"CCD", a modern "Legionaires Disease"... or "Eczema"?

It's been a banner week reading the smalltown local newspaper. Some good news to report from today's version - what appears to have been an actual news article actually researched - as in real journalism, by a real, living, breathing "beat reporter" who did not otherwise pick up and carry somebody else's story a la AP; and can be read on-line here.

http://www.altoonamirror.com/News/articles.asp?articleID=11735 

The latter is a double bonus. The on-line version of the local newspaper generally does not post on line much of what they print daily. I think in the smalltown news web site biz, this is sort of known as a "teaser" or "draw" to get people frequenting the web site.

The first impression to strike me while reading this story occured after reading this following excerpted passages:

John Bishop of Cresson said in the 24 years since he returned to beekeeping, he never has encountered anything as baffling as what happened recently to his two colonies. 

Honeybees are vanishing across the U.S. in a phenomenon first reported late last year by a Pennsylvania beekeeper. To date, more than 20 states reported bee colonies being depleted by what has been labeled Colony Collapse Disorder.

Those lost colonies have created a mystery for researchers, now immersed in the task of sifting through possible causes of CCD. They’re working at a rapid pace because honeybees are responsible for pollinating about 90 different crops and about one-third of the U.S. food supply.

Bishop said he isn’t positive that CCD is responsible for wiping out his two colonies, but other area beekeepers have shared similar stories with him. 

‘‘Some are getting thoroughly disgusted because no one’s coming up with any rhyme or reason for it,’’ he said. *

In a recent interview with National Public Radio, May Berenbaum, head of the department of entomology at the University of Illinois, said, ‘‘There are as many hypotheses as missing bees.”

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The first impression starts with Mr. Bishop stating his uncertainty that CCD is what wiped out his two colonies. I give this senior fellow credit for not being so quick to fall in with the herd... a quality in modern day people that may be about as rare anymore as 90 year old bee keepers. There is just something about the phenom of the establishment coming up with an official name for something that they otherwise admit that there is lots of speculatin but they do not KNOW much about. Is there a rule or axiom in the greater institution of science that goes something like "well, we don't know what it is, but by golly we gotta come up with an important sounding name for whatever it is we otherwise don't know much about"? It then occured to me that they could just have well as named this phenom Legionaires Disease.... or Eczema, for that matter.

Somehow, it seems that once an official-sounding name is established, it's like a proverbial foot is gotten in the door such that, as time goes on, and establishment continues to not know much about a phenom they've named, they can then gradually begin to throw in unestablished facts, perhaps under the radar. * This seems to be the route taken with the original Legionaire's Disease phenom of 70's era Philadelphia. As far as I know, after 'they' came up with an important-sounding official name, they never did really & factually get to the bottom of what caused the phenom; not even after many months of official study, much ballyhoo, and all kinds of state-sponsored dabate (they even had a 'Commision' that ended up not knowing what it was this phenom was caused by). They could have just as easily named it Eczema for all they ended up not knowing about it; hmmm, why didn't they? For all we know, the phenom that caused LD was the result of some top-secret testing of bio-warfare.

* a second impression, one that is somewhat confirmed by some comments in this story, is that the stage is already set for unestablished facts to become a part of whatever official explanation eventually is rendered for this phenom. It is telling to me that Mr. Bishop lamentedd "Some are getting thoroughly disgusted because no one’s coming up with any rhyme or reason for it". The scarey part in this is that this comment was made so matter of factly, suggesting that we the people have become so complacent in our lives that we have come to expect "somebody" to "come up with something", and then be so easily persuaded to become frustrated when somebody fails to come up with something. Give it time, Mr. Bishop, somebody will eventually come up with something. It is likely this something will not in any way resemble the truth in this matter, as if this even matters to a complacent populous anymore, but rest assured, over time, little by little, somebody will come up with a little piece of unestablished something here, a little piece there, and eventually, surprise of all surprises, "somebody" will have accumulated "come up with" something on this phenom, the complacent world will once again be saved by their benevolent controllers, and everyone can then relax, stand down and go back to the tv or wherever/however they prefer to do do the bulk of their waking-hours sleeping.

Meantime, be aware that Monsanto, coincidentally, is said to be on the verge of advancing their crop seeds from a test tube technology to the point of having fabricated self-pollinating frankenseeds.....gee, I wonder when they'll be wanting to test these  on real farm lands & real crops outside their back-room laboratories? 

PS - since so many, including the beknighted official corp of scientists, do not yet have any idea what is causing honey bees to go away in masse, I've taken the liberty of cross posting this in the Alien Abduction, as well as Divorce forums.... who knows?

PPS - a while back a buddy of mine hooked up an electric thinga mabob that is one of those silent pest ridders....supposed to make all kinds of pest, bugs, varmints, and the like, scram whenever this invisible frequency thing is turned on. He was trying to get rid of pests in and or near his shed. While we're all busy not knowing why the bees are disappearing and otherwise not returning to their hives, maybe this commercial electric frequency do dad was not tweaked right at the factory....could it possibly be motivating bees to go away, abandoning their hives and thus subjecting the hive to...... collapse? Do we know how many other same or similar frequency thinga mabobs are out there being operated by Lord knows who?  If this is possible, if and when they ever come up with something to fix this bee collapse situation, I can imagine that those electric frequency do dad companies can make big $$ selling the product to repel bees. Personally, I've never had the problem with bees repelling around me but rather the opposite... something about my BO or my own particular frequency that most of my life seems to be a magnet to bees, honey bees, bumble bees, yellow jackets. I too would really like to know what could cause a bunch of bees to get up and go some where to the effect that A) nobody saw them go; B) therefore nobody knows where they went; C) or why, but D) somebody did know enough to give this phenom an official name.