Wired has two stories about what the connectivity of the Internet has done to two very different social phenomena.
First, Will the Hatemongers Survive? Rightwing hate groups are evolving a new model in which their dirty work is done by “lone wolves”, individuals acting independently after having been inspired by the hatemonger’s justification and encouragement. The Internet is tailor-made to trawl in this way for adherents whle insulating the hate group from any direct connection to or legal liability for the actions committed in their name.

And Holy and Hooked Up in India tours the web presences of some of the “enlightened souls” at this year’s Kumbh Mela. By the way, the site has an incredible satellite photo (right) showing the dense mass of millions of people at the river bank at the start of the most sacred and busiest bathing day of the festival.

A gold star for tedium. As a father of two children whom we shower with books and to whom we read aloud all the time, I look for any pointers I can get to good children’s literature. I commented some months ago on the bewildering variety of children’s book medals, but the greatest attention and acclaim seem reserved for the Newbery medalists. So why do they have to be so boring, I wondered as I perused this year’s list, and this Salon essayist agrees that the Newberys are “insomnia-curing”, “eat-your-spinach books”, “the books
that stayed on display at the library
because no one checked them out”.

…(M)any adult
readers unquestioningly and uncritically accept the
Newbery medal…because many of us were well-trained and
obedient children, children who respected authority.
Bookish kids were often the homework-doers, the
good-grade-getters, the ones who took our vitamins and sat
still for the eye doctor. When we rebelled we did so
sneakily, with a flashlight under the covers. And so lurking
in the back of many minds is an atavistic belief that the
grownups are always right — that the books we were
sneaking for pleasure weren’t as good for us as the
award-winners we should have been reading. We too often
treat the Newbery awards as if we were still children being
told what’s good and what’s bad, what’s right and what’s
wrong.

The New Yorker Inane Ad of the Week site proclaims: “Each week this site highlights an especially absurd advertisement from the pages of the militantly bourgeois
New Yorker magazine. The selected advertisements evince the ridiculous excesses of our consumer culture.
They target an audience with a disgustingly high rate of disposable income and hawk to it the most frivolous
of baubles, endeavoring to engender — and promising, for a hefty sum, to gratify — desires nobody could have
developed on her or his own. So check this URL every seven days for a new, hilarious, hyperbolic example of
decadent consumerism.”

Tongue twisters, Zungenbrecher, Trabalenguas, Skorogovorki: the first international collection.

Making the complex simple. In the early ’90’s, scientists hoped it would be easy to find the generalities that explained complex systems or processes, and failed miserably, especially if real applicability (predicting the weather, the stcok market, human behavior, etc.) was to be the gold standard. Now complexity science has another, more modest go at it. The Economist [Could the answer be ’43’ after all?]

After Meritocracy. The sociology of the presidential administrations: Bush Sr.’s people were “WASP elitists”, Clinton’s were “meritocratic elitists”, and the Shrub’s people are “smart but anti-intellectual organization men. They rose through the
ranks of institutions—government,
industry, the military—and value loyalty
above all other traits. Their backgrounds have made the
transition run smoothly, but at the first sign of crisis, they
might lack the creative flexibility to wiggle their way out.” The New Republic

Human clone attempt ‘in a year’. It’s always been clear to me that, as soon as it can be done, it will be:

A fertility expert says he will try to produce the first cloned human being within a
year.

After a vote in the House of Lords to allow scientists to clone human embryos for
research, Severino Antinori, who runs a fertility clinic in Rome, claimed to have 10
couples willing to take part in the experiment.

If successful, it will produce a baby who will be an exact genetic replica of its
father.

Dr Antinori is already notorious for enabling a mother of almost 63 to have a child to
replace her adult son who died, and for causing uproar in Britain six years ago when
he helped a 59-year-old unmarried woman have twins.

Dr Antinori told a meeting in Lexington, Kentucky, that he was forming an
“international coalition” of scientists to work on the cloning project in ‘a country of
the Mediterranean where I had consent’.

Why I am Not a Cultural Anthropologist by Nicholas Nicastro

Darwin Awards Candidate? Boy Suffers Burns After Imitating MTV. But then again, if shows like ‘Jackass’ pandering to the lowest common denominator of human intelligence bring in the advertising revenues, isn’t this just an unfortunte cost of doing business? After all, there is a disclaimer warning viewers not to attempt these stunts at home…

Ring Travels 10,000 Miles, Stuck in Man’s Boot. “A ring given up for lost by its owner traveled 10,000 miles around Egypt,
the United States and Costa Rica stuck to the bottom of her boyfriend’s hiking boot.”

Humans Biggest Threat to Galapagos. ” ‘It was a close shave, but I think it’s safe to say the spill did
not have a major impact on the Galapagos,” said Godfrey
Merlen, a British researcher who has lived in the archipelago for
two decades and is helping the Galapagos National Park Service
monitor the damage…

Only one pelican and two seagulls are known to have died from
the spill off San Cristobal, the easternmost island in the remote
Pacific archipelago. But dozens of sea lions and birds, including
albatrosses and blue-footed boobies unique to the Galapagos,
had to be trapped and cleaned.

Scientists say the main concern now is whether fuel will settle
to the bottom of the ocean and kill algae, the only source of
food for marine iguanas, another species found only in the
Galapagos.” AP

The AIDS Questions That Linger. What we still don’t know, on the eve of the upcoming international conference:

Why does AIDS predispose infected persons to certain types
of cancer and infections and not others?

What route does H.I.V. take after it enters the body to
destroy the immune system?

How does H.I.V. subvert the immune system?

What is the precise function of H.I.V.’s nine genes?

What is the most effective anti- H.I.V. therapy?

Is a vaccine possible?

In the absence of a vaccine, how can H.I.V. be stopped?

Why do most babies born to infected mothers escape
infection?

Why do H.I.V. rates differ so greatly among regions in Africa
and elsewhere?

How many people are infected in the United States and has
the rate changed in recent years?

Where did AIDS come from?

New York Times

New Yorkers Ponder ‘Rain Rage’. “What this city needs is better umbrella etiquette.” New York Times