96% Decrease in Honeybees
This isn’t good. A new study shows a dramatic, continuing drop in honeybees, those honeybees which cross pollinate many of our food sources. This is an excerpt from AOL News and by clicking on the blue type, you can read the entire article.
Study: US Bumblebee Population in Sharp Decline
The population of bumblebees in the United States is in a kind of free fall, dropping 96 percent over the past two decades, according to a new study that has scientists alarmed.
Four species of bumblebees are in a rapid decline, possibly because of increased fungal infections and inbreeding. Researchers called the findings of the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “disturbing” and said they were in line with findings in Europe.
“Disturbing reports of bumblebee population declines in Europe have recently spilled over into North America, fueling environmental and economic concerns of global decline,” the authors wrote.
The bumblebee population in the United States is in a steep decline.
The bumblebee is wild, but it pollinates commercial crops from tomatoes to coffee, and its disappearance could have a dire effect on food sources. “People need to know that wild bees are an enormously important ecosystem service, just like honeybees,” Sydney Cameron, the head author of the study and a professor at the University of Illinois, told AOL News by phone today.
To find and count the bees, teams of researchers across the United States visited fields of flowers where hives had historically been found and gently scooped up the insects in butterfly nets.
The disappearing bees have scientists somewhat perplexed. They think a disease-causing pathogen, Nosema bombi, as well as a “lack of genetic diversity” could be plaguing the insects, but they haven’t been able to prove it yet. Cameron said the Nosema bombi pathogen seems to make it difficult for queen bees to survive the winter so they can reproduce.
Honeybees in the United States are also in trouble. They are suffering from a phenomenon called “colony collapse,” a disorder that seems to kill massive numbers of a hive’s worker bees. Scientists aren’t entirely sure what’s causing the disorder, but they suspect a virus may be to blame.
Things Get Done
As many of you who know me may know, I am mildly obsessive-compulsive. I like things to be in their designated space. I like a clean house, down to the baseboards and the hidden places. I suppose it gives me some mystical illusion of control in a world where there is little (I believe) that can be controlled.
I believe my faith is pragmatic; I have learned – at least in my life – that God is in control, and that his plans are far better than my plans, although when I am in the midst of chaos, I have problems clinging to that belief, LOL.
But he sends me messages. As I have ended the old year and started the new year in a frenzy of cleaning out and organizing, I have come across lists from nightmare times in my life, mostly getting ready to move or settling in to a new location. Lists and lists of things to be done, things to be checked on . . . and I am comforted to know that what – at the time – was overwhelming, the details sorted themselves out. Things got done. Little by little, we ate the elephant.
As I came across notes and lists this morning, for buying this house and getting settled in Pensacola, I was able to take a deep breath. We survived. We got it all done. Lists and lists of details, and we got it all done. All of a sudden, things assume their proper perspective, and I thank God for this view of what my life looked like a year ago compared to what it looks like today.
We are settled.
I have friends.
We can pay our bills.
We have a house to live in and cars to drive.
We are in good health, and we have a good doctor.
We have a place where the Qattari Cat can stay when we go out of town.
We are registered voters, and have driver’s licenses and pay our taxes on time (insh’allah.)
We have a strong and rewarding family life, and activities we enjoy.
Life is sweet.
Aftermath: Americans at War in the Muslim World
I guess it is no surprise to you that I love National Public Radio / BBC, etc. I learn things I never even knew I didn’t know. As I sat down to write a very different blog entry, I heard the following interview with journalist Nir Rosen, who talks about Americans and our outdated views of the Middle East and Muslim world.
You may be able to listen to the entire interview live by going to NPR Programs and clicking on The US At War in the Muslim World by Nir Rosen.
The US At War In The Muslim World: ‘Aftermath’ With Nir Rosen
Steve Scher
01/04/2011 at 9:00 a.m.
The US invaded Iraq nearly seven years ago. What have been the consequences of going to war in a Muslim country? Have the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan created more militancy among the Muslim population there? Have the radical Islamists gained a stronger following as a result of our presence there?
Journalist Nir Rosen has been asking these questions in his reporting from outside the green zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. His new book “Aftermath” tells a side of the story we rarely hear.
Car Rental Fees
I’m making a short trip, and as a mildly obsessive-compulsive person, I make and double check my reservations.
How can it be that a car rental that is around $25/day for five days can come out to MORE THAN DOUBLE what you could estimate the total cost would be?
