Last night, 60 Minutes aired a piece on Colony Collapse Disorder. In case you missed it, you can go to this link to view videos and read up on it.

 I thought one of the (many) interesting points discussed was how “Thirty years ago, a good-sized blueberry farm was 500 acres. Today, a large commercial operation can run to 10,000 acres and there are simply not enough honeybees in Maine to do the work.” So bees are spending more time on the road than ever before.  The piece also emphasized that ”honeybees in general are not in good health and are afflicted with all sorts of ailments. Their systems have been weakened by mites and other parasites, by poor nutrition, and exposure to pesticides.”

Tags: Bees by janine
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From my pal Rashmi:

Winfrey Can No Longer Kill Bees

 Media mogul Oprah Winfrey has discovered she can no longer kill bees after lending her voice to new animated film Bee Movie. Winfrey plays a human judge who oversees a court battle between a friendly bee, voiced by comic Jerry Seinfeld, and a honey company. And now she’s started letting bees buzz around her - because she no longer sees them as stinging pests. She resisted the urge to swat two bees who recently took a fancy to an Italian dish she was preparing at her home in California. She explains, “Two bees came around and they were buzzing around my plate. I think they were after the basil… and instead of swatting them away I just allowed myself to be there with the bees. I am not gonna swat the bees because they have families; I’m now thinking, ‘They have families…’ I’m so affected by this movie.” And Seinfeld is taking full credit for America’s new love for bees: “I look at them and I think, ‘You have no idea what I did for you!’”

Temple of Sting applauds Oprah’s enlightened attitude towards winged insects; however, we’re not entirely convinced those weren’t wasps or yellowjackets rather than bees going after her food.

Tags: Bees by janine
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I have very loud sneezes. VERY LOUD. I cannot emphasize this enough. People on the street sometimes look alarmed when I sneeze. I try my best to contain/suppress my sneezes, but to no avail. Anyway, I find it interesting that, in New York City, where hardly anyone bats an eye at anything, that people will a.) actually be startled by my sneezing as opposed to say, a crazy, ranting nutjob nearby and b.) often say “God bless you!” to me. This last part, to me, is particularly bizarre. You won’t move half an inch to the left to let me out of the subway, but you want to bless me when I sneeze?! Actually, my soul is not escaping my body and I don’t really need your blessing to prevent this from happening, but I would really, really like it if you don’t hit me with your newspaper or touch my rear end, and would let me get off the 4 train in a reasonable amount of time. With my soul intact. Thanks.

Tags: Totally random, Uncategorized by janine
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Well, Temple of Sting is in complete agreement on this one! Blender came up with a list of The 40 Worst Lyricists in Rock and decided that Sting was the worst of them all:

Mountainous pomposity, cloying spirituality, ham-handed metaphors: He can do it all.It didn’t have to turn out this way. In the Police, Sting wore ripped T-shirts and wrote catchy new-wave songs about hookers. Sure, he name-dropped Nabokov in “Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” but he balanced it with the awesomely post-lingual “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da.” But once publications labeled him “The Thinking Woman’s Sex Symbol,” a low-watt lightbulb popped on in his head, illuminating the way toward a self-serious future. Sting would go on to rip off Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, St. Augustine’s Confessions … even Shakespeare.After the Police split, Sting pursued a second career liberating soccer moms from their “soul cages.” Jazz musicians were involved. A lute was purchased. Volvo bumper stickers were quoted (“If you love someone, set them free”). Surveying the Cold War, he found the West “conditioned to respond to all the threats/In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets.” His rage at Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was so heated, he castigated the scoundrel in Spanish. Holy frijoles, was Sting mad!

These searing insights befit a sociopolitical seer “cursed with X-ray vision”—and capable of doing folkloric parables about seventh sons and mystical fisherman and taking us on journeys from the battlefields of World War I to the ancient kingdoms of “the high Sahara.” But does Sting care? He doth not. He’s the King of Pain, kids. And no pain, no gain.

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On October 2, 1951, a new evil arose in the world. Gordon Sumner, who you now know as Sting, was born. To this day, he rules the world with his invisible iron fist, causing the destruction of bees through colony collapse disorder and inflicting his terrible music upon the world.

 Oh, and apparently Trudie got Sting…. strippers for his birthday ? That’s totally klassy!

Tags: Conspiracy theories, Sting by janine
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