The Journal of Provincial Thought

jptHome, Issue 3

Beekeepers! Beware of Cell Phones! (by Marc Hoffman, Silver Spring, Maryland )

Are cell phones killing our bees? I never let my bees use cell phones. They are social insects, and I have found once I let them have cell phones it is impossible to control their use. The charges from time overruns can bankrupt even the most efficient apiary operation. Once they learn to use them, they become dependent: They stop returning to the hive to dance and just phone in the location of their forage discoveries.

Furthermore, the increased peer-to-peer communication plays havoc with traditional bee values. "To heck with pheromones!" they say. "Chemical communication is passe compared with digital." As in many societies, the young are the early adopters, spending their time text messaging instead of doing their jobs. In the end we observe a breakdown in hierarchy and, fatally, anti-royalist sentiment.

This, then, is the cause of CCD -- foolish notions of independence among the immature, loss of authority of the elders, breakdown of group cohesion, and collapse of the aristocracy.

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These thoughts on bees are dedicated to General Barnard Bee, CSA, who at the first battle of Manassas in 1861 said, “Yonder stands Jackson, like a stone wall!” giving General Jackson (and us) an eternally colorful historical epithet.  Bee was shot dead shortly after this reckless act of nicknaming.  Is there a lesson there for us?

Louie-on-the-Left cries BEE! in a stinging cartoon parable explaining the Bush 'n' the bees! >>>

jptHOME Issue 3

Copyright 2007- WJ Schafer & WC Smith - All Rights Reserved

j'Hive Talkin' jpt catches a brzzz

Dear Reader:  The latest hot topic of idle newscasters and unemployed scaremongers laid off by the Witch-Finder General at Homeland Security is “colony collapse disorder” (CCD), a kind of miniaturized black plague evidently decimating honeybees in the U.S.  Yet another teeny sliver of apocalypse?  Ye gads!  Now here’s another take on the jeremiads: ________________________________________________

Louie-on-the-Left parable en sketche

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