Last time, I learned that if I rented the car for a week, and turned it in early, I still got a way better break on price.
I might have to try that this time. Taxes and ‘fees’. Tourist fees. Tire recovery fees. (They are always so surprised I read the rental agreements, LOL) Environmental fees. Fees for picking the car up at the airport. Oh, AAARRGH.
The Disciple Jesus Loved
In today’s gospel reading is this story, a story I love because it tells us, as all our mothers always have, to mind our own business, to look to correcting our own behavior and not that of others.
There is a note to this passage, in The Lectionary: “The most ancient authorities lack 7.53—8.11; other authorities add the passage here or after 7.36 or after 21.25 or after Luke 21.38, with variations of text; some mark the passage as doubtful.”
The story is in the book of John, who is believed to be the disciple Jesus loved the best, and who tends to see into the heart of things. Although his closest followers, the disciples, often got it wrong (like arguing over who would sit at his right hand in heaven), they lived and worked with Jesus while he was here living on earth, and John seemed to know him best of all. To me, this story shows what Jesus expects of us – that we look to our own sins – and also, his compassion towards women.
(This is an image by Dagmar Anders)
John 7:53-8:11
53Then each of them went home, 81while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them.
3The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ 6They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’
8And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground.* 9When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
10Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ 11She said, ‘No one, sir.’* And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’]]*
The Gift
AdventureMan and I used to have lavish Christmases, trying to delight one another, and we did. One year, I bought his some crystal goblets he had been admiring, and some years I was able to add to his collection. One year, he bought me a Mont Blanc pen, which I adored, and another year two beautiful salad serving bowls with irises in them. (I still have them and delight to use them.)
This year, he gave me the best gift of all. I was working on a committee in our church, helping to make sure children we had volunteered to sponsor in the Salvation Army angel program received gifts of clothing and a toy or bike or age-appropriate gift. There were a few children at the end who had not found sponsors, but other people had chosen to donate cash or checks in lieu of sponsoring a child.
As we were getting ready for church, AdventureMan told me he had an idea for my Christmas gift, but he wanted to run it by me.
“How about if I make a donation to the Angel Tree, to help sponsor the kids who don’t have sponsors?”
He took my breath away. He can still do that.
We are not rich, we are modestly comfortable. We have always lived within our means, and placed a high value on saving. We have a comfortable home, enough to eat, and we keep our spending under control so that we even continue to grow our savings a little while we are now ‘retired.’ There is nothing I need for Christmas.
I’m still grinning from the grandness of his gift; the delight it continues to give me every time I think about it.
The Salvation Army has one of the lowest rates of administration funds to charitable funds of all the charities in America. They make every dollar you donate squeak, they work it so hard. They feed the poor, they give hope to children, they comfort the homeless and veterans, and they counter pornography and human trafficking (Yes. It happens in America, too.)
To find out how you can help this organization which helps so many, so generously, just click on the blue type Salvation Army and it will take you to their home page. There are many options for giving, including donations, giving of your time and energies as a bell ringer, or working with them in a variety of human services.
Star Wars Paradise
One of my bible study friends and I were talking about our study, and she asked me “What is it they are saying when all the people drop everything and go pray in those countries?”
The expat dilemma – most people don’t want too much explanation. And you never know who is a rabid anti-Islamist, and I don’t want to argue. But this time I took a chance.
“They are saying different things depending on the time of day, like first thing in the early morning they say ‘come pray! come pray! It is better to pray than to sleep!’ and then they say ‘God is Great! God is Great! I testify that there is only one God, and Mohammed is his prophet.'”
I sort of held my breath, as she thought about this, and then she said “Well, I guess that’s all right.”
Then she asked me if I ever thought about heaven. I told her about our churches in Qatar and Kuwait. I especially miss them at this time of the year. I told her I thought Paradise would look like our churches there, all peoples from all parts of the globe. I told her how on Christmas, all the Indian women wore their most beautiful saris, and the African women wore their dresses and fancy headpieces, and we westerners wore our nicest winter clothes, and we all worshipped together in peace, and to me, that was just a tiny slice of what I think paradise will look like.
My friend is fourth generation Pensacolian, and has never travelled. She proceeded to blow me away.
“Did you ever see Star Wars?” she asked me. I nodded. “Do you remember the bar scene?” I nodded again. Who could forget? But where is this discussion going?
“When we think of heaven, we think of what we know, but there is so much out there we don’t know, and God is creator of all the universe.” she said. “We can’t limit God to what we know; he is so much more! I think it’s going to be like that bar in Star Wars, that we will be with creatures we cannot even imagine, and that we can have celestial homes wherever we want, like a cabin in Alaska, or a hut beside the Ganges or maybe we can be here for a few thousand years and then on another planet, whatever we want.”
Her vision is huge. It took my breath away. The more she talked, the more blown away I became. I was shocked at my own smallness, my lack of imagination, and thrilled with her vision and the possibilities. She’s right, you know. We can’t begin to imagine what our heavenly home will look like, but her idea gave me food for speculation for months – maybe years – to come.
FollowUp To Pensacola Christmas Parade
Seen in local Pensacola grocery store:
Underwear Rules
“I can’t believe the things you talk about in the locker room!” AdventureMan exclaimed, “we (meaning the men in the men’s locker room) never have those conversations.”
No. They talk about what they did in the military, they talk about aches and pains.
We women talk about everything.
I had just told AdventureMan about my new revelation. The woman next to me in the locker room told me about her system. She hangs her underwear on a rack in her laundry room, which is next to her garage. When she is heading out the door to go to water aerobics, she just grabs her underwear off the rack and heads out the door.
“You can do that?” I thought to myself. I might have even said it out loud. It was a whole new way of thinking for me.
What about underwear rules? What about the rule that says you are supposed to take things out of the dryer or off the rack and fold them up and put them away? Isn’t that like a law or something? I think – I used to think – it was like one of God’s laws, but now I am thinking maybe it was one of my Mom’s laws.
I feel so free! My laundry room is also next to my garage. LLOOLL! I can grab underwear on my way out, too! Wooo HOOOOOOO!
The Pensacola Christmas Parade
“Do you know they are expecting over fifty thousand people??” my friend asked me over the phone. I had suggested we meet up. “I didn’t know there were fifty thousand people in Pensacola!”
She was going, but we probably would not see one another. My son and his family were meeting me at the church and we would watch together.
I have never seen a Christmas parade like it in my life. For one thing, the weather is perfect. It is cool enough for long sleeves, even a sweater, some Pensacolans were all bundled up. No rain – I understand last year the parade was rained out. No snow – it’s been really cold all week, and it’s going to be cold again tomorrow, but today – and tonight – were perfect.
“Where will we meet?” my son asked when he called.
“I’m leaving now; meet on the steps of the church” I answered. “See you there.”
* * * *
“I’m here, but not on the steps, across the street, under the tree right in front of the school” I left a message.”
“Mom! Where are you?”
“I’m by the school under a tree – wait, I can see you, I’m waving, I’m waving!” and finally he saw me, and we all had our little space.
It was a great space for viewing the parade. A great place for a little 9 month old Happy Baby, who loved the sirens and the police and the flashing lights, and the bark on the tree. He had a ball, and then he was tired.
Here is what is hilarious. It was not a great place for parade activity. I’ve never seen a parade like this, but this is very Pensacola, or so I’ve been told. First, this is the least ‘politically correct’ parade ever. It was wonderful! Floats full of Marys and Josephs and little baby Jesus, and shepherds and angels, marching evangelists carrying bible verses – LLOOLLL, a big thumb of the nose at secularity. This town celebrates the Nativity!
The Holy Bible Float:
The sign-carrying evangelists:
The Krewe of Pompeii Float (Krewes are local social groups that form to celebrate Mardi Gras)
Krewe of YaYas Float:
Did you notice something in all those photos? Did you notice all the hands up?
Did you see all those hands up? It took me a while, but I finally figured it out, all these people want beads! And Santas are throwing beads, and angels are throwing beads, and the Blue Angels are throwing beads, and . . . Joseph and Mary are throwing beads!
I had made a strategic mistake! The woman next to me had 15 or 20 beads, all kinds and all colors, and I was busy taking photos, and I had none. I then also noticed that I was under a tree, and the tree was catching beads that should have been mine!
Time to get serious. I put the camera away and started waving with the rest.
My treasures:
Big Wooo HOOO on me; every kid in Pensacola has like seven hundred beads, but I have my start, I have two! LLOOLL, next parade, I have my priorities. No more photos. Beads!
If you want to have a really good time, come to Pensacola for one of the liveliest and most fun parades I have ever attended.
Recent Comments
ExpatAlien on What Country am I Living … intlxpatr on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Michelle on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Cathy on No Grown-Ups in Charge intlxpatr on Waiting for Snow Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 