education. In line with our commitment to full disclosure, we will publish later this week a schedule of all non-base elements of administrative pay that will apply in the 2010 fiscal year.

           Also of great interest to the community in the course of my listening tour have been the administrative transitions currently under way. I recognize, as does the Board of Trustees, that a strong leadership team is an essential foundation of confidence and institutional success. I am pleased to report that I have already received excellent nominations for the Interim Provost appointment. I expect to make that appointment next month following appropriate consultation. There will be a national search for a permanent Provost on a timetable to be determined in consultation with the Board and the campus community. We expect to complete in a matter of weeks searches for three deanships, with superb internal candidates in Agriculture and Life Sciences and in the Rubenstein School now in the final stages of the interview process and with campus visits just completed in a promising external search for Business Administration; the process of appointing a search committee for the deanship of Nursing and Health Sciences is also now in motion. I could not be more pleased that Richard Cate has accepted an appointment as Vice President for Finance and Administration and that Kathleen Kelleher has agreed to serve as Interim Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations. The search for a Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School is also approaching its final stages and is on track to be completed as originally scheduled. In view of what I now know about all of these processes and positions, I want to assure the community of my confidence that vigorous and timely search processes will put in place leadership at all levels as capable and as committed to the success of our academic enterprise as any UVM has ever enjoyed.



           I am very sensitive to the concerns I have heard about the timing of discussions of possible academic restructuring. Increasingly, I have found myself in agreement with those who feel that this is the wrong time to expedite, let alone to execute, even the best ideas for restructuring when we need to focus together on stabilizing the institution, protecting and consolidating the gains we have made in recent years, and building to and conserving our strengths and competitive advantages. We welcome the good thinking that we believe will come out of the working group chaired by Professor Robert Taylor in areas like the desirability of developing a core curriculum and a superior first-year experience for UVM undergraduates. Insofar as that thinking produces recommendations for consideration by the academic community, I say to you once again that they will be considered only through normal governance channels to which I am fully committed, notably the Faculty Senate, with ample time for reflection and deliberation, and with absolutely no agenda for retrenchment of programs or faculty.

           As to the controversy over this year’s Commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient, I deeply regret the mistakes I made that created so much controversy and unease. I remain confident that UVM is open to the full range of opinion within the realm of ideas and of policy-as witness Mr. Stein’s very successful Kalkin Lecture at UVM a year ago-and it is clear that we need a collaborative process to generate and review candidates appropriate to the nature of the celebration that Commencement represents. Today, I brought forward-and the Board’s Executive Committee approved-a new process, developed in consultation with trustees, under which the recommendation to the Board on the choice of Commencement speaker will be made by the Honorary Degree Work Group. The new procedure also amends the membership of the Work Group to include the Staff Council President (joining already strong representation from students, the Faculty Senate, and alumni), provides that one of the Trustees on the Work Group will be an additional student member of the group, and requires a transparent and collaborative process for solicitation of honorary degree candidates and commencement speaker nominations.

           I have great confidence in the extraordinary faculty, staff, students, and alumni of our University. I believe that, by working together as a community, we will find that our current challenges are manageable. In these extraordinary times, it is only by working together that we can ensure that UVM will come through the economic storm a stronger, better institution, and I call on the University community to be a partner in this effort. Finally, I offer my sincere thanks to all of those who have given me their best thinking in the course of my listening tour, and my assurance that I will continue to listen.

                                                                                       Sincerely yours,                                                          

                                                                                       Daniel Mark Fogel        

The original story is here.  The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of Vermont resident Diana Levine in Wyeth v. Levine, Dkt. 06-1249 (3/4/09).  Levine had won her case in Vermont, but drug company Wyeth had appealed the almost $7 million award all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Levine, a musician, had her arm amputated when an anti-nausea drug was improperly administered in her artery, and sued the manufacturer for failing to warn of the risks on the drug’s label. Wyeth claimed that her case was pre-empted by federal law.

