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As I travel across the country teaching workshops, I have seen a new story emerging -- the return of roller derby. I met a waitress in Norfolk who is on a team. I have seen that Tampa is getting a team together. One of my buddies, photojournalist Lynn French at KPNX in Phoenix, is a roller derby gal. I heard about a Madison, Wis., team while I was up there, I was in Vegas in the spring and saw mention of a team there, and I saw that there is a team in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., as I passed through the Twin Cities.

MSNBC did a nice online treatment explaining roller derby. Make sure you see the animation that explains how teams score points. There are some nice audio interviews with players, too. 

Here is a Web site that tracks roller derby teams nationwide.

Here is a map of the teams around the country and a link to the Roller Derby Association.

There are a ton more start-up teams, mostly in smaller towns. Here is a list.

I mentioned before that American Public Media's American RadioWorks and Marketplace and The Center for Public Integrity gathered a remarkable set of data that allows you to look at the travel disclosures for every Congressional office. Now, American RadioWorks has posted the full data online so you can search it -- by office, by state or by "sponsor," meaning who paid for what travel.

This is an outstanding public service. Journalists should use it. The data, for instance, shows the offices with the most travel:

You can who took the most expensive trips:

Traveler: Thomas Bliley (from the office of Thomas Bliley)
Destination: London
Sponsor: Brown & Williamson Tobacco
Purpose: tour/speak to senior management of British American Tobacco; meet with CEO of British Trade International
Date: July 6, 2000 (4 days)
Expense: $31,170.76
source

Traveler: Robert Wexler (from the office of Robert Wexler)
Destination: Kazakhstan
Sponsor: Jewish Congress of Kazakhstan
Purpose: mtg w/ govt. officials/fact-finding
Date: May 26, 2002 (5 days)
Expense: $29,950.72
source

Traveler: Ben Chandler (from the office of Ben Chandler)
Destination: Melbourne -- Cairns, Australia
Sponsor: Australian government, American Australian Association
Purpose: Meet with representatives of the Australian government and Australian civic and business organizations to discuss international relations.
Date: Nov. 3, 2004 (11 days)
Expense: $29,177.34
source

Traveler: Robert Cochran (from the office of Howard Mckeon)
Destination: Melbourne to Cairns, Australia to Canberra, Australia to Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles, Calif.
Sponsor: General Atomics
Purpose: to meet and discuss unmanned aerial vehicle issues with Australian government officials and meetings with U.S. embassy officials
Date: March 17, 2005 (10 days)
Expense: $28,446.36
source

You can also see who paid for the most trips:

This story says something really sad about the times in which we live. According to a recent study, one-fourth of Americans say they have no one with whom they can discuss personal issues. That is almost triple the number who said the same thing in 1985. How many people would you say are in your closest circle of confidants? The national average, now, is two. I am not sure if that includes your dog.

The study is called the General Social Survey. You can read the findings here [PDF].  The Washington Post did a nice job summarizing the findings:

"That image of people on roofs after Katrina resonates with me, because those people did not know someone with a car," said Lynn Smith-Lovin, a Duke University sociologist who helped conduct the study. "There really is less of a safety net of close friends and confidants."

If close social relationships support people in the same way that beams hold up buildings, more and more Americans appear to be dependent on a single beam.

Compared with 1985, nearly 50 percent more people in 2004 reported that their spouse is the only person they can confide in. But if people face trouble in that relationship, or if a spouse falls sick, that means these people have no one to turn to for help, Smith-Lovin said.

"We know these close ties are what people depend on in bad times," she said. "We're not saying people are completely isolated. They may have 600 friends on Facebook.com [a popular networking Web site] and e-mail 25 people a day, but they are not discussing matters that are personally important."

The new research is based on a high-quality random survey of nearly 1,500 Americans. Telephone surveys miss people who are not home, but the General Social Survey, funded by the National Science Foundation, has a high response rate and conducts detailed face-to-face interviews, in which respondents are pressed to confirm they mean what they say.

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Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.