Inmate found guilty in masturbation trial
By ROBERTO SANTIAGO AND JENNIFER LEBOVICH
rsantiago@MiamiHerald.com
A Broward prisoner accused of committing a sex act while he was alone in his jail cell was found guilty Tuesday of indecent exposure.
Terry Lee Alexander, 20, unsuccessfully fought the charge, which had been brought by a female Broward Sheriff's Office detention deputy who saw him perform the sex act in his cell in November.
In reaching the guilty verdict, jurors found that an inmate's jail cell is ''a limited access public place'' where exposing oneself is against the law.
The judge sentenced Alexander, of Lauderdale Lakes, to 60 days in jail, on top of the 10-year sentence he is currently serving for armed robbery.
The sole witness in the case, BSO Deputy Coryus Veal, testified that Alexander did not try to hide what he was doing as most prisoners do. Veal saw him perform the act while she was working in a glass-enclosed master control room, 100 feetfrom Alexander's cell. There was no video tape or other witnesses.
Alexander's attorney argued that the prison cell was a private place and that what Alexander was doing was perfectly normal.
''Did other inmates start masturbating because of Mr. Alexander?'' McHugh asked Veal. ``Did you call a SWAT team?''
''I wish I had,'' Veal answered.
Veal, who has charged seven other inmates with the same offense, insisted that she was not against the act itself -- just the fact that Alexander was so blatant about it. Most inmates, she testified, do it in bed, under the blankets.
Veal said this was the third time she caught Alexander, and she had had enough.
In the end, it took a jury of four men and two women only 45 minutes to find Alexander guilty. Broward County Judge Fred Berman sentenced Alexander to 60 days in jail.
''It was pretty straightforward,'' said juror David Sherman. ``The prosecution's case was clear, and the defense did not dispute any of the major elements.''
Sherman said jurors determined that a prison cell, which is owned and operated by the government, is neither public nor private but is a ``limited access public place.''
He also said that none of the jurors had a problem with the sex act, per se.
The case drew snickers in the courtroom, especially during jury selection, when prospective jurors were quizzed about their own habits.
Defense attorney Kathleen McHugh faced 17 prospective jurors and asked point-blank who among them had never done that particular sex act.
No hands went up.
While most prisons deal with such an offense internally, Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne -- and Miami-Dade Corrections officials -- are hoping to curb the practice among inmates by prosecuting them.
Janelle Hall, a spokeswoman for Miami-Dade Corrections, said that while no charges have been brought against inmates, the department is working with State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle's office to discuss prosecution of such ''egregious'' cases in the jail.
''It has been a hot topic so to speak in our department,'' Hall said. ``In those cases that are egregious, where there is some sort of intent to deliberately expose themselves, those cases will be reviewed further in the courts.''
A spokesman for Broward State Attorney Michael Satz said prosecution is warranted when an inmate exposes himself in plain view of the detention staff or others.
''Female detention deputies are human beings, too. Why should they have to view such vulgar and indecent behavior in their place of work?'' said Satz spokesman Ron Ishoy.
Prosecutors filed charges in all seven of Veal's other cases, Ishoy said, but later dropped the charges in one of those cases to allow the defendant to begin his sentence in the state prison system on a more serious, unrelated charge.
Four of the defendants pleaded guilty to the charge of exposure and were sentenced to time served. Charges against two inmates are pending.
The state attorney's office did not have the number of cases involving inmates charged with indecent exposure in BSO jails.
And there was no information on whether similar charges had been brought against female inmates.
''When an inmate exposes [himself], it's up to the deputy's discretion how to handle it,'' said Elliot Cohen, a BSO spokesman. ``It can be a verbal reprimand to the filing of criminal charges.''
Teri Barbera, a spokeswoman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, said jail inmates there are written up for violating jail rules and subject to internal punishment ranging from loss of visitation privileges to solitary confinement.
Barbera said she is not aware of any cases where criminal charges have been brought against an inmate.

Tammy Faye Messner dies of cancer

HUSTON CHRONICLE
RALEIGH, N.C. — Tammy Faye Messner, who as Tammy Faye Bakker helped her husband, Jim, build a multimillion-dollar evangelism empire and then watched it collapse in disgrace, has died. She was 65.
Messner had battled colon cancer since 1996 that more recently spread to her lungs. She died peacefully Friday at her home near Kansas City, Mo., said Joe Spotts, her manager and booking agent.
A family service was held Saturday in a private cemetery, where her ashes were interred, he said.
She had frequently spoken about her medical problems, saying she hoped to be an inspiration to others. "Don't let fear rule your life," she said. "Live one day at a time, and never be afraid." But she told well-wishers in a note on her Web site in May that the doctors had stopped trying to treat the cancer.