Senator Patrick Leahy filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief to a Vermonter Diana Levine’s U.S. Supreme Court case.  Leahy was joined in his “amicus” legal brief, which was filed in August 2008, by 17 members of Congress, including Vermont Senator Bernard Sanders and Vermont Congressman Peter Welch and Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Sheldon Whitehouse, Tom Harkin, Dianne Feinstein, Richard J. Durbin, and Russell D. Feingold, and Representatives Henry A. Waxman, John Conyers, Jr., John D. Dingell,

Frank Pallone, Jr., Bart Stupak, Zoe Lofgren, Linda Sanchez, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, and Maxine Waters.

When an outside party that believes the court’s decision in a specific case may affect its interests files an amicus brief.  Senator Leahy has filed just 10 such briefs in more than 30 years in Congress.  In this case, Wyeth and the Bush administration sought to ascribe to Congress an unfounded intent to displace state tort law.

This nightmare for Diana Levine began in 2000 when she was treated in a Vermont hospital for symptoms associated with migraine headaches.  She was injected with Phenergan, which has been manufactured by Wyeth for almost 50 years and has been used to treat nausea linked to migraine headaches, reactions to pain killers, food poisoning, and a variety of other incidents that cause extensive vomiting.  The drug was injected into Levine’s arm in a manner that caused arterial contact called an IV push.  While there are drugs which are normally administered in this manner in an emergency situation, Wyeth’s own literature noted that this drug could cause a serious infection like gangrene if it is used in an IV push.  While Wyeth has known that there is an incredible risk to an IV push using Phenergan, it failed to revise its warning label to warn of these dangers.

“Levine received two injections of Phenergan in 2002 to treat nausea associated with a migraine headache. The second injection was administered using an intravenous or “IV push” method, which uses a syringe to push the medication directly into the patient’s vein,” according to Bloomburg news.

The drug penetrated Levine’s artery, destroying it and eventually killing much of the tissue in her arm and hand. She underwent two amputations, first losing her right hand and then her arm up to her elbow.  Although Phenergan’s two-page label at the time included a warning about injection into an artery, it didn’t advise not to use the IV push technique.

In his amicus brief, Senator Leahy argued,

“Diana Levine is a successful musician in Vermont, and the tragedy she suffered that has had a profound impact on her career, should have been prevented,” said Leahy.  “A number of recent Supreme Court decisions have stripped protections for every day Americans in favor of shielding large corporations from liability.  The Court’s decision in Ms. Levine’s case could have far-reaching effects on the ability of all Americans to seek justice in their courts when they are injured by a defective pharmaceutical drug.  I hope the Court takes the opportunity to reject the views of Wyeth and of the administration that mere approval from the Food and Drug Administration of a drug label immunizes a drug maker from liability when a consumer is injured or killed.  In over 70 years of enacting and amending the laws governing the regulation of pharmaceutical drugs, Congress never intended this perverse result.”

To me, it is a travesty that Chief Justice Roberts remained on the case even though his most recent financial disclosure form indicates he owns stock in Pfizer, which has announced plans to merge with Wyeth in a $68 Million merger deal.  In my personal opinion, Supreme Court Justices should not be owning stocks.  And, if they do, they should recuse themselves from any cases that come before them involving their portfolio.  It’s no surprise then that Roberts voted against Levine.  Even with that stacked deck Wyeth did not prevail.

According to Bloomburg,

The justices, voting 6-3, said that pharmaceutical companies aren’t shielded from suit by the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a treatment and its packaging information.

“Congress did not intend FDA oversight to be the exclusive means of ensuring drug safety and effectiveness,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the court.

In his opinion for the court, Stevens left open the possibility that suits might be barred in cases where the FDA explicitly considered and rejected a requirement for stronger warnings.

The ruling is a victory for Diana Levine, 63, a children’s musician who says Wyeth should have warned against the injection method that caused gangrene in her right arm, and Levine’s lawyer, David Frederick, called the ruling a “broad victory for consumers.”

Justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas joined Stevens in the majority. Thomas wrote separately to say the court should have been even more deferential to state laws.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito dissented. Alito, writing for the three, said state- law product-liability suits would interfere with the federal drug-approval system.

