<html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)">
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="PostalCode"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="Street"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="address"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="PlaceType"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="country-region"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="place"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="State"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="City"/>
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]-->
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Verdana;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
p
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:Arial;
color:windowtext;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple>
<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Arial><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>*Apologies if you are getting this post twice, many people
could not open the initial attachment<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:18.0pt;font-weight:bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><b><font size=5
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Washington</span></font></b></st1:place></st1:State><b><font
size=5><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-weight:bold'> Post<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:18.0pt;font-weight:bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:16.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Honey, I'm Gone</span></font></b><font
size=5><span style='font-size:16.0pt'><br>
</span></font>Abandoned Beehives Are a Scientific Mystery and a Metaphor for
Our Tenuous Times<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>By Joel
Garreau<br>
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">Washington</st1:State></st1:place>
Post Staff Writer<br>
Friday, June 1, 2007; C01</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>In
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," just before Earth is destroyed
to make way for a hyperspatial express route, all the dolphins in the world
disappear, leaving behind just the message: "So long, and thanks for all
the fish."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Now,
around the world, <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/09/AR2007050900597.html"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/09/AR2007050900597.html">honeybees
are vanishing</a> en masse, leaving their humans engaged in a furious attempt
to figure out the meaning of their exodus. Entire colonies are following the
Shakespearean stage direction, "Exeunt omnes." They're flying off and
not returning. Commercial beekeepers open their hives and find them empty
except for a queen, a few immature bees and abundant honey and pollen. The rest
of the bees are simply gone, leaving behind not even dead bodies.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>A third
of our food supply -- including much of the boredom-relieving stuff, from
cranberries to cucumbers -- is dependent on animal pollinators like the
honeybee. As a result, this mystery is rapidly joining the all-star ranks of
millennial end-time run-for-your-lives threats, right up there with Y2K, mad
cow disease, <st1:place w:st="on">West Nile</st1:place> virus, SARS and avian
flu.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Of equal
note is the way the bees are setting a new standard in human emotional resonance.
Absolutely no one yet knows why the bees are checking out, though not for lack
of abundant effort on the part of the world's scientists. This dearth of data
allows us to project our greatest anxieties onto the bees.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>If what
you're searching for is an entire spectrum of moral lessons regarding the evils
of human behavior, this crisis is even better than global warming. If you hate
globalization, then you will doubtless see its evils as patent in the
disappearance of the bees. Pesticides? Genetically modified foods? Those, too,
are convenient hypotheses in the absence of contradictory information. Even
cellphones have been offered as an explanation. If you're driven crazy by them,
then so must be the bees. Isn't it obvious?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Our
fuzzy, hard-working, sweetness-producing icons have become our most powerful
Rorschach test.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>As go the
bees, so go our hopes and fears for the future.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>'Mad Bee Disease'</span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Jeff
Pettis reports that he has become one of the most popular soccer dads in the <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">Washington</st1:State></st1:place> metropolitan
area.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"My wife
says she's tired of hearing about it," says the co-leader of the huge
national research group working on "colony collapse disorder," as the
phenomenon is known. An estimated quarter of the country's 2.4 million colonies
of <i><span style='font-style:italic'>Apis mellifera</span></i> have been lost
since winter. Similar reports are pouring in from <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Spain?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Spain?tid=informline">Spain</a>
to <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Germany?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Germany?tid=informline">Germany</a>
to <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Brazil?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Brazil?tid=informline">Brazil</a>
to <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Taiwan?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Taiwan?tid=informline">Taiwan</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Pettis is
a man in the right place at the right time. He heads the Bee Research
Laboratory of the Agricultural Research Service at the <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/U.S.+Department+of+Agriculture?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/U.S.+Department+of+Agriculture?tid=informline">Department
of Agriculture</a> in <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Beltsville?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Beltsville?tid=informline">Beltsville</a>.
His group includes scientists from <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Columbia+(Maryland)?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Columbia+(Maryland)?tid=informline">Columbia</a>,
<a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Pennsylvania+State+University?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Pennsylvania+State+University?tid=informline">Penn
State</a>, the <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/University+of+Illinois+System?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/University+of+Illinois+System?tid=informline">University
of Illinois</a>, <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/North+Carolina?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/North+Carolina?tid=informline">North
Carolina State</a>, the Florida Department of Agriculture and a host of other
entities.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Most
people may not be able to tell the difference between a yellow jacket and a bumblebee,"
he says. But now, as the news of the honeybees captures the popular
imagination, "people who never even knew what I did before come up to me
on the soccer sidelines and say, 'Hey, I want to find out what's really going
on. Tell me the real story.' "<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"I
tell them, 'We're still working on it.' "<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This
hardly slows the questions.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Colonies
caught in the act of collapsing seem to display a raft of diseases. Is this the
AIDS of bees?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"I
don't like that particular analogy," Pettis says. "We actually don't
have any evidence that the immune system is compromised. It's one of the ideas
that we have, but the immune response genes are not turned on or off."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>(Demonstrating
its importance to commercial agriculture, even before the current crisis the
honeybee was one of the first insects to have its entire genome sequenced.)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>What do
you think of the French referring to it as "mad bee disease"?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"They
were using that because they thought some of their losses over the past 10
years were connected to low-level pesticides. It's one myth. But we can't make
the connection to disorientation."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Where did
the cellphone idea come from?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"The
authors of that story were from <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region></st1:place>.
