Robert D. Putnam writes: The most whimsical yet discomfiting bit of evidence of social disengagement in contemporary America that I have discovered is this: more Americans are bowling today than ever before, but bowling in organized leagues has plummeted in the last decade or so. Between 1980 and 1993 the total number of bowlers in America increased by 10 percent, while league bowling decreased by 40 percent. (Lest this be thought a wholly trivial example, I should note that nearly 80 million Americans went bowling at least once during 1993, nearly a third more than voted in the 1994 congressional elections and roughly the same number as claim to attend church regularly. Even after the 1980s’ plunge in league bowling, nearly 3 percent of American adults regularly bowl in leagues.) The rise of solo bowling threatens the livelihood of bowling-lane proprietors because those who bowl as members of leagues consume three times as much beer and pizza as solo bowlers, and the money in bowling is in the beer and pizza, not the balls and shoes. The broader social significance, however, lies in the social interaction and even occasionally civic conversations over beer and pizza that solo bowlers forgo. Whether or not bowling beats balloting in the eyes of most Americans, bowling teams illustrate yet another vanishing form of social capital. … The concept of “civil society” has played a central role in the recent global debate about the preconditions for democracy and democratization. In the newer democracies this phrase has properly focused attention on the need to foster a vibrant civic life in soils traditionally inhospitable to self-government. In the established democracies, ironically, growing numbers of citizens are questioning the effectiveness of their public institutions at the very moment when liberal democracy has swept the battlefield, both ideologically and geopolitically. In America, at least, there is reason to suspect that this democratic disarray may be linked to a broad and continuing erosion of civic engagement that began a quarter-century ago. High on our scholarly agenda should be the question of whether a comparable erosion of social capital may be under way in other advanced democracies, perhaps in different institutional and behavioral guises. High on America’s agenda should be the question of how to reverse these adverse trends in social connectedness, thus restoring civic engagement and civic trust. (06/06/05)
more…

As my readers know, I have been concerned about the Fossil Fuel Depletion Crisis
for sometime. What has been old news on the internet, is starting to
hit the main stream. Last night I watched an amazing movie on FOX/FX
called Oil Storm. … Today, I received notification that Matthew Simmons’ new book Twilight in the Desert has shipped, and I am currently reading Richard Heinberg’s Powerdown, it makes an excellent companion piece to Kunstler’s The Long Emergency. Seriously, this is stuff every human needs to know. … This morning Kunstler
tells it like it is in his newest essay: Cluelessness over the the
world energy / economic predicament fogs the public discussion more
than ever as we approach summer. The New York Times 
ran a big story in the Sunday news section about India’s soaring energy
needs and its future plans (Hunger For Energy Transforms How India
Operates). India is the world’s fifth leading energy user. Dig this:
they import 70 percent of their oil. India’s government predicts that
the country will have to import 85 percent of its oil two decades from
now. So what’s India’s plan? According to Energy Minister Mani Shankar
Aiyar, the solution is “to persuade China to cooperate rather than
compete.” Okay, and your bargaining chip would be. . .?  Also
consider this: The US, Japan, Europe and China will all have to import
more than three quarters of their oil supplies. Does this suggest that
the world is going to remain an orderly place? Another plan to keep the lights on in Mumbai (where power outages are
routine) is a 1600-mile natural gas pipeline from Iran, through
Pakistan, to India. Has anyone noticed A.) that India and Pakistan have
been deadly enemies for over half a century, frequently threatening to
blow each other up with nuclear missiles? B.) that Pakistan is the
world’s largest unstable country, and that its rugged terrain is home
to many of the world’s most rabid and violent Jihadista groups, and C.)
that such a proposed pipeline across Pakistan would be utterly
indefensible? The Times’ story about all this is so devoid of critical analysis that it appears to have been written by an 11-year-old child. (06/06/05)
more…

The Orion Magazine — YOU
CAN”T FISH IN WEATHER LIKE THIS. The bigmouth bass have panicked to the
bottoms of the swamp-water ponds. Out on the beach the surf will wear
you out, surging around your legs, scouring the sand from beneath your
heels, roughing you, throwing you, rolling your cut mullet and
six-ounce sinker back upon the sand as fast as you can sling it to the
waves. You can’t hunt either. It’s too early for ducks or turkeys and
the deer are all down in the canebrakes, huddled against the wind. If
you could stand the ticks and chiggers, you could scare one up easy,
but you could not see to shoot in this horizontal rain. After half a
lifetime of roaming, I’m back home, lying low in this season of winds.
The house is all boarded and the porch furniture lashed down. There’s a
generator and gas to run it, a propane hotplate, a couple of jugs of
good whiskey. My neighbors are similarly equipped. There are just two
hundred of us on five thousand acres and it’s the last of the last.
Last island before Georgia. Last island with no bridge. Last place the
way things used to be down here, dirt roads, deep woods, folks still
wresting a living from land and sea. Last place for folks like us to
stand. Hilton Head to the north, Tybee Island to the south, and we’re
right in the middle, a sore thumb against the Atlantic. I will stay
because I have been gone too long. My neighbors will stay because they
have always stayed. But the tourists have no stake in this place other
than what they have charged to their Amex cards. They have all fled
inland and the freeways are stalled bumper to bumper outbound, the
world’s longest parking lots. There hasn’t been a ship in the Savannah
channel for days, and the shrimp boats and charter fishers are battened
and double-anchored against the surge, when the waters come rolling
from the face of the deep. The 1893 storm drowned two thousand black
farmers and fisherfolk in South Carolina. After the waters went down,
they untangled the bodies from the tops of cypress and sycamores and
lay them in mass graves, fifty and sixty at a time. (06/06/05)
more…

