Bees will only attack when provoked!

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2017

We liberals are even more docile:
This morning's Washington Post contains a slightly overwrought letter concerning the habits of bees.

Bees should not be confused with hornets! Whimsical heading included, the letter went something like this:
This really stung

As a professional beekeeper and former Montgomery County high school teacher, I was upset by recent reporting regarding “bees” in The Post.

The culprits in the incident described in the Oct. 13 Local Digest item “Bees sting dozens at Montgomery school” were undoubtedly yellow jackets or hornets. It is terrible that so many students were stung, but the public deserved a better assessment of which stinging insects were responsible. Please don’t give bees a bad rap because it makes a better headline than “yellow jackets.” Bees are typically very docile and will attack only if their queen is threatened.

Misleading headlines and reports are detrimental to beekeepers and to the future of agriculture. Incorrect reports can make the public believe that bees are dangerous, when they are not.

Many people tend to call anything that stings a “bee,” but bees and yellow jackets are like apples and oranges: They ain’t the same.
We blame this on Muhammad Ali. He should have said, "Float like a butterfly, sting like a yellow jacket."

Saturday is the day the Post reserves for letters of this general type. We assume the writer is correct on every point, though perhaps is a bit overwrought.

We were struck by one line in the letter. It's the line where the writer attacks us liberals for being more docile than bees:
"Bees are typically very docile and will attack only if their queen is threatened."
Bees are very docile? Starting in 1992, our liberal team's queen, Hillary Clinton, was attacked for twenty-five years, routinely in ludicrous and insulting ways. Also, misogynistic.

We liberals just sat there and took it. Last November, we learned a lesson about the wages of docile behavior.

No matter what sort of crap was said, we liberals just stared into air. We swallowed years of misogynistic insults from Chris Matthews. We swallowed that Bannon-funded crap in the Times about the uranium deal. 4400 words!

No matter what was said, we took it, following Rachel's lead. We don't blame the rank and file, but where were our "corporate liberal" leaders down through all those years?

Donald J. Trump rode that crap to the White House. Are we happy with our cable stars? Are we happy with the way our docility finally turned out?

Our leaders clowned like butterflies, stung like docile insiders.

41 comments:

  1. Weak analogy. Bob complains that liberals didn't adequately defend Hillary starting in 1992. But, unlike the docile bees, liberals were doing lots of attacking throughout that period.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aww, such a sensitive, special snowflake. I hope you were able to find a safe space during the 90s.

      Delete
  2. Hornets and yellowjackets are wasps. Muhammad Ali could have said, " ... sting like a wasp."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That version would have been appropriated by the ruling elite of his day.

      Delete
  3. "Are we happy with our cable stars?"

    Bob, complaining should be followed by specific action. So do what I did. MSNBC is owned by Comcast, so I put a note in with my cable bill with the simple request: Give us better cable stars, please! If everyone did as I just did, I’m sure we would get the cable stars we deserve. Request better cable stars from the cable cartel. Ask and ye shall receive. Power concedes nothing without a polite letter...or something like that. If history has taught us anything it’s that twenty years of bitterness and snark typed on a blog hasn’t worked. You got nothing to lose by trying a fresh approach, Bob.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Whoa, this is the most embarrassing, cringeworthy post I've seen here so far: "liberal team's queen", eh?

    No, Bob, you having 'queens' is exactly the problem; you mindlessly following your corrupt cynical politicians in your make-believe struggle between Ds and Rs. Because you keep choosing the 'lesser of two evils' over and over, further and further, and down the rabbit hole where your 'lesser evil' is already a real neolib/neocon monster.

    Also, I might add, because your concerns are so trivial, so meaningless. Since I've been reading, not a single time have you addressed anything of substance, anything normal, ordinary people would care about.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey, Vodka-breath, you're really squirming aren't you? Tell your boss Pooty Poo he can keep squirming also, the sanctions ain't going anywhere. So sad.

      Delete
    2. 'Mao', I doubt Bob knows much about what ordinary people in Moscow care about (unlike you)

      Delete
    3. Same as everywhere else, I presume, dear anon: war and peace, the national economy.

      One thing they (and all other ordinary people everywhere) most certainly don't care about is liberal zombies not defining fiercely enough their liberal zombie queen against talking heads on TV.

      Glad I could help; you're welcome.

      Delete
    4. Mischa, can you look out the window and see the Gulf of Finland from your cubicle?

      Delete
    5. The new Mao must have a lower pay grade than the Mao of a few months back -- this one doesn't even try and hide his Kremlin allegiances.

      Delete
    6. Whatever you say, dear. And if you want my observation: liberal zombies here (including you) haven't changed at all. Well, already the minimum wage, I suppose; nowhere to go.

      Delete
    7. Sorry, 'mao', I have no idea how much the minimum wage in Moscow is, so I can't lament with your over having nowhere to go.

      Delete
    8. Hey Ivan, a couple of your boss Pootie's capitalist lackeys - Paul Manafort and Richard Gates - are turning themselves in today for treason and money laundering.

      The flopsweat stench of President Littlefingers should be reaching your cubicle any day.