In an interview with CNN's Larry King two months later, an emaciated Messner — still using her trademark makeup — said, "I believe when I leave this earth, because I love the Lord, I'm going straight to heaven." Asked if she had any regrets, Messner said: "I don't think about it, Larry, because it's a waste of good brain space."
For many, the TV image of then-Mrs. Bakker forgiving husband Jim's infidelities, tears streaking her cheeks with mascara, became a symbol for the wages of greed and hypocrisy in 1980s America.
She divorced her husband of 30 years, with whom she had two children, in 1992 while he was in prison for defrauding millions from followers of their PTL television ministries. The letters stood for "Praise the Lord" or "People that Love."
Jim Bakker said in a statement that his ex-wife "lived her life like the song she sang, 'If Life Hands You a Lemon, Make Lemonade.'"
"She is now in Heaven with her mother and grandmother and Jesus Christ, the one who she loves and has served from childbirth," he said. "That is the comfort I can give to all who loved her."
Messner's second husband also served time in prison. She married Roe Messner, who had been the chief builder of the Bakkers' Heritage USA Christian theme park near Fort Mill, S.C., in 1993. In 1995, he was convicted of bankruptcy fraud, and he spent about two years in prison.
Through it all, Messner kept plugging her faith and herself. She did concerts, a short-lived secular TV talk show and an inspirational videotape. In 2004, she cooperated in the making of a documentary about her struggle with cancer, called "Tammy Faye: Death Defying."
"I wanted to help people ... maybe show the inside (of the experience) and make it a little less frightening," she said.
More recently, Tammy Faye kept in the public eye via her Web site.
"I cry out to the Lord knowing that many of you are praying for me," Messner wrote in a July 16 post in which she indicated she weighed 65 pounds. "In spite of it all, I get dressed and go out to eat. ... I crave hamburgers and french fries with LOTS of ketchup! When I can eat that again, it will be a day of victory!"
In 2004, she appeared on the WB reality show "The Surreal Life," co-starring with rapper Vanilla Ice, ex-porn star Ron Jeremy and others. She told King in 2004 that she didn't know who Jeremy was when they met and they became friends.
Messner was never charged with a crime in connection with the Bakker scandal. She said she counted the costs in other ways.
"I know what it's like to hit rock bottom," she said in promotional material for her 1996 video "You Can Make It."
In the mid-1980s, the Bakkers were on top, ruling over a ministry that claimed 500,000 followers. Their "Jim and Tammy Show," part TV talk show, part evangelism meeting, was seen across the country. Heritage USA boasted a 500-room hotel, shopping mall, convention center, water-amusement park, TV studio and several real-estate developments. PTL employed about 2,000 people.
Then in March 1987, Bakker resigned, admitting he had a tryst with Jessica Hahn, a 32-year-old former church secretary.
Tammy Faye Bakker stuck with her disgraced husband through five stormy years of tabloid headlines as the ministry unraveled.
Prosecutors said the PTL organization sold more than 150,000 "lifetime partnerships" promising lodging at the theme park but did not build enough hotel space with the $158 million in proceeds. At his fraud trial, Jim Bakker was accused of diverting $3.7 million to personal use even though he knew the ministry was financially shaky. Trial testimony showed PTL paid $265,000 to Hahn to cover up the sexual encounter with the minister.
Jim Bakker was convicted in 1989 of 24 fraud and conspiracy counts and sentenced to 45 years. The sentence was later reduced, and he was freed in 1994. He said that his wife's decision to leave him had been "like a meat hook deep in my heart. I couldn't eat for days."
While not charged, his then-wife shared during the 1980s in the public criticism and ridicule over the couple's extravagance, including the reportedly gold-plated bathroom fixtures and an air-conditioned doghouse.
There was even a popular T-shirt satirizing her image. The shirt read, "I ran into Tammy Faye at the shopping mall," with the lettering on top of what look like clots of mascara, traces of lipstick and smudges of peach-toned makeup.
In a 1992 letter to her New Covenant Church in Orlando, Fla., she explained why she finally was seeking a divorce.
"For years I have been pretending that everything is all right, when in fact I hurt all the time," she wrote.
"I cannot pretend anymore."
In the end, there wasn't any property to divide, her attorney said. The Bakkers lost their luxury homes in North Carolina, California and Tennessee, their fleet of Cadillacs and Mercedeses, and their vintage Rolls-Royce.
Her autobiography, "I Gotta Be Me," recounts a childhood as Tammy Faye LaValley, one of eight children of a poor family in International Falls, Minn. Her biological father walked out. She was reticent about her age, but a 2000 profile of her in the Star Tribune of Minneapolis said she was born in March 1942.
