Sparkling Science Writing. Have you been following the recent science reporting by Claudia Dreifus? I have. I first looked at her conversations with scientists out of curiosity and affection – I had met Ms. Dreifus more years ago than I care to repeat, but have remained a reader because she’ll really good at explaining to science idiots like me what those people are doing and talking about. Tuesday’s conversation with DNA sequencer Elizabeth Blackburn is here. But don’t stop there. Her previous profile of yeast researcher Susan Lindquist looks both at women in science and yeast as research targets, but the best is her interview with my favorite sex researcher Pepper Schwartz

Keeping Poor People Down. When it comes to the poor, Mayor Bloomberg’s billionaire instinct for starvation wages and unaffordable housing comes through clearly. With regard to the housing, read the thoughtful article by David Jones of the Community Service Society on starving the NYC Housing Authority. With regard to Mr. Bloomberg’s passion for low wages, turn to our Legislature. The Legislature – yes including the GOP State Senate – passed a bill which would require social service job training to focus that training on jobs that pay a so-called “sustainable” wage (185%) of the poverty level. Our Mayor, misguidedly, in m view, opposes this and demands to “train” people for minimum wage jobs. If the Human Resources Administration tries to place workers into sustainable jobs, it might delay poor people getting valuable experience as guards and burger flippers. True, training people for better jobs is more expensive; but the results, an empowered workforce, are worth it. I personally hope Gov. Spitzer ignores the Mayor’s very narrow view and signs this bill into law.

Our Opium War? President Bush’s orphan war in Afghanistan seems to be spinning further out of control further. Hamid Karzi, the Afghan president the US installed, now complains of US air attacks killing civilians while the New Yorker reports that the formerly anti-opium Taliban are allied with narco-traffickers against the US.

What Will You Read This Summer? Gotham Gazette’s summer reading part two is out It’s a good list of old books about NY which I’ll pick from. It has only one odd note that I noticed. One of their listmeisters called Pynchon’s classic “The Crying Of Lot 49” a perfect book about New York City. That novel is set in Southern California and the only connection I see to NY is that it’s author lives here. While at Gotham Gazette, check out this demographic analysis of how young people are doing in the NYC race to earn a living -- not so good.

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