It wasn't even a cellphone. It was an old cordless phone. They tested it in
small hives and saw some very minor effects. We work with bees in a lot of
areas where you can't even get a cellphone signal. The amount of energy is
very, very remote. Even the authors themselves now say that was a big
stretch."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>What are
the other theories?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"My favorite
theory, which I throw out, is that the bees are out there creating their own
crop circles, working very hard, physically pushing the crops down with their
little legs. It fits. It explains the loss of bees and crop circles at the same
time. At taxpayers' expense. I want credit for it."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Pettis
pauses for effect.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"People
say, 'You're kidding, right?' "<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>He is.
But his "theory" fits the facts as well as other wild surmises. These
include a secret plot by <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Osama+bin+Laden?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Osama+bin+Laden?tid=informline">Osama
bin Laden</a> to destroy American agriculture, and "the rapture of the
bees" as a harbinger of end times.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>No Stinging Indictments</span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>What
about the comment attributed to Einstein that "if the bee disappears from
the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No
more bees, no more pollination . . . no more men!"<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"That
gets to the heart of the story," Pettis says. "I don't personally
believe that the bees are the canary in the coal mine. You don't have to bring
in larger human destruction of the environment. I can see things going on in
the ways bees are managed that explains it."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>For example,
it turns out that not only does U.S. agribusiness grow more than 80 percent of
the world's supply of almonds (who knew the world consumed so much marzipan?),
but in February, when all those groves need to be pollinated, fully half of the
commercial beehives in the entire <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/United+States?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/United+States?tid=informline">United
States</a> are trucked to <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/California?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/California?tid=informline">California</a>'s
Central Valley on 18-wheelers. Big-time beekeepers constantly haul their bees
all over the continent to service the next crop of apples, blueberries,
watermelons or whatever. Their bees are the planet's hardest-working migrants.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Scientists
have a hunch that this may be stressful. They do not yet have the data to prove
it. But some commercial beekeepers seem to be hit harder than others,
suggesting that their management practices may be a fruitful area of inquiry.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>If this
hypothesis were to hold up, the implication is that some corporate bees around
the world are heir to a combination of problems that may or may not be faced by
honeybees kept by small-time operators, not to mention the honeybees that have
escaped into the wild. All pollinators are in decline, according to a recent <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/National+Academy+of+Sciences?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/National+Academy+of+Sciences?tid=informline">National
Academy of Sciences</a> study. But it is by no means clear that colony collapse
disorder affects any of the 17,000 other species of bees known to exist, or the
13,000 additional species of bees estimated to exist, not to mention the
200,000 other species of animal pollinators such as beetles, butterflies,
moths, hummingbirds and even bats. This also leaves aside the two-thirds of the
world's food that is pollinated not by critters, but by wind and rain, such as
the grasslike crops that include corn.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>None of
this, however, has decreased in the slightest the buzz emanating from humans
seeking moral lessons in the domesticated honeybees.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Particularly
disappointed by the lack of evidence are those rooting for an indictment of the
cellphone.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"We
now know it isn't cellphones, alas, alas," says Pamela McCorduck, the
futurist and author of "Machines Who Think."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"I
so longed to shut such people up with a sanctimonious 'You're killing the bees,
you clod!' "<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"There
are bees at the pool and I haven't been able to get rid of them for 10
years," says John Brockman, the author and literary agent who works the
intersection of culture and technology. "Now I go to the pool, whip out
the cellphone, point it at them, and say, 'Call on Line 1!' "<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"I
don't think anyone really has a clue as to what's going on, but if it turns out
to be cellphones, it's the greatest metaphor in the history of metaphors,"
says Bill McKibben, the best-selling environmentalist author of "The End
of Nature."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Starving
the planet in pursuit of one more text message with your broker seems the very
epitome of going out with a whimper, not a bang."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Collapse of the Machine</span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
disappearance of the bees nonetheless has mythic depth. It captures intuitions
people have about the human condition. A hive is an organism, like a nation. It
may be made up of individuals, but it produces results beyond the imagination
of any one of its members. To think of one unraveling is profoundly unsettling.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The most
optimistic metaphor for our interconnected world, for example, is that by
wiring up all the planet's humans, we are creating a "hive mind" with
startling powers. The analogy is to the bees. You can look at a single bee for
as long as you like and never guess that a large number of them would turn into
an amazingly productive super-organism like a hive. What sort of wonders will
humans create when billions of us come together in unprecedented ways?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Already
you can see primitive outlines of such a productive transformation in Internet
venues <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Wikimedia+Foundation+Inc.?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Wikimedia+Foundation+Inc.?tid=informline">Wikipedia</a>,