      Glad I could help. You're welcome.

      Delete
    9. You know as well as everyone else that today's news confirms the smarter money's realization that Trump isn't imperiled by Mueller but the Podesta and Fusion gang is.

      Delete
    10. Anon @ 4:28 PM - reading comp fail. Better trolls, please.

      Delete
  5. Somerby asks:
    "but where were our "corporate liberal" leaders"

    I'm not sure that one ought to look to TV hosts as leaders in liberal advocacy. Fox News is quite content to be a propaganda arm of the Republican Party. I don't think liberals look for that from MSNBC or the NYT.

    Yes, Matthews' anti-Gore bias was infuriating and disheartening, but it didn't change MY vote. It would be interesting to see a scientific analysis of the 2000 election, to determine the extent to which Matthews et al really swayed the election. It's obvious he didn't much like the Clintons or Gore, but someone employed him then and continues to employ him today. Who are the bosses, and what are their interests?

    It IS possible to be a liberal and not like Hillary, as evidenced by the support for Bernie. Liberal disunity may have contributed to Hillary's loss.

    Somerby says we "took our lead" from Maddow. I think that's open to debate. And I wouldn't exactly put her in the same category as Matthews.

    And though not the subject of this blog, the 25-year war against Hillary from the right may have swayed more independents and undecideds than any attacks from the left.




    ReplyDelete
  6. "Starting in 1992, our liberal team's queen, Hillary Clinton, was attacked for twenty-five years, routinely in ludicrous and insulting ways. Also, misogynistic"

    Hillary's misogyny is one of the things that cost her the election. My mother and her mother and generations of women before them spent many hours baking cookies for our family among other caring and nurturing family activities. She insulted every woman who isn't a crass politician like herself for doing things many women like to do for their loved ones. The Deplorables speech included the same misogyny against these women.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wanting the freedom to explore other occupational roles for women is not misogyny. Insisting that all women must bake cookies (and be happy about it) is.

      Delete
    2. She insinuated women mustn't bake cookies or care for their children at home. A snide dig at the ones who do and almost everyone's mother and grandmother. The same ugliness that came out in her deplorables comment. She's a condescending and offensive if not mean personality. No one should blame the press that she isn't liked by voters.

      Delete
    3. She insinuated women mustn't bake cookies or care for their children at home.

      Bullshit. She was defending herself from sexist insulting attacks by of all people Gov. Jerry Brown who was competing with Bill Clinton for the Democratic party nomination in 1992.

      In a prelude to the hard-knuckle politics that were to follow the Clintons for the next two decades, Gov. Brown accused Bill Clinton of improperly helping his wife’s legal practice in his capacity as the governor of Arkansas. (The accusation was not substantiated.) Hillary fired back via the press with a sentence that roiled traditionalists who were already fired up by the era’s culture wars.

      “I suppose I could have stayed home, baked cookies and had teas,” she said.


      This is the kind of sexist belittling bullshit she has had to put with her entire political career. From her time in Ark where the provincial attitudes prevalent forced her to change her last name because they couldn't compute a woman with her education and talent and brilliance wanting to remain her own person.

      Right up until 8 years ago when Chris Matthews belittled her during her primary race with Obama.

      ***
      Matthews: Well, I don't know if they read the NY Post. I think the Hillary appeal has always been somewhat about her mix of toughness and sympathy for her. Let’s not forget, and I’ll be brutal, the reason she’s a US Senator, the reason she’s a candidate for President, the reason she may be a front runner, is that her husband messed around.

      That’s how she got to be a Senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn’t win it on her merit, she won because everybody felt, “My God, this woman stood up under humiliation, right? That’s what happened! That's how it happened.

      ***

      But most people don't remember the full quote when she spoke that day.


      ...failed to report the fuller sense of Clinton’s statement at the time, which addressed the very controversy the comments stoked. “The work that I have done as a professional, a public advocate, has been aimed…to assure that women can make the choices,” Clinton continued, “whether it’s full-time career, full-time motherhood or some combination.")Clinton Derangement Syndrome: There is no cure.

      Delete
    4. So she "evolved" but her instinct back then was to attack people who were not doing what she was doing. Accusations that her governor husband was helping her firm weren't sexist and responding the way she did was an attempt to shift the issue from corruption to sexism only it made her look worse.

      Delete
    5. ..her instinct back then was to attack people who were not doing what she was doing..

      No, her instinct was to defend herself. But I will concede that taken in total isolation that her words could have been misinterpreted. But not when you consider her entire life's work. You say the attack from Brown was for corruption, but maybe that's not the way she heard it. Maybe she heard an attack on her position as a partner in the Rose Law firm as something she hadn't earned on her own, and her achievements and rank in that organization was based on her marriage to the governor of the state. Are you willing to concede that?

      Delete
  7. Pew came out with its survey of political typologies but there is no category for neoliberals. What does that mean?

    ReplyDelete
  8. saying baking cookies is not for me isn't misogyny. she was talking about herself and what work for her. What if someone says it isn't for me to be a doctor or a lawyer, should that be an insult to docs and lawyers?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Has it occured to you that a walmart board member isnt our queen? What happened to boo lizard brains? Surely your lizard brain can be kept at bay while reading published scholarship?

