By NYTimes reporter Dan Barry:
On the Bow’ry, The Long Story of the Building at 104-106 Bowery. (nytimes.com)
About New York; Last in Flophouse, Alone With Bowery Ghosts. (nytimes.com)

I remember walking by the Stevenson hotel. Bowery is still a street with two homeless shelters where the homeless sit in front of the entrance on the sidewalk, sipping from plastic cups of warm coffee, after they are probably required to leave the shelter in the early morning. In the winter morning they would huddle together as New York’s poor masses like puppies in a nest.

Originally, I was playing with the idea that representatives should have to pass an exam to become eligable to run for political office. While listening to C-SPAN broadcasts of Congress committees, or members of Congress giving interviews to NPR, where on some shows they are allowed more speaking time than the 20 or 30 seconds, I am too often shocked by the lack of depth and the absence of fact in their statements. Sometimes, representatives will even simply confess they only know what they read in the newspaper, and honestly, I think for many this is all they read I am afraid. Of course, many representatives have expensive and learned advisers, but the judge of their advise will still be lead by nothing but their own framework of reference. In the best situation, the representative will blindly trust his advisers, in the worst, he or she will view themselves as the better qualified of judgment, as a Moses guided by an inner voice.

The notion of requiring a threshold of qualification for representatives holds of course incredible dangers within it of bias and favoritism, undermining the very idea of democracy. On the other hand, the opinion of the masses easily allows to be manipulated by the rise of mass media and the degrading of higher education under the influence of popularization or democratization of educational institutions. But the thought experiment would be worth while the effort.

But secondly, a thought inspired by this notion of a representation bar somewhat, I concluded that I do not know much about the different democratic systems in the world in comparitive overview. The direct association from above thought leading to this, was the comparison with the Iranian democracy, where a High Council of Theologians approves candidates for elections. Now, as a nihilist atheist with rarely a romantic notion of ethics, I would obviously approve of such a standard, but within a system where religious of ethic values are determined or arbitrarily defined to be main concern for future social development, versus my own concerns of an educational, scientific or factual values, such a Theologian body of judgment would not be a totally absurd idea. Of course, this idea does not fit within the Western thought of Enlightenment in which the state and church are separated and the Trias Politica is firmly established, but then most non-Western countries depend on completely different socio-economic conditions and ideological traditions.

So here is my thesis: Collect information for all (formal) forms of democratic government, established by law and elected by popular vote, in the world and group these into 5 basic forms. Define the main differences, with a special eye for the selection of representatives.

The Tree of Life Project (ToL) is a collaborative effort of biologists from around the world. The project provides information about the diversity of organisms on Earth, their evolutionary history (phylogeny), and characteristics.

Another project that visualizes the phylogeny of life for the plants phylum is Deep Green by the Green Plant Phylogeny Research Coordination Group of Berkeley University.

The Pico Project makes accessible a complete resource for the reading and interpretation of the Discourse.

“The Discourse on the Dignity of Man (1486) by Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) is considered the “Manifesto of the Renaissance.” Indeed, it exalts the human creature for his/her freedom and capacity to know and to dominate reality as a whole. Far from being simply that, however, the Discourse deals with the vocation of the human creature who, possessing no determinate image, is urged to pursue its own perfection. Such a pursuit begins with moral self-discipline, passes through the familiar, multifarious world of images and fields of knowledge, and strives toward that most lofty goal which defies representation. Pico believes that this paradigm, by virtue of the fact that it is to be found in every tradition, is universal.”

The Genographic Project is a cooperation between IBM, the National Geographic Society, Spencer Wells, and the Waitt Family Foundation. Its aim is to collect genetic information of populations, isolated indiginous peoples and modern peoples, and to offer consumers the opportunity to trace back their genetic journey over time and geographies. The genetic markers, the Y-chromosome for men and the maternal metochondriae for women, allow to directly trace back descendencies, and by mapping DNA geneticists are able to calculate common ancestors between people. Richard Dawkins describes this process in an easy to understand fashion in his bestselling book The Ancestor’s Tale.

According to a report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) agency, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions than transport. In addition, the sector causes polution of land and water, and the problem is likely to grow rapidly in the future.

Today, April 22, Earth Day is celebrated mainly in the US. The day originates in the early 70s as a public demonstration of popular political support for an environmental agenda and was organized for the first time in 1970. The day’s date is somewhat arbitrary but approximates Arbor Day. Equinoctial Earth Day is celebrated in most countries on the day that the sun passes the equator and night has equal length as day. The vernal equinox (or spring equinox) marks the beginning of astronomical spring. It occurs around 20 March in the Northern Hemisphere, and around 23 September in the Southern Hemisphere.

With science taking the role of religion as the leading guide in Truth and the Enlightment of Mankind the celebration of the beginning of Spring has only folkloristic meaning. And with a global environment being under threat of the uncontrolled and gratuitous dumping of industrial waste, today’s Earth Day is of greater importance than the equinoctial celebration. Allow a minute of your time and breathe in some information on the beauty and diversity of the planet at the links below.

Links:
World Wildlife Foundation (WWF)
National Audubon Society
The Nature Conservancy
National Arbor Day Foundation
United Nations Environment Program
Earth Day – US Government Portal

Dean Peterson from the Stony Brook Astron Group published a paper in Nature on the calibrator star Vega. He was able to show convincingly that Vega is, contrary to what was thought so far, a rapidly rotating star that is visible at a 5 degree pole-on angle. His paper Vega is a rapidly rotating star was published in Volume 440 of Nature, 13 April 2006.

Part of the Muslim community will celebrate the birthday of the prophet Muhammed, according to tradition on 12th of Rabi’-ul-Awwal of the lunar calendar, which in 2006 falls on April 11 for Sunni and April 16 for Shia. While some believers see the Mawlid or Milad (Arabic has no written vowels) as a modern addition to Islam, the tradition found its origin in the 13th century, others will commemorate the birth of the ‘Arab Jesus’ extensively.

Little factual is known from primary sources about the birth of Muhammed. The first account of his birth is a biography of ibn Ishaq. Ibn Ishaq wrote his biography about one hundred years afterMuhammed’s death, and his work we only know through quotes of two other historians who lived another hundred years later. Ibn Ishaq wrote his biography under the auspicien of the Abassid caliph of Baghdad Mansur, therefor the biography may be regarded as a predominantly Sunni document.

Resources:
- Wikipedia – Islam

The Massachusetts Legislature has passed with overwhelming majority a new bill that obliges all inhabitants of the state to get a health care insurance plan.

The Jurist website of the School of Law at the University of Pittsburgh features a brief explanation of new bill.

The full Text of Bill (House, No. 4850) is published on the Massachusetts government portal.

The advocate group Health Care for All has been leading the charge for this new bill. While the concerned conservatives of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation are more concerned with their own bank account than with the state of the public’s health.

The New England Economic Partnership is a non-partisan think-thank for the New England region. The [public@mindxp.com / mindxp] Boston Globe – Rally ’round the … employer assessment features news and information for the Boston region.