BBC Medicine –
Human embryonic stem cells appear to be much more stable than
scientists had feared, research suggests. The cells hold great
potential for use in repairing tissues damaged by trauma and disease.
There was concern the cells’ genes might be liable to undergo changes
that would make them unsafe for use in therapeutic treatments. But a
Cambridge University report published in Nature Genetics appears to
show that these fears are unfounded.  Embryonic stem cells are at
an early stage of development, and have the ability to become almost
any tissue type in the body. It is hoped they will eventually be used
to treat a range of diseases, from diabetes to Parkinson’s. …
Scientists were concerned about biochemical - or epigenetic - factors,
which play a key role in controlling genetic activity during
development. These factors help to ensure the activity of our genes
remains balanced by subtly changing their physical structure. As we
inherit two copies of every gene, one from each parent, there is a
danger that in combination some of them might become too potent.
Epigenetic factors work to shut down activity of one of the paired
genes, ensuring that genetic activity remains in kilter. This is known
as imprinting. It only applies to a small fraction of the total number
of genes, but is crucial to normal development nonetheless. However,
scientists are concerned that epigenetic factors may alter the function
of stem cell genes grown in the lab in unpredictable ways, which would
be impossible to control. The Cambridge team examined six “imprinted”genes from four lines of human embryonic stem cells. They found they
were highly stable. Unlike similar cells from mice, their epigenetic
status hardly altered at all while they were grown in culture.
Researcher Professor Roger Pederson said it was vital that human stem
cells were shown to be stable before research could forge ahead. “We
know from mouse stem cells that these kinds of genes are altered in the
course of mouse embryo development. The fact that human stem cells are
so stable is good news.” (06/06/05)
more…

BBC Technology — The
designer of Apple’s iPod, and one of the biggest names behind Bluetooth
chip technology, have received honours from the Royal Academy of
Engineering. Jonathan Ive, Apple’s vice-president of industrial design,
won the coveted President’s Medal for his contribution in promoting
engineering excellence. The UK’s engineering body also awarded CSR the
prestigious MacRobert award for its single-chip BlueCore technology.
The £50,000 MacRobert prize rewards innovative technology and
engineering. The awards ceremony, dubbed the “engineering Oscars”, also
included other medals recognising British engineering prowess and
achievements. They were handed out at a ceremony in London which was
attended by the UK government’s minister for science, Lord
Sainsbury.  … The President’s Medal is given on an ad hoc basis
to people or organisations who have made significant contributions to
the Academy’s aims of promoting engineering excellence, but who are not
eligible for election to the Academy. Mr Ive’s iPod engineering and
design has made the device the biggest-selling portable digital music
player in the world. It dominates 80% of the music player market; by
the end of 2005 more than 35 million iPods will have been shipped. …
CSR, widely recognised as the global leader in Bluetooth, is what is
called a “fabless” company. This means it focuses on the design and
development of its Bluetooth micro-processors, then forms alliances
with silicon wafer manufacturers and foundries who make them. It has
designed over 30 types of BlueCore silicon chips. Since 1999, 75
million of its chips have been sold and used in over 60% of all
Bluetooth-enabled devices. (06/06/05)
more…

BBC Technology — The
time-keeping device that governs all aspects of our lives, the atomic
clock, is celebrating its 50th year. The first atomic clock, which uses
the resonance frequencies of atoms to keep extremely precise time, was
born at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory. Atomic clocks form the
standard for Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which governs legal
time-keeping globally. The clocks are vital for rafts of technologies,
such as global satellite navigation, and TV signal timings. Precise and
accurate time-keeping is also essential for other synchronised events,
such as the distribution and management of electricity, and financial
transactions across the globe. Even London’s Big Ben relies on atomic
clocks to keep it right. The first accurate caesium atomic clock was
developed at the NPL in 1955 by Dr Louis Essen. But the idea was
originally proposed by Lord Kelvin in 1879. He said that time-keeping
based on how atoms behaved would be a better way to count time
intervals than anything else. “Up until the introduction of the atomic
clock, time definition was based on the rotation of the Earth,”Professor Patrick Gill, senior fellow at the lab, told the BBC News
website. “Whilst that was reasonable, it did show variations and the
point about using the atomic clock idea is that you are using a
frequency which corresponds to the difference in energy of the ground
state of atoms - it is pretty accurate compared with astronomical
arrangements.” (06/06/05)
more…