To stir the beehive?

Beekeeper (2023)
Director: David Ayer

Bees can teach us a thing or two about Nature. It is mind-boggling that something as small as this arthropod can have a complex, organised, self-sustaining community. Imagine all the structured living, with specialisation, hierarchical order, layered and combatant defence, and continuity with progeny happening in immaculate order, all in one colony. They do all these without a functioning brain but groping around using pheromones as their guide.

Everybody has a job to do, no matter how trivial or low down the food chain, and they have to play their roles elegantly.

In the eye of a modern man, the whole setup may reek of a Kafkaian dystopia. A communist regime, allegedly after a collective politburo discussion, what is best for the plebeians who follow blindly for the progress of the Motherland, may not be everyone's cup of tea. A Hindu-bashing leftist may remind us this is how the caste system works, that one is born into a caste and, hence, his profession. We know now that this is all bunkum. The four castes mentioned denote a person's aptitude, not profession. But hey, the leftists are too brainwashed to comprehend that.

Perhaps bees tell us that we should be sincere in performing our assigned duties as if it is the last thing in the world. Hell hath no fury a hornet nest provoked.

In the late 1960s, Americans woke up to a quiet spring. No bugs in the garden or birds flying in the sunny sky. People remembered that just a year previously, DDT was introduced as an effective way to combat malaria, typhus, and other insect-borne diseases. With time, the world has realised that every God's creation has its role in our delicate ecosystem.

Fast-forward to the 21st century. After mindlessly slashing their jungles and hunting animals to extinction, Europeans had a revelation. They realised that their population of wild wolves was dwindling critically. The corresponding effect is the burgeoning number of deer. Deer entered their highways and their households.

The new buzzword 'Rewilding' was thrown in. It involved a push to repopulate the wolf population in the wild. It is hoped that this would balance years of apathy. It is assumed that wolves would instantaneously start killing deer again, and equilibrium would be achieved again. Alas, they overlooked that now, thousands and thousands of sheep are reared on an industrial scale. If jumping on a helpless sheep is more effortless, why would the wolf struggle to hunt down a deer with antlers and all? Equilibrium takes years of work, and it cannot be forced.

By the way, this film has nothing to do with the write-up above. One of my favourite action heroes, Jason Stathon, acts in this B-grade movie, which showcases Statham as an unassuming retired commando who finds peace tending to his bees. When the only person who speaks to him commits suicide after a scam, the Beekeeper goes ballistic. Like a fighter bee, he blasts all barrels to hunt down the scammers.

[P.S. Our world is so polluted and damaged that the bee population is declining exponentially. To trigger pollination, beehives are rented out to farms and orchards. Much like Tinder or Shaadi.com, dating services hook up eligible or assumed bachelors to spur meet-ups, hopefully, meaningful copulation and continuity of progeny.]

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Just not in my backyard please!

Otters go sightseeing
in Singapore

You say they were here before you. Before you cleared the greens to build your homes and offices, they had theirs. That is how the world goes, is it not? One dominant species or even within species trying to dominate the other is part and parcel of life on Earth.

You sing your victory tunes when India's legal system proclaims River Yamuna as a living entity with rights. And the Native American Courts are looking at possibilities of defending rivers and lakes against errant developers who have no qualms contaminating Nature and destroying natural habitats in the name of development.

And you were happy when your backyard was featured in numeral documentaries and nature magazines for bringing back the fauna and flora that were lost in the name of wanting to catch up with the wave of industrial development. You proudly displayed greenery-filled pictures you snapped of your once backwater country on your wall.

Now it seems that Nature is back with a vengeance.

The cuddly and seemingly animals have outgrown their cuteness. Their living spaces seem insufficient, and they have ambitious plans to displace you or perhaps just build a symbiotic relationship with you. But you cannot stomach the idea of sharing your neighbourhood with them. I interpret your message as wanting them to live happily anywhere but not in your backyard. 

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Know the two sets of Laws

Dark Waters (2019)

One thing the lockdown has shown us is that there are two sets of rules for people. One for affluent, the one perched atop the highest branch and the other for those scrawling at the lowest branch or doodling on the ground. The one close to the ruling party will get just a friendly slap on the wrist while the brunt of the long arm of the law would descend upon the nobody.

An 80-year-old vagabond who was waiting for his free food was slapped with a RM1000/= compound without much deliberation. He risks imprisonment. A minister was seen sharing meals with his supporters, and a deputy minister was enjoying his birthday bash without a care in the world of the MCO. The prowling digital spies did manage to capture the moment for the public to judge, but the law seems to be dragging its feet. This type of subservience by the authorities to the people of power is no alien to this country alone.

Beware, there is a 2015 horror flick named 'Dark Water' (singular) which is different from the remake of Japanese movie with almost the same name. 