The Bush administration backed the industry, arguing that “jury awards can interfere with the FDA’s work by forcing drugmakers to exaggerate some dangers.”

The case is Wyeth v. Levine, 06-1249.

Burlingtonians, this is it. This is your last chance to meet your candidates for mayor.

Who: Burlington DFA, Green Mountain Daily, UVM College Democrats

What: FINAL mayoral forum

Where: Sapa Coffee and Tea — 9 Center Street

When: TONIGHT 7 p.m.

Three of the four major candidates together for the last time before the election: Progressive Bob Kiss, Democrat Andy Montroll and Independent Dan Smith.

Have a question you want answered tonight? E-mail your questions to burlingtondfa@gmail.com.

Meet the candidates who want to lead our city for the next three years. Ask the tough questions that you want answered. Enjoy some of Sapa’s great coffee or tea, and meet some city council candidates while you’re there.

Hope we’ll see you tonight!

Hosted by Liz and Eric Miller, last night’s fundraiser for the Vermont Democratic Party was a great first step in putting the VDP back in business since the Democratic National Committee has stopped funding State Parties.  

Burlington Photographer Carolyn Bates released the following photo of elected Vermont Democrats in attendance at this VDP Fundraiser.  Many more photos will be popping up on the VDP website and other venues as Carolyn was photographing non-stop.

©2009 carolynbates.com

From left to right: Acting Vermont Democratic Party Chair Judy Bevans, Senate President Pro-Tem Peter Shumlin, Former Governor Howard Dean, Attorney General Bill Sorrell, Chittenden County State’s Attorney TJ Donovan, Secretary of State Deb Markowitz, and State Representative Joey Donovan.  Speaker of the House Shap Smith and Senator Doug Racine, who were also in attendance, left prior to this photo shoot for previously scheduled events.

As usual Howard was warm, approachable and full of humor.  He regaled the group with humorous stories while reminding everyone that now was not the time to let up.  Using the health care issue as an example, Howard noted that now the hard work must begin.  It is time, he admonished, to make sure that all Dems become more progressive rather than compromising our party’s principals in order to win a few Republican votes.

Transparency in Government is one of my pet peeves, so I love how up close and personal Vermont Politics are.  As Howard reminded all of us, Vermont politics is about people, people involved in their community governments with the vehicle of town meeting.  

I moved to Vermont from Connecticut in 2001 only 2 weeks prior to September 11.  I hated the Bush years. Connecticut’s Governor John Rowland, later indicted on fraud and put in jail for one year, was the first Governor to endorse President Bush, and was being considered for a cabinet post, until his penchant for using other people’s money came to the surface.  For five years, I was a newspaper reporter in Connecticut, first with two award-winning weeklies and then for a daily newspaper, which I thought would be the ultimate gig.  It wasn’t.  I went from two award-winning weekly newspapers to the one daily paper in our rural part of Connecticut.  It was the paper that was the machine behind Governor Rowland’s election.  That paper, The Waterbury Republican-American, would not even allow us, mere reporters that we were, to cover Democratic party candidates unless we had an OK from the editors or publishers.  After working for a year, primarily on the police beat, I went into teaching.  

Last night’s event was about people.  I thank my neighbors Eric and Liz Miller for hosting last night’s Howard Dean Welcome Home VDP fundraising event along with Arthur and Anne Berndt, Tom and Susan Boswell, Hon. TJ Donovan, Crea and Phil Lintilhac, Hon. Deb Markowitz, Hon. Doug Racine, Hon. Peter and Deb Shumlin, Hon. Bill Sorrell, Jane and Bill Stetson, Hon. Shap Smith & Melissa Volansky, and Steve Waltien.  I also thank Selene Hofer-Shall for her vision, energy and work to put together such an event as a way of jump starting the almost empty VDP account!  

