PLEDGES TO ABSTAIN WORTH THE AIR THEIR SPOKEN INTO

Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.

The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a "virginity pledge," but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.

"Taking a pledge doesn't seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior," said Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. "But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking."

BACTERIA ALTERING DNA OF HOST

This stuff gets curiouser and curiouser, doesn't it? Found the following on Wired. What would it mean if bacteria were altering our genetic inheritance or that it did so in the past? One more accidental trigger for change and speciation.

"Wolbachia is a prolific parasite, having carved out a niche for itself in some 70 percent of all invertebrate animals. But it's doing more than living in their cells: it's changing their very DNA in a way that could affect how scientists study genetics and evolution across the animal kingdom."

Read more at Wired.

GOULD'S THE PANDA'S THUMB

The following I got from my reading this morning over at the Border's Books near our new condominium. I walked over because my car is snowed in and I don't have a snow shovel. We left our snow shovel back in Spokane at the house we sold there. The new owner is getting a lot of use out of it, no doubt, but we could use it here, where Vancouver is experiencing near record snowfall. Anyhow, evolution has certainly developed many unique ways to foster reproduction. I found this one in Stephen J. Gould's The Panda's Thumb:

[SNIP]
Consider the curious life of a male mite in the genus Adactylidium, as described by E.A. Albadry and M.S.F. Tawfik in 1966. It emerges from its mother's body and promptly dies within a few hours, having done apparently nothing during its brief life. It attempts, while outside its mother, neither to feed nor to mate. We know about creatures with short adult lives—the mayfly's single day after a much lengthier larval life, for example. But the mayfly mates and insures the continuity of its kind during these few precious hours. The males of Adactylidium seem to do nothing at all except emerge and die.

To solve the mystery, we must study the entire life cycle and look inside the mother's body. The impregnated female of Adactylidium attaches to the egg of a thrips. That single egg provides the only source of nutrition for rearing all her offspring—for she will feed on nothing else before her death. This mite, so far as we know, engages exclusively in sib mating; thus, it should produce a minimal number of males. Moreover, since total reproductive energy is so strongly constrained by the nutritional resources of a single thrips' egg, progeny are strictly limited, and the more females the better. Indeed, Adactylidium matches our prediction by raising a brood of five to eight sisters accompanied by a single male who will serve as both brother and husband to them all. But producing a single male is chancy; if it dies, all sisters will remain virgins and their mother's evolutionary life is over.

If the mite takes a chance on producing but a single male, thus maximizing its potential brood of fertile females, two other adaptations might lessen the risk—providing both protection for the male and guaranteed proximity to his sisters. What better than to rear the brood entirely within a mother's body, feeding both larvae and adults within her, and even allowing copulation to occur inside her protective shell. Indeed, about forty-eight hours after she attaches to the thrips’ egg, six to nine eggs hatch within the body of a female Adactylidium. The larvae feed on their mother’s body, literally devouring her from inside. Two days later, the offspring reach maturity, and the single male copulates with all his sisters. By this time, the mother’s tissues have disintegrated, and her body space is a mass of adult mites, their feces, and their discarded larval and nymphal skeletons. The offspring then cut holes through their mother's body wall and emerge. The females must now find a thrips’ egg and begin the process again, but the males have already fulfilled their evolutionary role before "birth." They emerge, react however a mite does to the glories of the outside world, and promptly die.
[PASTE]

Gould in the brief essay which includes the snippet above is talking about why almost all sexed species produce males and females at about the same 50/50 ration. The Adactylidium mite is the exception that tests the rule.

SOCIALISM FOR CAPITALISTS, CAPITALISM FOR SOCIALISTS WORKERS

According to Steven G. Brant:

“The funny thing is, I've known that a significant portion of the US economy is Socialistic for years. ‘What are you talking about?’, you ask? ‘The Military Industrial Complex,’ I answer.