She recalled trying eye makeup for the first time, then wiping it off for fear it was the devil's work. Then she thought again.
"Why can't I do this?" she asked. "If it makes me look prettier, why can't I do this?"
She married Bakker in 1961, after they met at North Central Bible College in Minneapolis. Beginning with a children's puppet act, they created a religious show that brought a fundamentalist Protestant message to millions.
A secular TV talk program, the "Jim J. and Tammy Faye Show" with co-host Jim J. Bullock, lasted just six weeks in early 1996. Shortly after it went off the air, she underwent surgery for colon cancer.
She said afterward that she endured bleeding for a year because she was embarrassed to go to a male doctor. And she wore her makeup even in surgery.
"They didn't make me take it off," she said. "I had wonderful doctors and understanding nurses. I went in fully made up and came out fully made up."
Survivors include her husband and her two children, Jamie Charles Bakker of New York City and Tammy Sue Chapman of Charlotte.
Spotts said that the family is considering a public memorial service for the coming weeks, but that nothing had been finalized Saturday.

the highbrow

The Croc Epidemic

How a heinous synthetic shoe conquered the world. By Meghan O'Rourke (SLATE)

In the demi-monde of footwear, the term croc was once synonymous with elegance—the reptile skin covering a pair of stiletto sling-backs. Today, it's synonymous with an entirely different—and altogether vegetarian—phenomenon. In just a few years, the exquisitely ugly shoes known as "Crocs" have spread around the world like a Paris Hilton sex tape, giving rise to an epidemic of croc babies and their more egregious counterparts, croc parents. The shoe looks adorable on sun-kissed toddlers, but, alas, the fad did not stop there. For such a modest item (a typical edition sells for $29.99), the Croc has traveled in high places, disgracing the extremities of such celebrities as Mario Batali (who prefers the bright orange variety) and George W. Bush (who paired them with shorts and dark socks).
As fans will tell you, Crocs aren't just footwear; they're the closest thing to religion that the foot has experienced. The company's stock has skyrocketed in value over the past year, and Crocs is now poised to launch a new product line this fall. Yet Crocs are heinous in appearance. A Croc is not a shoe; it is a Tinkertoy on steroids. How did this peculiar shoe-manqué achieve ubiquity—and can it possibly stick around?
In the interest of science and as a defender of fashion, I went to Paragon Sports in New York to buy my first pair of Crocs—the shoes were a bright patch in a sea of sportswear. A woman with petite feet may discover that the smallest size in a popular edition, such as "Cayman" (the Crocs aesthetic is eco-beach), will not fit her; instead, she will have to head to the kids' section—piling ignominy upon ignominy. The Crocs palette tends toward the bold: orange, primary green, bright blue, periwinkle. Having selected a periwinkle pair, I was approached by a young salesclerk, who had noticed my skeptical look. "These styles are very popular," he said reassuringly. "Can I help you with anything?" Yes. Would he be kind enough to reveal if he would ever wear a shoe like this? "Me?" he said, stepping backward. "Nah, they're too ugly. The flip-flop, maybe—but these go too far for me."
A first-time Crocs wearer will indeed find that the shoes are springy and light, as their fans aver, and cushion the feet with what some have called a "marshmallow fluffiness." On a muggy New York day, the holes punched in the toe box allow for a soothing breeze to cool the sweating foot. Even so, the ratio of shame to comfort was extreme. When everyone else on the avenue is garbed in proper footwear—even something as unpretentious as flat sandals or ballet flats—an adult, it seemed to me, must blush at the sight of her bulbous feet. But those who wear Crocs all day long swear that the springy material holds up like nothing else; one painter reported that his chronic shin splints disappeared after he began wearing Crocs. Thus was born what one blogger has labeled the "Croc conundrum": Crocs make you look absurd, but they can change your life.
Comfort and function were always the main Crocs pitch. The shoes' original home was Boulder, Colo. The early Crocs customer was probably a Pacific Northwesterner who liked to boat or garden—this was a niche shoe, after all. He or she was drawn in by the "no slip" grip on the sole, by the aerating holes, and by the featherweight heft of the thing (a pair weighs a mere 6 ounces). The clunky look was not a drawback (this is the region, after all, that brought us grunge), and many customers were pleased that the shoe was made of a proprietary nonplastic resin formula (known as Croslite)—it was, as one testified, "vegan." Because the material is soft, bacteria-resistant, and has a strangely "natural" feel, the Croc fits in with the Northwest's typically green and mildly counterculture ethos. Soon nurses, doctors, cooks, painters, and other workers who stand on their feet all day had discovered Crocs and found them to be life-changing. The company is careful to play up its shoes' supposed orthotic benefits, to the distress of some skeptical podiatrists; a new line for diabetics is in the works.