Missed this yesterday, so I am quoting today from yesterday’s Prog Blog:

Entergy Resolution

Morgan Daybell  February 9th, 2009

Yesterday, the State Committee of the Progressive Party voted unanimously to support the following resolution, modeled after the resolutions being warned across the state for town meeting day:

   The State Committee of the Vermont Progressive Party requests the Vermont Legislature to:

   1. Recognize that the 2% of our New England region’s power grid supply that is provided by Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plantcan be replaced with a combination of local, renewable electricity and efficiency measures, along with the purchase of hydro generated electricity, and excess power already in the New England electricity market;

   2. Given the viable alternatives and the risks posed by continued operation, ensure that Vermont Yankee will cease operation in March 2012, after having completed its 40 year design life by not granting approval for operation of the plant after that date and by not determining that further operation will promote the general welfare;

   3. Hold the Entergy Corporation, which purchased Vermont Yankee in 2002, responsible to fully fund the plant’s clean-up and decommissioning when the reactor closes, as the corporation pledged to do when it purchased Vermont Yankee.

Progressives in attendance pledged to support the town meeting resolutions, and the broader effort to close Entergy’s Vernon plant in 2012.

Last week, “a 20-year-old college student from Tequesta, Fla., boldly stepped forward” during a public appearance by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to pose a question he did not like.

“That’s a nasty, impolite question,” said Scalia, himself an expert on tough questioning, and he at first refused to answer it.

Following the interchange, “Legal Times tracked down student Sarah Jeck, the Florida Atlantic University honors college junior who incurred Scalia’s wrath, and she seemed a little stunned, but not cowed, by his reaction.”

“He can dish it out, but he can’t take it, I guess,” she says. “I’m generally a very polite person. I’m really surprised the way it turned out. It was not a preposterous question.”

What was the Jeck’s question that so offenced Scalia?  

Jeck asked whether the rationale for Scalia’s well-known opposition to cameras in the Supreme Court was “vitiated” by the facts that the Court allows public visitors to view arguments and releases full argument transcripts to the public, and that justices go out on book tours.

It’s that last part that probably grated, because Scalia could, at that precise moment, have been said to be on a book tour. He was speaking before the Palm Beach County Forum Club and Bar Association, while his book — “Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges,” co-authored by Bryan Garner — was for sale at a table outside the hall,

according to Tony Mauro of Law.com.

Jeck, a political science major, is taking a judicial process class and is looking at the issue of cameras in the courts as her thesis topic. So when she learned Scalia was coming to town, it seemed like a reasonable question to her and her professor, Martin Sweet. By tradition, the club invites local university students to forum events and lets them ask questions. “We knew it was a little jab, but his response was unanticipated,” she says.

Antonin Scalia, is considered the Court’s most “colorful jurist today,” according to Oyez, the Supreme Court Media Site.  

Oftentimes, Scalia is considered both controversial and combative, and while Court observers do not deny his immense “legal brilliance and intellectual abilities,” a Supreme Court observer “once noted that if the mind were muscle and Court sessions were televised, Scalia would be the Arnold Schwartzenegger of American jurisprudence.”

One Supreme Court litigator even described Scalia’s actions as those of a big cat batting around a ball of yarn, according to Oyez.

More about Sarah Jeck, why she pursued this line of questioning, and Scalia’s response below the fold.

After Scalia made his comment to Jeck, he took several written questions and then circled back to Jeck’s query, according to this story in the Palm Beach Post. Scalia said he originally supported the idea of camera access in the courts, but came to oppose it because the inevitable “30-second takeouts” would not give a true picture of what is going on. “Why should I be a party to the miseducation of the American people?” According to Jeck, Scalia made no reference to his book tour as a possible contradiction to his views on public access to the Court.

Sweet, Jeck’s professor and pre-law adviser, told us Wednesday he is “incredibly proud” of her questioning and demeanor. “It was certainly a pointed question, but not designed to be impolite or nasty,” said Sweet, a Supreme Court scholar in his own right. “The point of learning is not to stroke somebody’s ego.”

We asked Jeck two more questions in our brief phone interview Wednesday morning. First, is she planning to go to law school? “Yes,” she said without hesitation. And second, did she buy Scalia’s book? Just as definitively, she said, “I’m a college student. I don’t have $30.”

To me, it sounds like this gutsy and bright young woman will become an attorney who knows how to hold her own, I sure hope she is interested in public service.