“You do know that all military weapons are purchased using ‘cost plus’ contracts, in which businesses are guaranteed a profit, don't you? And that literally every weapons system comes in over its original budget... and that those cost overruns are absorbed by the government, not the arms manufacturer? There is no Capitalism in the Military Industrial Complex. It's all Socialism, justified by the concept that these weapons are so important to American security that the companies that manufacture them have to be guaranteed a profit, so they don't accidentally go out of business. (By the way, I worked in contracting years ago at the Army Corps of Engineers. So, I know something about how military contracts work.)

“Now, getting back to the death of Capitalism in America as a whole, don't be so sad. You know the expression: ‘From every emergency, there's a chance for something new to emerge.’? Well, that's where we are.”

Read more of his essay here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-g-brant/capitalism-is-dead-now-wh_b_127016.html

THE DRAGONFLY COFFEE HOUSE

After all these years, I'm surprised that I can come into a WiFi coffee house anyplace in the world and make an entry on my blog. I don't why I should still get this jolt of electricity when I experience connectivity, because I first used this four years ago when I took my jaunt around the US just after retirement. I dropped into coffee houses and university libraries all over the States and made entries to AINT NO gOD.

The Dragonfly is a corner espresso joint in Portland, in the Alphabet District here at the corner of 24th & Thurman Street. I just came from a meeting of the HGP (the Humanists of Greater Portland) where Robert Sanford presented a very interesting digital photo show of his Spring trip through the Balkans. Let me assure you it was not your family vacation show. It displayed depth and humor and information.

Robert's presentation made me aware of my issues with identity and self-esteem. Seriously, at age 71, I should be over it, but I'm not. Robert stands over 6 feet tall and is imposing. An ex-cop and English teacher, he made me recall that taller men do better in our culture than shorter men in general. Also, he's urbane and knowledgeable. Many humanists are. If our little group is any measure, humanists are also financially better off in general. I felt my insignificance in the world. I felt a lot like I used to feel back in college when I made myself a general nuisance just to make sure that everyone knew that I was in the room. Displaying my imitation of the mad genius, I made more enemies among the cultured than I did friends. I can see now that humility would have served me better and a redoubled effort to master the subject of Literature. The depth of my personality disorders are now evident to me. Perhaps I've done as well as one can do, given my circumstances—a kid of the working class in a world of intellect. Master of no subject matter, I felt eclipsed by literary scholars and strove to become the master of some type of knowledge, yet detail bores me unless it's part of an interesting slide show like Robert's slide show this Sunday morning at Friendly House. God, those days were painful! I just felt a touch of it this morning and I don't want to return to those states of mind again.

The false front of my alcohol recovery was, I now see, another front. Though my knowledge of the recovery process is pretty detailed and interesting, it is not interesting to the world in general. A man like Sanford is more sought out. And I'm okay with that. I'm not being defensive, though, if my past is any example, I could easily be defensive. A sign of more progress? Yes. Whoopee!

Here, at the Dragonfly, I'm also surrounded by people who have done well in the world or who are trying to achieve in this world. A three story frame condo in this district can go for 500,000 dollars and up. All the women around here are interesting. They dress well and wear tight jeans and nice sweaters and blouses open at the neck. Even their hats are interesting. I don't know how to describe what I'm seeing, but I know I'm seeing wealth and culture displayed, and I still don't have the words to describe it. But I know what I'm seeing. If anything, it's in their faces. They are intelligent faces, whatever that means. Or is the intelligence in the eyes? Or is it the self-consciousness of their demeanor that tells me they've very aware of their surroundings and their place in it? In short, am I looking at people just like me when I entered the world of culture and money? If so, I missed the mark a long time ago and failed miserably to calculate my own worth. I can see where F. Scott Fitzgerald was coming from, can't I? When he said the wealthy were different.

Well, I've displayed myself pretty brazenly in this entry, haven't I?

PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION MUST BE FOUNDED IN SCIENCE

"My truths, three in number, are the following: first, humanity is ultimately the product of biological evolution; second, the diversity of life is the cradle and greatest natural heritage of the human species; and third, philosopy and religion make little sense without taking into account the first two conceptions." —Edward Wilson

Would that make Wiccan religions a place to start? Their connection to the natural world? One day I sat eavesdropping on a coffee shop meeting of Wiccans as they talked about places in nature where they felt natural highs, where they felt connected to nature. I recall driving up onto Mesa Verde one morning at dawn. It was off season and I was alone, looking out over the landscape in a weak sunlight morning. I felt a high, a natural high. A friend who had been born in that region said that all the people in that region felt those connections.

ANOTHER NATURAL HIGH

So proud of America. Its election of Barack Obama to be its president. Gives me hope that many Americans are truly pragmatic and open. When the chips are down, they vote for a man's intelligence and put aside religious nonsense. I know that he did have to pass a religious test but Americans are looking for practical answers to our financial mess rather than at dogmatic solutions to social problems. Isn't that hopeful?

HELLO OUT THERE! THREE MORE DAYS TO ELECTION!!!!!

My wife and I voted last week so we are at ease and relaxed. Yesterday while Mertie was at work and then at school, I had myself a movie day. I went to see "Religulous" and "W", taking a walk in between the show times.

Bill Maher's show didn't open up any new doors for me, but it was fun. I even laughed aloud a few times. "W" was excellent and followed Stone's usual format, getting into character traits of the famous and infamous men he deals with. I thought Brolin's performance was Oscar caliber.

Rainy in Vancouver. Approaching Winter begins to make the Fall cry. Mertie and I are about two months from being settled in our condo. We'll move on the weekend of December 12-15. Movers will pack our stuff on Thursday, the 11th, and move us on the 12th. We're moving to the opposite end of town, far from where I'm typing this at the Mon Ami. The Uptown District is a lovely part of town in Vancouver. I'll miss being able to drive down here in a few minutes to write and read. I'll also feel much farther from Portland though we'll be able to take I-205 across the rivers. It was a two minute drive to I-5, then 15 minutes into Portland. I'm sure the drive will be longer now. I'm also going to miss the lovely apartment complex we now live in. The new place is secluded and nice but the landscaping and flowering shrubs are fewer, plus our condo is between the two wings of the oval that cuts through our 60 condos.

ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER

Just dropped a buddy off at PDX (Portland's airport). He goes way back to the 60s after my first divorce. First I taught him in high school. Then I left that school, then got divorced, then moved in with Carl and his hippy friends in a walk up apartment on Main Street in Dayton, Ohio. Thus began my long journey to now where I sit in Vancouver Washington in Dolce Gelato, making this entry. Don't know how to talk about the visit. It seems that our relationship has not changed one wit for all the progress as a human being I think I've made. We quarreled and debated and got frustrated with one another, just like in the old days. Carl will, of course, be a big entry in my current book, Boomed Out.

I'LL BE HOME FOR... WHEN?

I've begun working on a book which is taking up lots of writing time. And I've got to keep up with my reading. Wife and I are looking into a condo purchase. My entries here in Blogger may fall off quite dramatically. In fact they've already fallen off dramatically. I'm enjoying writing the book I'm working on. I'm trying to enjoy writing it rather than making it a chore. The book is called tentatively Boomed Out: a mythical memoir of a Silent between generations.

IF IT'S THIS COMPLEX WHO CAN DISCOVER THEIR ROBOTIC SELF?

The following means, I think, that specific behaviors are a process rather than a location on the DNA strand.

"Genes alone don’t make the man — after all, humans and chimps share roughly 98 percent of their DNA. But where, when and how much genes are turned on may be essential in setting people apart from other primates.

"A stretch of human DNA inserted into mice embryos revs the activity of genes in the developing thumb, toe, forelimb and hind limb. But the chimp and rhesus macaque version of this same stretch of DNA spurs only faint activity in the developing limbs, reports a new study in the Sept. 5 Science.

"The research supports the notion that changes in the regulation of genes— rather than changes in the genes themselves — were crucial evolutionary steps in the human ability to use fire, invent wheels and ponder existential questions, like what distinguishes people from our primate cousins."

From a ScienceNews web article by Rachel Ehrenberg