0 comments on "I’m considering bee keeping"

I’m thinking about buying a beehive.

I want honey bees, but my brother is leaning more toward bumble bees. Either way, I’m hoping to help out my tomatoes and other vegetables.

Plus taking care of a hive of native bees helps with conservation*.

Because bees have really taken a pounding of late. There’s a real concern that we’ll be looking at the extinction of several species.

“We’ve had several end-of-hive events take place recently. And there’s quite a lot of reason to be concerned” – is the mildest way I can describe it.

Really, we’re looking at a potential environmental catastrophe.

1. Without the bees, there’s going to be a lot more biting insects. (There’s a niche for most everything. And if an opening is created, something is always willing to move in and fill it.)

2. With the depletion of a hive’s numbers, they are left vulnerable to predatory insects. (Hornets, yellow jackets, all kinds of things can get inside a weakened hive, kill the queen, and use the bees as a food for their young.)

3. Without bees to do the work, gardeners will have to seek other means of pollinating their crops. (Remember my zucchini plants that didn’t zucchini?)

4. Without bees there won’t be any honey. (And that would be a real tragedy, because who in their right mind doesn’t love the taste of honey? Sweetness that can be cultivated super easily.)

5. Without bees you won’t see a bumbling buzzing body bobbing and weaving from flower to flower, making the world bloom. (The sight of a fat bumble bee with its small wings busily flapping as it dances over a patch of clover is a nostalgic memory.)

Bees are an essential part of the world.

It would be a real tragedy if we wiped them out. The world would definitely be a lesser place without them.

* I might have to switch to buying a bunch of mason bees. I’m pretty sure they’re what’s local, as I saw them being sold at the Little Valley Nursery back in the spring.

Small Gods at Amazon
0 comments on "Zika virus still not being handled #pandemic-in-progress"

I love how much the Senate cares about North America and the human race:

Cracked: photoplasty of Senate defeating a much-needed Zika bill

It gives me all kinds of warm and fuzzies to think that members of our esteemed Senate would add unacceptable clauses to bills we desperately need passed IMMEDIATELY. And then would be too proud to back down and be REASONABLE.

This is a fucking zombie apocalypse/Black Death/End of the World scenario in the making.

Think about it: mosquitoes live EVERYWHERE. They breed with each other. They hide in our imported fruits and vegetables.

And they can infect people with all kinds of freaky shit. Things like Zika and even worse.

So look, Senate/Congress/Corporations/Committees/Illuminati/Illuminutty/Masters of Hip-Hop: Present the bill as it’s supposed to be, with no secret riders or underhanded tactics.

We need to get a handle on this Zika situation stat, and we need to consider what’s supposed to be done with the mosquito situation. Which means we need to get the framework in place and the funding to the scientists and labs.

And when the time comes where we need the research they have gathered to find the Cure!HailMary, there will be records and equipment already in place. (Just play Plague Inc. You’ll totally appreciate the idea of starting your medical research early if you want to stop a pandemic.)

Quart: "If Zika spreads in the US, blame the politicians, not the mosquitoes

There needs to be a continent-spanning consensus on what methods are safe to use to handle mosquitoes as well.

Otherwise people handle things themselves and mistakes get made:

Quarts: "The world's most popular pesticide probably killed England's wild bees"

Mother Jones: ""The EPA Finally Admitted That the World's Most Popular Pesticide Kills Bees--20 Years Too Late"

And our already at-risk bee population faces needless danger due to bad decisions.

*

Zika is a serious health emergency, and people need to start looking at it that way. Not just because of people dying or fetuses being damaged, but because of what it shows about our ability to head-off a major pandemic.

Policy needs to be in place, and our officials need to start doing the jobs they’re being overpaid for.

Let's Make Dumplings at Amazon
0 comments on "Prisoners on Strike: Stop Modern Day Slavery!"

I read this article =>http://qz.com/777415/an-unprecedented-prison-strike-hopes-to-change-the-fate-of-the-900000-americans-trapped-in-an-exploitative-labor-system<= “US Prisoners are going on strike to protest a massive forced labor system”, and while the title could use a little work, I felt it needed to be shared.

I wouldn’t complain about the idea of prisoners giving something back, if I was sure that they were in prison for the crimes they committed or that they were serving fair sentences.

But with the recent upheavals in the prison system and the decades of corrupt officials taking advantage of those too poor to put up a decent legal defense, I’m not as skeptical about prisoners being kept as slaves as I might have been a few years ago. You know, back when I was young and naive and wanted to believe that human decency might actually be a real thing.

For years I’ve been of the belief that politicians were purposely writing laws to ensure the less-advantaged were branded as criminals as an easy means of subjugating citizens’ rights. You know, “You have a prison record, so now you can’t vote me out of office as I rape your community and lock your children up alongside you.”

But keeping prisoners behind bars as a means of cheap labor toiling for soulless corporations that line officials’ pockets? Yeah. I can see it.

Violent offenders need to be kept behind bars, especially those for which counseling and one-on-one therapies and medication do not work to curb their darker impulses. No one wants a child murdering rapist on the loose, and most people wouldn’t welcome a child murdering rapist to sit at their table and share a meal. That’s a common sense safety concern.

But if someone was arrested with an ounce of weed that they bought for personal use or to sell to support their poor family, does it really make sense to lock them in prison where it costs the community money to house them? Or would counseling and community service give more back? At the very least, their family doesn’t lose a valuable resource and their children aren’t left wondering why Mommy or Daddy went away.

Yet if the community is paying money to house “criminals”, and the prison is selling their labor for a profit… isn’t that just slavery with extra steps?

Because it’s easy to bitch about the forced labor camps of North Korea and China and all those OTHER not-as-good-as-our countries, but it might be worth it to give our own labor camps another look. Especially when it’s so easy for someone to have their rights taken away and no one is giving the paperwork a second glance.

Slavery is wrong.

Slavery is evil.

Slavery needs to be abolished.

And if that means paying someone more than $0.14 – 0.20 an hour and ensuring that they’re treated like human beings and not animals… That’s something we all need to be concerned about.

Because to happily buy food or wear clothes that proudly bear a “Made in the USA” tag, I need to know that I’m not profiting off the misery of other people. And to say that prisoners don’t deserve rights, that their sometimes minor or stupid crimes means that they deserve to be treated as less than human, that’s wrong.

It’s disgusting that companies are profiting off the misery of human beings. And whether the sweatshops or the fields are located in other countries or our own, it doesn’t matter.

Slavery is wrong.

All Systems Red at Amazon

I can feel that need growing in me again. That climbing, culminating need for change.

Usually I lop off 12-14 inches of hair and pretend that it’s enough. That I’m not practically crawling out of my skin.

I bought a new backpack. It’s coming on Tuesday.

I’m tempted to throw some clothes in the bag and go. To just start walking and see where the world takes me.

It’s not like anyone needs me.

And maybe it’s what I need. To live my life for once and actually experience something real instead of always doing what I’m told.

I’ve been taking care of other people’s kids since I was 15 years old.

I’ve never done anything that I wanted to do. Always just what was needed for someone else’s happiness.

Sometimes I think I’m dying. Folding sheets of paper with the edges torn away a bit at a time, creasing and crumbling with age.

I wonder if they will miss me when I’m gone. Or if they’ll cry for not receiving the dinners I make them.