This 2019 film is based on real events. It tells the story of the fight of a lone farmer, Wilbur Tennant, who took legal suits against DuPont, a giant chemical company. It started in 1995 when the farmer discovered that his cattle, 190 of them, had died mysteriously with bloated organs and blackened teeth. He suspected that the cause could be due to the dumping of chemicals upstream. He tried to get the help of the authorities, but instead, he was slapped with a fine for improper farming.

Living in dire circumstances, he approached an old friends' grandson, Robert Billot, a hotshot lawyer who makes his fortune defending multinational chemical companies. Initially, reluctant to waste his time on an unrewarding case, he finally caved in to investigate the farmer's complaint. 

He became interested when the environmental impact assessment report showed no contaminants, but DuPont's internal investigations repeatedly showed some unknown abbreviated compound. He also noticed that many dwellers of the town had an unusually high incidence of cancers. Everyone in the town looked at Tennant and Billot as trouble makers as DuPont had contributed so much in the upliftment and upkeep of that town, Parkersburg, West Virginia. Things had really changed for the better since DuPont set up a plant there. They thought their misery was a small price to pay for development.

Using the tentacles of the law to his advantage, Billot came to discover that compound was indeed PFOA, a fluorated hydrocarbon, which was used to make Teflon coating in non-stick pans.

It came to light that PFOA or C8 and PFOS had poisoned the land and their drinking water. Now, everybody wanted to join in the suit against the giant. It indeed became a David versus Goliath match. The mega-company used all the might of their finances to quash dissidence. Lawsuits were not affordable for the average Joe. Neither the legal fraternity nor the administrative bodies are laypeople friendly. Just like how flies are drawn to garbage, power begets influence.

Robert Bilott and Mark Ruffalo, who portrayed him.

At the end of the day, the general public is left only with a loud public voice via civil society bodies, the fourth estate and an unbiased judiciary system.

But wait, is the legal system here to carry out the law or to mete out justice?

In real life, Robert Bilott went through many financial and familial turmoils pursuing the matter, for each and every defendant, 3,500 of them. After a long battle that spanned ten-over years (Tennant had died then), he won the first three multimillion-dollar settlements against DuPont, and DuPont settled the class action for $671 million. Du Pont, however, seems unperturbed. They are still going on business as usual with other joint ventures.

For our own knowledge, Teflon is marketed as other variants and have made their way to our household in various forms - water-resistant furniture and carpets, wrinkle-free and water-repellant clothing, lubricants, pizza boxes, dental floss and many more.

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Corona the vaccine, we the virus.

Swans in Venetian Canal
 Credit @filterjm

Probably for the first time since Man started giving salutations to the feared forces around him, he has been asked to stop all kinds of religious congregations in big groups. For aeons, Man believed that maladies take place because the Divine forces have been angered. In their simple understanding, the only avenue left for them to correct the tragedy is to appease the Divinity by glorifying it to high heavens; hoping that He would throw us His Grace.

Hence, despite appeals by the authorities, practitioners of various faiths continue to put their trusts in the forces above, not in rational thinking and the sciences. They feel that people have been misled for far too long. The way the human race appears to be heading does not assure them of a happy ending. Too many have placed self-interest above salvation to expect altruism to prevail.

There are groups of people who are hellbent in finding scapegoats. In their minds, many if not most germs came from the East. In recent memory, we have heard of SARS, H1N1 and Nipah Virus and their fixation with exotic animals like civet cats and bats. In the 14th century, Bubonic Plague and Black Death arose from the Far East via the Silk Road.

Scrolling through the annals of history, one discovers that pretty much every human pathogen originated from our exploitation of animals. Humanity's dominion over animals has unleashed a veritable Pandora's ark of infectious diseases. Most modern human infectious diseases were unknown before domestication led to a mass spillover of animal disease into human populations. For example, tuberculosis appears to have been acquired initially through the domestications of goats but now infects one-third of humanity. Meanwhile, measles and smallpox may have arisen from mutant cattle viruses. We domesticated pigs and got whooping cough, chickens and typhoid fever, ducks and influenza, water buffalos and leprosy as well as horses and cold virus (Michael Greger, How Not to Die).


Or is our decision to self-isolate against each other is Nature's conniving power play to avenge decades of rape of its sovereignty? Look at the countries which were teeming with excessive human activities and see what lockdown has achieved? China's citizens can finally get fresh air and see the blue sky without being enveloped with smog. One week of an absence of gondolas and visitors, dolphins and swans come out to play. It looks like Corona is the vaccine, and we are the virus of Nature.

Since prayers in large enough groups will not see any daylight in the near future, cries for help from the divine forces cannot happen. I guess we have to depend on our God-given intellects to save us from extinction.

Dolphins have appeared at the Italian coastline after the
shipping lines were locked down due to coronavirus (REUTERS)

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