David Byrne Journal: 4.24.07: Begone
According to Einstein we’ve got a little over 4 years. Here’s a quote from him:“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”
And in today’s NY Times it says that more than a ¼ of the honeybees in the U.S. have vanished. The article continues with a lot of head scratching as to why but sort of says “gee, we dunno.”
In Spiegel, the German newsmagazine, they say,
“Beekeepers on the east coast of the United States complain that they have lost more than 70 percent of their stock since late last year, while the west coast has seen a decline of up to 60 percent.”
Lots of bees in these Austrian trees. The sound was amazing! A constant hum. Alas, I failed to go back to record it.
Things like this amaze me, or should I say dumbfound. THEY (whoever THEY may be) make us go to jury duty, have sewage or septic systems on our land, get permits to build anything on our own land, get drivers licenses, insurance, get smog checks on our vehicles, THEY force us to go to public school (unless you can afford the 20-60 grand a year to go to private school) and learn the false information THEY force feed us. THEY force us to pay taxes on the money we slave to make just so we can eat and buy clean bottled drinking water because THEY issued the permit for the factory up stream to dump all their crap in the air and the streams and rivers so that we cannot eat the fish, drink the water or ever water our crops with it. THEY force us to pay taxes to fund wars that we don’t want or agree with, pay taxes to own property we own outright, THEY force us to do everything THEY want us to do but THEY don’t force us to create a sustainable lifestyle and planet. And for some strange reason we won’t take it upon ourselves to prevent these kind of travesties. (Maybe the education THEY force upon us dosn’t teach us how to do this, but that would be strange; a country deliberately educating its people to be non-function-able and non-sustanable, that would be more than criminal).
This bee problem is easily solved. It would be as simple as everyone throwing up a cheap, simple wooden (or other sustainable material) beehive in their backyard. Beehives are virtually maintenance free and cost nothing to keep going. (You don’t even have to feed the bees.) The government (or environmental groups) could actually subsidize a program, or create a service, similiar to gas, water, electric, internet, cable tv, phone, trash, etc. to hand the things out. Even if every other person or one “beekeeper” per block or one per neighborhood would be assigned or even (imagine this) volunteer, even if one out of every 5000 or even 10,000 people did this it would surly remedy the problem completely. Even if there was some environmental problem or issue out there actually killing the bees, with this attack on the problem it couldn’t fail. And as a bonus you would have a lifetime supply of free honey for your tea!! (And honeycomb and bee polen for your smoothie too!!) There are an infinite amount of things like this that can be done (especially in this day and age) to remedy our simple (but devastating) issues, but most don’t “have the time” or even use their heads to help solve these simply solvable issues. Plant a tree… I know it sounds cliche’ or even hippie, but everyone’s screaming about carbon dioxide and global this and greenhouse that and “what are WE gonna do!!??” If everone could throw a tree in the ground somewhere (if no room in the yard, or on big lawn or on the polo field or golf course) then down the street or in or near the park, on that trail that you hike on…wherever…. (it would cost a couple bucks and take 20 minutes) then that tree would process that excess carbon dioxide (trees love pure carbon dioxide, they actually breathe it, no matter what the source; the industrial chemi paint-glue-draino factory down the street or that SUV tailpipe running it’s engine in front of your house, they love it all) and turn that very same carbon dioxide into pure breathable oxygen. As musicians, music lovers, artists, as a global community we need to unite and work on this stuff, we’ll love each other for it, we’ll love ourselves for it, the earth will love us for it, foreign nations will love us for it, the history books will love us for it, our children and our children’s children will love us…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070502/ap_on_sc/honeybee_die_off
Anyway , I know the bees are dying in south dakota. I had thought it was okay to spray the aple tree with insecticide after the blossoms were gone, but I only have a few flowers this year, and I think maybe I’m too late to say. “No more bug spray, Carol, at all!”