In the meantime, the company cleverly positioned itself as an eco-conscious no-frills-attached corporation. Crocs was conceived by three friends—Scott Seamans, George Boedecker, and Lyndon Hanson—on a trip in the Caribbean, when Seaman showed his friends the extraordinary slip-resistant clog he was wearing; learning that it was made by a Canadian company called "Foam Creations," the friends spotted an opportunity. Soon they had licensed and were trying to "develop" the shoe (by adding a strap to the back); the name was the first thing that had to go. They realized the tops looked like crocodile snouts from the side. Presto! Crocs was born. In 2002, the company earned a gross profit of $1,000 from sales in America. By 2006, following a series of strategic licensing deals (you can now get NASCAR and Disney Crocs, for example), it was earning more than $200 million a year from sales in 40 countries. (I even spotted knockoffs called Rockies in Jerusalem's Muslim quarter.) Nor have consumers' appetite yet been whetted: During the first quarter of 2007, the company's sales had increased 217 percent from the same period the previous year.
In moving from a niche shoe to widespread wear, Crocs capitalized on its several strengths. The first is that the shoes are ideal for kids, who like their brightness, their lightness, their squishiness, and the strange holes in the front, in which charms can be placed. (Perhaps the only thing uglier than a Cayman Croc is a Croc adorned with "Jibbitz," as the charms are called.) Meanwhile, their parents like that they are dishwasher-safe, waterproof, and odor-free. Their amorphous shape may be an aesthetic crime, but it lends the shoes a jovial quality that appeals to the knee-high and the anti-bourgeois everywhere. (One Slate contributor and early Croc-adopter reports that when she went to her daughter's school dressed in Crocs, the kids all wanted to know why she wore "clown shoes.") And the Croc fad, like the Ugg fad, benefits from the shoe's appropriation of an ethnic look (in this case, the Dutch clog) that one could deem "authentic." Ugly is OK, it would seem, as long as it's imported; then it's considered "practical" and earthy. In a classic cultural inversion, Ugly becomes Good: It represents an authentic critique of the marketing and branding that surround us every day. (Think of Ugly Dolls.) And so Crocs even ran ads in Rolling Stone proclaiming "Ugly can be beautiful." Finally, whereas Uggs were embraced by the fashion world, and became a status symbol, Crocs are a bottom-up brand, embraced by ordinary Americans everywhere. It is a democratic purchase. It looks painful to wear—like something you might find in the rock-bottom bins at Kmart—but is actually soft and high-tech, defeating class-based assumptions.
Footwear has always been particularly susceptible to fads, as the fashion authority Colin McDowell observes in Shoes: Fashion and Fantasy. Shoe fashion tends to swing dramatically on the pendulum from practical to beautiful, largely because shoes are even more utilitarian than clothes—and stylish clothes are rarely as uncomfortable as stylish shoes. Since everyone needs shoes, they are particularly susceptible to the tipping point phenomenon: When enough people are wearing ugly but comfortable shoes, others jump eagerly on the bandwagon, thrilled to be released from the bondage of straps and buckles. And so Crocs represent a kind of rebellion—a vanguard of the comfort movement. As footwear retailers reported this spring, shoe sales are unpredictable this year, with one exception: what retailers call "fashion comfort" styles—including ballet flats, shoes like Geox (which are popular among businessmen), and, of course, Crocs. One retailer called them "a category of their own."
The popularity of Crocs has also led to the inevitable backlash. Croc-mocking is rampant. The Web site Ihatecrocs.com chronicles its proprietors' attempts to destroy Crocs (using fireworks, scissors, and lighter fluid). According to Maclean's, some hospitals have decided to ban Crocs, citing the fact that they do not protect against infection (the toe box has open holes). Meanwhile, there are reports of mysterious "Crocs shocks" shorting out crucial medical equipment; allegedly, the resin formula doesn't just keep out bacteria, it stores electricity. This sounds like urban legend, but one nurse who was skeptical of such accounts did tell Maclean's that when she started wearing Crocs she began giving her patients small electric shocks. Tales have come in from Crocs-haters in Sweden about children whose Crocs melt on escalators or get otherwise stuck in the cracks between steps; the most horrific of these involves a little boy whose toe got "pulled off" when his Crocs got stuck. A crock? Probably.
What is more certain is that some podiatrists are alarmed by their patients' fanatical embrace of Crocs; most Crocs, doctors point out, provide only moderate support. "I'll get people with strained arches because they've been running around in Crocs for five days," said Arnold Ravick, a doctor of podiatric medicine in Washington, D.C., and a spokesman for the American Podiatric Medical Association. "When it comes to shoes, people mistake comfort for support. Comfort is fool's gold—a soft gushy shoe that makes your arches collapse," he told me. "Crocs are popular because they're inexpensive and interchangeable. For people with certain problems, they can be a good shoe. Are they good for your foot, in general? No."