    "The current Democratic Party candidates for U.S. president, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, have committed themselves to establishing universal health care that will guarantee access to care in time of need, a basic human right still denied in the United States. This commitment is partly a response to the U.S. population's high levels of dissatisfaction (now at unprecedented levels) with the way health care is funded and organized. The article analyzes why a similar commitment by President Bill Clinton in 1992 failed, and challenges some of the main explanations for that failure put forward by protagonists of the White House health care reform task force (chaired by Hillary Clinton). The author emphasizes that the primary reason for the failure was the lack of political will to confront major players in medical care funding, especially the insurance companies and large employers. He postulates that unless such political will exists and unless the system of funding electoral campaigns undergoes major reform-reducing or eliminating the power of financial and economic lobbies in the political process-the United States will not have universal health care. It is a worrisome sign that these lobbies are financing the campaigns of many of today's presidential candidates."

    http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/18459278

    ReplyDelete
  10. Nando’s, a restaurant chain in the UK introduced an online feedback survey as Nandos Feedback UK where the customer from the restaurant can share Nando’s customer feedback.
    Nandos Feedback UK

    ReplyDelete
  11. You should just follow our given step by step instruction below to start the Marston’s Inns and Taverns Guest Review Survey.

    Nandos Feedback UK

    ReplyDelete
  12. Tiger Tiger is a restaurant chain based in London that specializes in serving special fast foods and delicious dishes across the world. The restaurant provides everything from home comfort classics to chicken dishes to grill dishes.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Tell GameStop Survey is an official customer experience feedback portal introduced by the GameStop Electronics retail company that supports its customers and visitors to share visiting experience and customer satisfaction at the outlet.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Table of Contents
    Browns Glasgow Menu – Browns Glasgow Menu Prices
    Browns Glasgow Main Menu With Price
    Browns Glasgow Breakfast Menu With Price
    Browns Glasgow DESSERTS Menu With Price
    Browns Glasgow Gluten-Free Menu
    Browns Glasgow Sunday & Tea Menu Or Price
    Browns Glasgow Lunch Menu
    Browns Glasgow Near Me Locations
    Browns Glasgow Hours

    ReplyDelete
  15. Table of Contents:
    Saxon Mill Main Menu With Price
    Saxon Mill Lunch Menu
    Saxon Mill Dessert Menu
    Saxon Mill Children’s Menu /Saxon Mill Kids Menu
    Saxon Mill Vegan Menu with Price
    Saxon Mill Drinks Menu with Price
    Saxon Mill Near Me Locations
    Saxon Mill Menu Customer Service

    ReplyDelete
  16. If you visit GameStop often or have visited recently, it is an exciting opportunity for you to win one of twenty-five FREE $100 GameStop GIFT CARDS just by sharing GameStop Survey Feedback at Tell GameStop Survey Portal. Isn’t it just astonishing to get a free 100 bucks gift card, just for the shake of feedback? Check the rules, terms, and instructions below.

    ReplyDelete
  17. So, this is what we’d share with you, the latest, up-to-date River Exe Cafe Prices, River Exe Cafe Menu, and River Exe Cafe Hours.

    Want to mention anything special about River Exe Cafe Prices or River Exe Cafe Menu, write us below.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Swan Bar Restaurant Menu, Prices and Locations

    Recent Posts :
    Mowgli Manchester Menu, Prices and Lotions
    Fiesta Del Asado Menu, Prices and Locations
    Browns Glasgow Menu, Prices and Locations
    Sussex Exchange Menu Price, Location and Customer Care
    Absurd Bird Menu, Prices and Locations



    ReplyDelete
  19. Swan Bar Restaurant Menu, Prices and Locations

    Recent Posts :
    Mowgli Manchester Menu, Prices and Locations
    Fiesta Del Asado Menu, Prices and Locations
    Browns Glasgow Menu, Prices and Locations
    Sussex Exchange Menu Price, Location and Customer Care
    Absurd Bird Menu, Prices and Locations



    ReplyDelete
  20. TalkToSonic Survey
    TalktoSonic is the customer satisfaction portal introduced by the Sonic Drive-In Fast food restaurant company where the customers from the restaurant can share their visit experience and food-service opinions via their fingertips.

    ReplyDelete
  21. TalkToSonic Survey
    TalktoSonic is the customer satisfaction portal introduced by the Sonic Drive-In Fast food restaurant company where the customers from the restaurant can share their visit experience and food-service opinions via their fingertips.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Are you looking for Bluebird Chelsea Menu? Do you want to check Bluebird Chelsea Prices? Yes, then you are in the right place.

    Bluebird Chelsea Menu

    ReplyDelete
  23. Activate chase credit card online: Dear friends if you are a customer of Chase bank and have a Chase credit card but not yet activated it and wanna use it but can’t without Chase credit card activation so don’t worry guys here I will explain about that how to activate Chase credit card by online, activate Chase Debit card online and Chase credit card activation by phone number in a easy way.
    Chase Credit Card Activation

    ReplyDelete