<a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/eBay+Inc.?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/eBay+Inc.?tid=informline">eBay</a>,
Amazon, Linux, <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Facebook+Inc.?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Facebook+Inc.?tid=informline">Facebook</a>,
<a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/YouTube+Inc.?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/YouTube+Inc.?tid=informline">YouTube</a>,
<a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Second+Life?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Second+Life?tid=informline">Second
Life</a> and all the rest.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>What
other unexpected things will brew in this bionic hivelike supermind?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Creating
a global hive mind "doesn't cure all our ills, but it works for a lot of
stuff that we would never have guessed would possibly work," says <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Kevin+Kelly?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Kevin+Kelly?tid=informline">Kevin
Kelly</a>, a founding editor of Wired magazine who popularized the notion in
his book "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and
the Economic World."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>What
happens, then, if the beehive is unsustainable? Kelly wonders. Will the new
hive mind of the Internet someday fly off while we are at lunch, leaving us
suddenly dumb and alone?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>What
institutions are next?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Naturalist
Barry Lopez wonders if the disappearance of the bees is a metaphor for the end
of the federal government.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"The
colony collapse is the collapse of a piece of machinery like a federal
bureaucracy," says Lopez, the National Book Award-winning author of
"Arctic Dreams."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"It's
the rise of the local. It's the biological expression of the marginalization of
the federal government. It's the silver lining in the Bush cloud. It's become
crystal clear. If you want the job done -- carbon footprints, climate change,
really important stuff -- don't rely on the federal government. The day of
contacting your congressman is over. It's the collapse of large-scale
institutions."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Not
that big a deal," Lopez feels.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"From
an ecological standpoint, it is opening up the possibility for local
pollinators like the mason bee to come back." Honeybees, after all, are an
introduced species. They were brought here by European explorers and settlers.
The Indians called them "white men's flies."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Lopez
sees local people creating local food using local means in a turn to
self-reliance and resiliency, away from a global system that uses water in the <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">desert</st1:PlaceType> of <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Arizona?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Arizona?tid=informline">Arizona</a>
to create cotton to ship to <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/China?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/China?tid=informline">China</a>
to be made into T-shirts to be sold at malls in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Maryland</st1:place></st1:State>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>But maybe
this is over-thinking the situation. Bill Joy thinks the collapse of the bee
colonies is a harbinger of our increasingly complicated world coming apart.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"I
think that we will see many more such 'era of limits' mysteries, some of which
turn out to be difficult to impossible to unravel, as causal wires of which we
are unaware, many of them nonlinear, are tripped," says Joy, the respected
former chief scientist of <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Sun+Microsystems+Inc.?tid=informline"
title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Sun+Microsystems+Inc.?tid=informline">Sun
Microsystems</a>, who has warned of the accelerating pace of technological
change leading to dire results for mankind -- up to and including the possible
destruction of the human race in a generation.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Exeunt Omnes</span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>In
seeking the meaning of the bees, perhaps we can take solace in our culture's
great exit lines.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Take your
pick:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"So
we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the
past," F. Scott Fitzgerald reminds us at the end of his masterpiece,
"The Great Gatsby."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The movie
"Shane" ends: "Pa's got things for you to do, and Mother wants
you. I know she does. Shane. Shane! Come back! 'Bye, Shane."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>In the
1954 film "Hondo," the final words are "Yup. The end of a way of
life. Too bad. It's a good way. Wagons forward! Yo!"<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"In
spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at
heart." -- "The Diary of Anne Frank."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"God
help us in the future." -- "Plan 9 From Outer Space."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Every
exit is an entrance somewhere else." -- the Player in "Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern Are Dead."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Good.
For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble." -- "Butch Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#004000" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:#004000'>Jennifer Tsang<br>
<a href="http://coevolution.org">Coevolution Institute</a><br>
<st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">423 Washington St.</st1:address></st1:Street>
5th Fl.<br>
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">San Francisco</st1:City>, <st1:State
w:st="on">CA</st1:State> <st1:PostalCode w:st="on">94111-2339</st1:PostalCode></st1:place><br>
T: 415.362.1137</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#004000" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:#004000'>F: 415.362.3070</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#004000" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:#004000'><a
href="http://www.nappc.org">www.nappc.org</a></span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#004000" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:#004000'><a
href="http://www.pollinator.org">www.pollinator.org</a></span></font><font
color="#004000"><span style='color:#004000'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>