Crocs may be popular, but it's the rare Croc lover who considers them fashionable. As Kim France, the editor in chief of Lucky, the shopping magazine, told me, "Uggs I can make an argument for. Jellies also had their moment of being cute and cool. Crocs are just a pox." The first time she saw a male friend in them, she recalls, she asked him, "Are you really going to make me walk down the street with you?" And so today, the company is at a crossroads. The public's affection for shoe styles is notoriously fickle. (Remember earth shoes?) In June, 50 percent of Croc's shares were sold short by short-seller investors who think that the company's stock will plummet soon. Though the company has made a series of strategic licensing deals and partnerships with subsidiaries, it is still largely dependent on its signature clogs and now flip-flops. Striving to position itself for a fall-off in demand, Crocs plans to launch new clothing and shoe lines this fall that will depart from its signature resin formula and will feature pieces costing between $70 and $100. Who knows whether this strategy will succeed, but at Paragon, one employee was waiting eagerly for the shipment of new flip-flop styles. "I hate the way the old Crocs look," he said. "But they are comfortable."
History suggests that Crocs are more likely to be a passing fad, like Dr. Scholl's, than a true innovation, like the sneaker. The very thing that has made them such a huge hit, after all—their ugly duckling distinctiveness—is also likely to make it hard for the company to go mainstream in any enduring sense. On the other hand, the trademarked Croslite material is an ace in the hole: If the traditional Croc clogs I tried on felt too confining on a summer day, the Croc flip-flops were delightfully springy. The company's sporty Sassari wedge suggests that when it comes to summerwear its designers may be developing at least some aesthetic sense.* But for now, my old platform flip-flops will do.
Copyright 2007 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

A Reprieve for Net Radio
The music industry won't impose higher royalty rates on Webcasters—yet. Stay tuned, though
by Olga Kharif
Web radio will keep playing, rather than play dead, come July 15. The music industry won't impose higher royalty rates, which were to take effect that day, but the good news for Webcasters may prove fleeting.
The reprieve came July 12 when some 20 representatives of music labels, traditional radio networks, and Webcasters met on Capitol Hill, with industry royalty collector SoundExchange agreeing to hold off on the new fees while negotiations continue. The higher rates, approved in March by the Copyright Royalty Board (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/7/07, "The Last Days of Internet Radio?"), are so much higher than those currently paid that many Webcasters claimed that they will be forced out of business.
The music industry, by not sticking firmly to the deadline, appears to be giving credence to that dire declaration. "SoundExchange is in the business of generating revenues, and it's not going to help them if a good chunk of the industry goes out of business," explains Paul Palumbo, research director for AccuStream iMedia Research.
Large-Scale Talks Planned
SoundExchange also agreed to cap a new minimum royalty fee at $50,000 per station per year in place of a $500-per-music-"stream" fee mandated by the CRB, says Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, a customizable online radio station. That marks a huge win for Webcasters because with online radio technology, each individual Web user can create a custom stream.
Webcasters had struck an adamant stance on the issue, refusing for months to respond to compromise proposals issued by SoundExchange. "We weren't going to do any kind of a proposal until that fee was gone," Westergren says, pointing out that Pandora, with more than 7 million registered listeners, would have owed millions of dollars in royalties. With that settled, "we are absolutely committed to figuring out solutions," he says.
SoundExchange and Webcasters are now expected to gather for a large-scale negotiating session early in the week starting July 16, says Westergren, who was present during the July 12 meeting. At the heart of next week's discussions: the exact royalty rates Webcasters will be required to pay.
Devilish Details Remain
The Webcasting side now believes a compromise can be reached, and fast. "Our plan is to come to the negotiating table and be very reasonable," says Ian Rogers, general manager of Yahoo! (YHOO) Music. Rogers says the parties may ax the per-song fee in favor of a revenue-sharing agreement, which would allow the music industry to benefit as Net radio's sales grow. Web radio listening is expected to balloon as wireless broadband technologies such as WiMAX spread, enabling Web radio to become a mainstay in cars.
Alternatively, the two sides could hammer out tiered royalty rates, charging different fees to Webcasters of different sizes, says Dave Van Dyke, an analyst with consultancy Bridge Ratings. Perhaps nonprofit stations would pay different, lower fees as well. Whatever the compromise, if one is reached at all, Webcasters "are still going to have to pay the piper very shortly," Van Dyke says. While the minimum-fee compromise has appeased many large Webcasters, a deal on royalties is critical for smaller stations. "You may still see hundreds, if not thousands, of Webcasters go out of business," he says.
