Dying Bee and WASP colonies...

You've read the stories about the bees dropping like flies. Colony Collapse Disorder. It's horrible. More than quarter of the US's bee colonies have simply disappeared - lost their way back to their hives and died. I've always admired the complexity and bold design of bee societies. I just hope this has nothing to do with us. Even the idea that cellphone towers or genetically modified crops or global warming could be the culprit, makes me ill.

Speaking of dying groups of bees, I was accused of being a bad WASP the other day. Too open and expressive to don the moniker (or the Lilly Pulitzer). Not cold and composed enough. What a huge compliment! I grew up surrounded by swarms of WASPs who prided themselves on the oppressive buzz of stoic uptightness and frozen plastic-Machiavellian personas that only thinly veiled a desperately vacuous hyper-materialism. No affinity there. And technically, I'm not even a WASP. I think I'm a White-Franco-Russo-Anglo-Germanic-Huguenot-Protestant. WFRAGHP? None to catchy. There go my WFRAGHP Handbook residuals.

("Mrs F C Winston Guest (aka Cee Zee Guest) and her son Alexander Michael Douglas Dudley Guest in front of their Grecian temple pool on the ocean-front estate, Villa Artemis, Palm Beach." by Slim Aarons, 1955)