Communities Large and Small

Professor J,

Thanks for the good wishes for Mother's Day. It's a holiday I have a love/hate relationship with, much like Valentine's Day. Something in me dislikes having feelings manipulated. "Feel this emotion today! Oh and let us sell you a nine dollar card." Guilt and obligation are the last two reasons I'd want to receive anything. My kids always make the day lovely and I appreciate it but they know it's not expected. They turned out to be wonderful adults and that is the best gift every day of the year. You probably know that the woman responsible for the day spent the second part of her life trying to get it rescinded when she saw what it became once the card companies and florists got a hold of it.

Your new preamble was brilliant and funny and sad.

As to our "struggling" I think sometimes we find ourselves in the weeds by parsing words or opinions too carefully. Unfortunately this happens because we are at the disadvantage of not being able to use  the ninety percent or so of communication that is non-verbal in these discussions. It would all be so much less tedious across a table wouldn't it? But this is the available medium and so we forge on. Correcting, redefining, clarifying.

Community policing: It's easy to see how well that might work. We saw it in Baltimore to some extent when the community pulled together to clean up after the initial riots and looting and the next night when we saw citizens form a line and lock arms between protesters who may or may not have turned violent and the police line. Vietnam veteran Robert Valentine stepped forward to tell young rioters to go home. He was a dignified but firm voice exhibiting love for his city and earning respect in the process. We desperately need men like that to be the voice of calm and reason in their own neighborhoods as well as communicate the concerns of citizens with authorities and work toward solutions. More than anything else, people who feel powerless want to know they are heard. There has to be some validation of their concerns before any real action or change can take place.

It would be helpful if our city leaders, community leaders, and police departments could forge alliances and keep communication ongoing instead of waiting for the powder keg to erupt. 

Could the 2016 election actually be more Clintons and Bushes? It's like a scab that won't heal. One that's indicative of a worse condition.

I've got a hopeful candidate picked out but it's early yet. 

 You rightly point out that the worker bees are female. Something interesting that I've noticed in the hives is that, though they are famously hard workers and known for being busy, those workers actually spend quite a bit of time resting and hanging out. Sometimes literally on the front of the hive in hot weather in a phenomenon called bearding. The take away lesson is that when they work they do so in such an efficient and cooperative way that the time spent not working does no harm and surely prolongs their lives which are very short during summer. We can imagine the tremendous benefits among humans if work were carried out this way.

But those are the females. Drones lumber around consuming valuable resources and waiting to mate with a virgin queen that might show up. I've been on the watch for a tiny little bee bar (serving meade no doubt) hidden in the hive with a tiny flat screen TV but haven't found it yet. :)