The Net radio business is not yet all that lucrative, generating just tens of millions in ad revenue per year, Palumbo estimates. "The industry is immature in what it can withstand in terms of royalty payments," he says.
Yet even if the talks collapse, just as illegal music sharing persists despite being outlawed, the Wild West of Web radio won't disappear overnight. "There are still a lot of Webcasters who are going to continue to broadcast no matter what," says Tom Webster, an analyst with consultancy Edison Media Research.
Kharif is a reporter for BusinessWeek.com in Portland, Ore.

science (SLATE)
Bee Not Afraid The disappearance of the honeybees isn't the end of the world.By Heather Smith

Posted Friday, July 13, 2007, at 3:55 PM ET
When the honeybees disappeared this winter, the thought of losing such a fuzzy and adorable animal inspired dismay. The fact that bees might also be useful drove us to despair. The first official reports of "colony collapse disorder" began to surface in October of 2006; seven months later, USDA officials were calling CCD "the biggest general threat to our food supply," and newspaper columnists nervously joked about the impending "bloody wars not for oil or land or God but over asparagus and avocados." Experts pointed to the $14.6 billion worth of free labor honeybees provide every year, pollinating our crops. With a full quarter of them AWOL, presumed dead, who would make sweet love to the $1.6 billion California almond harvest? More precisely, who would help the almond harvest make sweet love to itself?
Few people realized that the honeybee apocalypse was already over. We may continue to associate them with childhood sugar rushes and chubby-cheeked fertility metaphors, but in real life honeybees have been virtually extinct in North America for more than 10 years, their absence concealed by a rogue's gallery of look-alikes. The stragglers have been kept alive only by the continued ministrations of the agricultural giga-industry that needs them.
It used to be that it was hard to eat a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich without a honeybee showing up and doing a little dance around your head. Hives (literally) grew on trees until 1987, when a mite called varroa destructor turned up in a honeybee colony in Wisconsin. Even for a parasite, varroa is less than charming. It looks like a microscopic baked bean, with sharp fangs used to slurp tiny droplets of blood from the abdomens of unsuspecting honeybees. Since these bites also transmit disease, like deformed wing virus and acute bee paralysis virus, an infested colony is kaput within four years. By 1994, an estimated 98 percent of the wild, free-range honeybees in the United States were gone. The number of managed colonies—those maintained by beekeepers—dropped by half.
The honeybees may have been especially vulnerable to the varroa epidemic. When the honeybee genome was sequenced a few years ago, researchers discovered fewer immune-system genes than you'd find in other insects. This despite the fact that the honeybee lives in tenementlike conditions, anywhere between 15,000 and 30,000 of them crammed into a hive the size of a filing cabinet. To make matters worse, a weakened hive often becomes the target of honey-raiders from healthier colonies, which only helps the parasites to spread.
It's possible that if the American honeybees had been left to their own devices, they would have died off in epic numbers and then evolved natural defenses against varroa (like more effective grooming), as they did in Asia. But crops had to be pollinated and no one had the time to sit around and wait.
Beekeepers opted to keep their colonies on life support with selective breeding, and by sprinkling them with medicine and insecticides aimed at the invading mites. This was no longer a hobby for amateurs. The only honeybees left—i.e., the ones that started disappearing in October—had become the cows of the insect world: virtually extinct in the wild, hopped up on antibiotics, and more likely to reproduce via artificial insemination than by their own recognizance.
If anything, it's impressive that the honeybee has hung on in America for as long as it has. The commercial hives spend half the year sealed and stacked in the back of 18-wheelers, as they're schlepped down miles of interstate to pollinate crops around the country. During this time, they get pumped up with high fructose corn syrup, which keeps the bees buzzing and lively, but it's no pollen. And if a bee happens to get sick on the road, it can't self-quarantine by flying away from the colony to die. (In the wild, a bee rarely dies in the hive.) Add to the above the reduced genetic diversity resulting from the die-offs in the 1990s, and you have an insect living in a very precarious situation—where a new pathogen, even a mild one, could spell honeybee doom.
So what brought on this recent scourge of colony collapse disorder? Early news reports on CCD listed a plethora of suspects: pesticides, parasites, global warming, chilly larvae, ultraviolet light, not enough pollen, not enough rain, cell phones, and alien spaceships. Given the present state of the honeybee, any or all of these could have been the culprit. (Well, except for the cell phones and spaceships.)
