Skip to footer

Readers write: Better help for bees, a troubling trend, no 'climate denier' as president

Letters to the editor for the April 6, 2015 weekly magazine.

|
Danielle Guerra/Daily Chronicle/AP
Honeybees populate a comb at Honey Hill Orchard in Waterman, Ill. on June 5.

Better help for bees
I loved the article “Give bees a chance” in the March 23 Home Forum section. But I hope it doesn’t end up resulting in the killing off of more bees. As has been reported elsewhere, plants bought at big-box stores are often loaded with neonicotinoids – part of the “wonder” pesticides that have been bred into the plants themselves. Scientific research shows that neonicotinoids are a key factor in the decline of bees.

In our community garden, we are urging gardeners to incorporate bee-friendly plants, but also to make sure that those plants do not contain neonicotinoids (we are fortunate to have several low-cost organic sources within the city of Boston). I hope your article ends up helping bees.
Janell Fiarman
Jamaica Plain, Mass.
 

Cartoon highlights troubling trend
The March 9 editorial cartoon showing a Republican elephant and a Democratic donkey both saying, “Government of my people, by my people & for my people,” highlights a growing problem for “maturing” societies – societies regulated and controlled by the government.

The more government regulation and control, the more people feel the need to coalesce into like-minded groups to fight for and control the governing process, to impose their collective ideals on everyone. What was originally designed as a democratically unifying process has become a divisive process. The solution is to return to more individual freedom, liberty, justice ... and responsibility.
Art Gardner
Goleta, Calif.

No ‘climate denier’ for president
The headline “Ted Cruz: Can a climate change skeptic win in 2016?” (CSMonitor.com, March 23) asks the wrong question. The real mystery is how a climate denier can be considered a legitimate candidate for our nation’s highest office.
Harriet Shugarman
Wyckoff, N.J.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Readers write: Better help for bees, a troubling trend, no 'climate denier' as president
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Readers-Respond/2015/0404/Readers-write-Better-help-for-bees-a-troubling-trend-no-climate-denier-as-president
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe