honeycomb hide-out

This summer's a bit dreary by fits and starts, and one thing that I have noticed, but just barely, is the inconspicuous absence of bees despite everything being in full-bloom.  Usually, the flowers are heavy with buzzing but I don't think that I have seen a single honey bee yet.  There's been no headlines of scraping the bottom of the honey pot or bee-keepers getting desparate and wrangling moths but this certainly seems like a dire thing if cell-phone masts, sun-spot activity, WiFi, bluetooth, or subtle changes in the weather have affected the bees' navigation system and there's no mechanism for fertilizing plants and nothing to spur on general hardiness or evolution through cross-pollination.  Maybe they'll descend in great swarms to make up for lost time.

and keep the beaches shipwreck free

The Clash of the Titans remake came to our little second-run theater and though I was very excited to see this new version, I walked away a little disappointed.  The special effects were impressive and the monsters scarier but the Ray Harryshausen style of the original Medusa and Kraken were endearing, and so was Bubo--and rather than paying homage to the little clockwork owl from Hephaestus' forge and was like R2D2, they made fun of him, ever so briefly.  The acting in the original was much better, and Laurence Olivier is more believeable as Zeus.

gravity's rainbow

Apparently many of us were all had about the US forces' discovery of some Big Rock Candy Mountain of untapped wealth in Afghanistan.  It has been common knowledge since at least 1995 and the minerals have been buried in the earth for some millions of years before that.  Sometimes, I guess, news like this is recycled, like resuscitating some failing tourism campaign in fancy packaging.  Blood diamonds, get them while they're still cruel.  It is telling how the media touted this story as if it somehow justified the on-going war, but in reality it was another distraction that re-shuffled some imaginary wealth for a few hours.

plunder

It was announced that agents of the US-led occupation stumbled upon untold riches in Afghanistan in form of  previously unknown veins of copper, lithium and gold.  I am wondering how premature the release of this news was, since the Russians are far better pre-postioned to jump this claim, and what will it do for the only stable commodity on the world-markets, gold?  I am happy for the Afghanis if they can rebuild their country and undo the waves of damage wrought by the English, the Soviets, the Taliban and the Americans but I don't think such prospects will be surrendered so calmly.