It's even possible the mystery disease has already shown up in years past. An 1897 issue of Bee Culture magazine mentions the symptoms of something that sounds remarkably like CCD, as do a few case studies from the '60s and '70s. Before bees fell victim to varroa and the ensuing stresses of modern life, these afflictions would have been easy to bounce back from. Today, the same causal agent could have more serious effects.
But is CCD such a tragedy? The honeybee may be the only insect ever extended charismatic megafauna status, but it's already gone from the wild (and it wasn't even native to North America to begin with). Sure, it makes honey, but we already get most of that from overseas. What about the $14.6 billion in "free labor"? It's more expensive than ever: In the last three years, the cost to rent a hive during the California almond bloom has tripled, from $50 to $150.
Good thing the honeybee isn't the only insect that can pollinate our crops. In the last decade, research labs have gotten serious about cultivating other insects for mass pollination. They aren't at the point yet where they can provide all of the country's pollination needs, but they're getting there. This year the California Almond Board two-timed the honeybee with osmia ligneria—the blue-orchard bee: Despite CCD, they had a record harvest.
But these newly domesticated species are likely to follow in the tiny footsteps of the honeybee, if they're treated the same way. Varroa mites have already been found on bumblebees, though for the time being they seem not to be able to reproduce without honeybee hosts. And bumblebees used in greenhouse pollination have escaped on several occasions to spread novel, antibiotic-resistant diseases to their wild counterparts. If things keep going like this, we may soon be blaming spaceships all over again. Heather Smith (e-mail) is a writer living in San Francisco.

Copyright 2007 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

AYN RAND and ISRAEL

(Jerusalem Post Article)
Anyone who has heard Dr. Yaron Brook lecture on foreign policy would likely call him a militant, unflinching champion of Israel. His loyalty, however, does not derive from his Jewish or Israeli background. He's a proud atheist, who admits to not knowing - or really caring - when the Pessah Seder falls. He relentlessly defends Israel and the West because he puts his faith in the rational, free, individual soul.
Brook is the president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) in Irvine, California, an educational institute and resource center entrusted with spreading Objectivism, the formal name of the philosophy of the controversial 20th-century novelist-philosopher.
"We view what happens in Israel as an indicator of what will happen in the rest of the world. To the extent America abandons Israel, it abandons itself. Israel is a beacon of civilization in a barbaric, backward area," Brook said on a recent trip here to visit family with his wife, also an Israeli expatriate, and their two children. "Israel represents, despite its flaws, the values of the West: individual rights, free speech, freedom of the press, equality before the law and the rule of law."
Objectivism upholds values generally associated with Western culture - individualism, reason and science - but its distinctive development is a moral ideal of "selfishness," whereby someone's own happiness is a moral responsibility. The home page of ARI presents Rand's mantra: "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
ARI was founded in 1985, after Rand's death, by her intellectual heir, Leonard Peikoff, to pave the way for a philosophical and cultural renaissance in the US and to reverse what ARI sees as anti-reason, anti-individualism and anti-capitalist trends in today's culture. It concentrates on American domestic issues, but Israel figures prominently in its lectures, essays and editorials.
"Ayn Rand herself commented that Israel was one of the few causes she ever voluntarily supported," Brook said. "The West turning against Israel - which she saw occurring in the late 1960s and early 1970s - was the West committing suicide."
Those familiar with Rand's disdain for religion and socialism might find her sympathy for Israel surprising. "[Rand] said Israel has problems, as all countries, but Israel is still West," Brook said. "It respects individual rights, reason and science. She could separate out essentials from non-essentials. If Israel abandoned all its Western values, it wouldn't deserve support."
BORN ALICE ROSENBAUM in 1905 in St. Petersburg to a secular, middle-class Jewish family, Rand fled to the US from the Soviet Union in 1925 because she saw America as the best model of a free country. The new communist regime had already confiscated her father's pharmacy.
Rand maintained no Jewish affiliation throughout her life and shunned religion because it was based on faith as opposed to reason. At 29, she wrote in her philosophical journal: "I want to fight religion as the root of all human lying and the only excuse for suffering." She observed no Jewish holidays, but kept Christmas as an American holiday celebrating life and human productivity. Her only acknowledgment of her Jewish identity came in the face of anti-Semitic remarks, as a retort to racism.
She married an American named Frank O'Conner and deliberately had no children so she could give birth to fictional characters who upheld her vision of a hero. Her trademark character is Howard Roark, the intransigent architect of The Fountainhead, who refuses to bend his architectural vision to society's irrational standards. Her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, dignifies the villain of socialist artists - the industrial capitalist - through a futuristic depiction of a collectivist America. From the 1950s until her death in 1982, she led an intellectual movement based on Objectivism, although some critics have dubbed it a cult. Brook thinks her popularity is now at its highest, with more than 750,000 of her books sold annually.
Historically, American academia has been dismissive of Ayn Rand, but in recent years her work is increasingly being included in mainstream curricula. According to the Ayn Rand Institute, which works to raise her profile in academic circles, more than 30 professors teach Rand in leading American universities, with the number continually growing.
Rand remains an obscure figure in Israeli academia, even though many Israelis read her novels in their teens and 20s, including Prof. Elhanan Yakira, head of the philosophy department at the Hebrew University. "I don't know anyone with us that really teaches her philosophy," he said. "There could be people that deal with her, but I don't really know. Sometimes people mention her name, but not a lot." He can't comment on whether her lack of representation stems from any antipathy to her ideas.
In the 1970s, a capricious philosopher named Moshe Kroy taught Rand's philosophy at Tel Aviv University, but he eventually abandoned rational egoism for Scientology, and later, Indian mysticism, which may have contributed to the perception that her philosophy is a fad. Rand's philosophy is no longer taught at Tel Aviv University.
When asked what he thought of Rand, Joseph Agassi, professor emeritus of philosophy at Tel Aviv University and York University in Toronto, reacted with sharp dislike, calling her a "fool" and her philosophy unserious. "It's very low quality," he said. "It's extreme right, although not religious right."
He'd rather teach someone like Khalil Jibran, a Lebanese-born inspirational philosopher. "He's much more friendly; I just like him more, but I wouldn't teach him either." He adds that Rand's philosophy is generally easy to study independently and doesn't require a university course.
Prof. Noah Milgram, who attended Brook's lecture, would not be surprised if Israeli professors shy away from her. "The socialist bent of many Israeli-born and Israeli-trained academicians is such that if they read Ayn Rand's novels, they'd probably dismiss them as inhumane stories about egoism," said Milgram, dean of graduate studies at the College of Judea and Samaria and professor emeritus in psychology at Tel Aviv University.
Milgram first heard of Rand in the early 1950s, when The Fountainhead was on the reading list of a course on American intellectual thought he took as a student at Harvard. The course was taught by the eminent historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Milgram remained an admirer of her works, and his daughter, Shoshana, a professor at Virginia Tech University, does biographic and literary research on the life and work of Rand.
"In America there is more respect for the notion that the goals of individuals are more important than the goals enforced upon him by society," he said. "Admittedly, American universities also have a slant toward liberal and left-leaning thinking, but her ideas are more acceptable in American philosophical and political thought, precisely because they are in accord with the American ideal of the individual acting in accord with his conscience, conquering the frontier and advancing from the log cabin in which he was born to the White House."
Unlike in the US, where there are many campus clubs dedicated to Objectivism and several independent organizations that systematically study and discuss Rand's work, there are few organized outlets in Israel for Rand scholars and admirers. Over the years there have been attempts to create campus clubs and fan networks here, but none of them stuck.
BOAZ ARAD, an Objectivist who runs his own company selling mobile computers and accessories, started a magazine dedicated to Objectivism in 1987. In 2005 it evolved into Anochi.com, the only comprehensive Hebrew Web site dedicated to Rand's ideas and which received the blessing of ARI. ("Anochi" means "I" in archaic Hebrew, as a reference to Rand's virtue of "selfishness.") According to Arad, the site's number of visitors is on the rise, reaching several thousand a month. He estimates there are about 100 Objectivists in Israel and about 1,000 ardent Rand admirers.
Arad developed an interest in Rand after reading The Fountainhead as a teen. He and Brook met in their late teens, united by their interest in Rand's ideas, and it was Arad who organized Brook's lecture.
While the Jewish state may lack serious representation of Rand scholarship, in the US, many leaders of the Objectivist movement are Jewish.
"Most communists are Jewish. Most professors are Jewish. Jews are intellectuals, so they dominate any intellectual movement," Brook commented. "Jews dominate the anti-Zionist movement. I wouldn't be surprised if Jews head up Holocaust denial. Jews are intellectual; they gravitate towards ideas. Why that is, that's a deeper question. I think they'd certainly gravitate towards a set of ideas that make sense." In fact, many of the writers and fellows at the Ayn Rand Institute are Jewish.
Arad said the lack of crossover of Rand's ideas to modern Israel is not terribly surprising. "Israel had very strong leftist roots historically, especially among the intellectuals, and they felt very intimidated by Ayn Rand ideas, but this didn't cancel the fact that many Israelis read and love Ayn Rand and consider her books to be very moving and inspiring. Not as many applied her ideas to their lives and pursued the philosophy behind the books."
He related how he recently received a call from an elderly lady who said she was a fan of Ayn Rand. "She never knew there was any activity related to Ayn Rand, whom she always liked since she was young. I'm sure there are many more like her around."