LILL’s LIST

Well, restaurants are getting noisier, that’s for sure. My brother and I went out to eat at our local Ground Round yesterday and could barely hear each other over the heavy metal music coming out of a speaker over our heads. We asked the server to turn it down and she said she would. It got a couple of decibels lower, but it was still annoying and interfered with our enjoyment of our meal.

I fail to understand why restaurants have to have loud music playing, especially since many of them also have TV screens all over the place, with their noise. Add a few people on their cell phones, yelling details of their daily doings in excruciating detail, several toddlers screaming as they flail around in their high chairs and the rest of us just trying to have a normal conversation with our meals and you have pandemonium plus tips.

I won’t be going back to the Ground Round or Texas Roadhouse, which has the loudest music of any restaurant I’ve ever been in. I was there once when a family walked in with an infant who screamed all through the meal. I thought of calling DHS to report them for exposing that baby to an unsafe noise level, but I doubt that it would have done any good. When I asked the server if anyone ever complained about the loud music, she said they did, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. It’s part of the franchise or whatever deal the local restaurant has with the national chain to have the music at a certain level.

So, what’s behind this loud music policy? Is it designed to get us out of there sooner? To befuddle us so that we don’t think about how much we’re spending? Is it supposed to make us feel like we’re part of an exciting social event as we sip our raspberry iced teas and munch our chicken fingers? Or do the people who plan restaurants just think that people aren’t happy unless there’s constant loud stimulation from TV or music?

Well, whatever the reason is for it, they’re losing me because of it. When our family eats out, we choose first on the level of noise and then on the quality of the food. The only chain restaurants where the noise level works for us are Pizzeria Uno, The Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse.

There are some local restaurants, most notably a Greek restaurant and a Mexican restaurant, where the owners have soft music playing and the noise level is low enough so that you can hear your dinner companion, and those are the restaurants we eat at most often. That way, we not only protect our ears, we also support the local economy and diversity.  How do you feel about restaurant noise levels?

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Germany and France have banned a class of pesticides linked to Colony Collapse Disorder, even though scientists don’t believe it’s the whole reason for the problem. On the other hand, when heaps of dead bees coated in clothianidin were found beside corn fields, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the pesticide wasn’t a bee’s best friend. Ditto for imidacloprid another pesticide which causes bees to become disoriented.

So when will the EPA realize that these pesticides are killing bees? And why aren’t more people concerned about the bees’ disappearing? It might be because so many people regard bees as a nuisance - just another bug that stings you or buzzes you when you’re out trying to enjoy your yard. There are traps for bees at my local hardware store and I know plenty of people who’d just as soon swat bees as attract them to their gardens.

I wonder how long it will be before people realize how closely our survival is tied to the survival of bees? It’s estimated that bees are responsible for one out of three bites of our food. Some of the many crops that they pollinate are corn, berries, peaches, soybeans, cucumbers, cherries, pears and pumpkins. Bees are entirely responsible for the pollination of apples, so if they disappear pollination will have to be done by hand - a very labor intensive and maybe impossible process.

Bees contribute billions of dollars to agriculture and also pollinate animal-feed crops, which would deeply affect the beef, pork, and poultry industry. Actually, no one knows what would happen if bees disappeared completely, although Einstein said that - if bees disappeared -  all life on earth would disappear in four years - and who am I to disagree with Einstein?

I don’t want to find out what the loss of the world’s bees would do to our planet. As I type this, swarms of bees are humming in the giant comfrey plants outside my window and I want to hear that sound throughout the summers that I have left on earth. I want to know that my children and their children will see and hear bees in their gardens and yards after I’m gone.

I’m going to do everything I can to support bees and get pesticides that harm them - and us - out of our food chain. I’m going to support research that is investigating other possible causes of Colony Collapse such as cell phone and wi-fi. Some researchers say that bees refuse to go near a beehive that has a cell phone near it and that cell phone and wireless signals are confusing their navigation system. While this needs more research, it’s definitely not going to be a popular finding if it proves to be true. Who wants to give up the convenience of our wireless techie toys, eh?

But while we wait for other solutions and research to point to all the reasons for CCD, it’s reasonable to support a ban on the pesticides that have obviously killed bees, like Europe is doing. After all, my theory is that anything that isn’t good for bees, isn’t good for us. Here are some links to organizations that are working to curb pesticide use:

• Beyond Pesticides
• Pesticide Action Network

And for more information on Colony Collapse and how to help save bees you can buzz on over to the National Resources Defense Council’s site. Save the bees and the sweet life they provide for us.

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