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1. Honeybees are dying of stress, as David Wallace-Wells described in last week’s cover story (�The Blight of the Honeybee,� June 15�29). The feature left readers justifiably concerned. �Really interesting, scary read on how the death of bees are threatening our food systems,� tweeted Megan Anderle. �I am now worried about bees going extinct,� agreed @afzalALMIGHTY. Twitter user Michael DeAloia thought the piece brought to light an odd juxtaposition. �We live in the Age of Abundance and the Age of Extinction,� he tweeted. �How can this be? Jarring.� Other readers focused on the connection between bee colony collapse and pesticides: �The only mystery about honeybee deaths is who and how much the pesticide industry is paying to keep it a mystery,� tweeted the novelist Caleb Crain. Reader Noah G. Shannon agreed that the piece contained multitudes: �The NYMag story on bees is a great nesting doll,� he wrote. �Apocalyptic fervor, livestock anxiety, misleading data, ag conspiracy �� And many readers just expressed a newfound sense of camaraderie with the insects. �Bees are worrying themselves to death?� asked Eric Christensen. �I’ve found my spirit animal.� �Bees,� wrote Casey Johnston, �they’re just like us.�
2. During last year’s Mississippi primary race between Senate Republican Thad Cochran and his tea-party challenger Chris McDaniel, four McDaniel supporters were arrested for their alleged involvement in a conspiracy to take photos of Cochran’s wife, who was suffering from dementia and residing in a nursing home, as part of an effort to expose Cochran’s rumored affair with his assistant. One of the arrested, a lawyer named Mark �Mayfield, committed suicide soon after. Marin Cogan’s story about the race and its aftermath (�Ugly,� June 15�29) had readers debating the boundaries of ethical campaigning. �The intensity of the arrests seemed absurd,� wrote commenter Pippenpippen. �But these people lost touch with reality and with humanity. What were they thinking? How could they even consider this sort of intrusion into a sick old lady’s life � making sport of her illness that way. Just to �get’ a political opponent? � [Mayfield] should not have been ruined. But he should never have even considered this either. This just goes to show how this sort of wild political hostility overtakes basic humanity.� Commenter Helzapoppn agreed: �Why anyone felt they needed an image of Rose Cochran as evidence of adultery conducted by two people in their mid-70s, or how they expected to translate that into votes for Chris �McDaniel remains a head-scratcher. Guess this is what happens when the appearance of morality � upholding a reputation as a �Christian’ champion of �traditional family values’ � transcends real issues that should matter to Mississippians.� Author Lawrence Serewicz saw a larger message in the saga: �Politics is a brutal business,� he tweeted. �We have escaped political assassinations, but politics still kills people.�
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3. Pat Jordan’s profile of disgraced referee and successful sports gambler Tim Donaghy raised the hackles of both sports fans and professional gamblers (�Does This Ex-Con Know the NBA Better Than LeBron?,� June 15�29). �We learned two things from the New York profile,� wrote Complex Sports’ Chris Yuscavage. �One: Donaghy seems to be making a lot of money these days thanks to his close ties to gambling (just don’t tell the IRS � or his ex-wife), and two, Donaghy may or may not be a pathological liar who doesn’t tell the truth about anything.� Jon Campbell of the betting site Covers took particular offense at the portrayal of sports �gamblers in the story. �Jordan says that because Donaghy is successful �60 percent of the time’ ... and that �means that in the world of sports gambling, the name Tim Donaghy is gold. In the real world, that name is mud.’ Wtf? I don’t know anyone in the sports betting world who’d say Donaghy is the �golden boy’ of our industry, as the article’s headline suggests,� Campbell wrote. �If anything, the sports betting world is less forgiving of what Donaghy did as an NBA ref than those in the so-called real world. Sports bettors want a fair shake on the game more than anyone because their hard-earned money is on the line, not just fan pride that tends to fade with time. The statement makes it sound like sports bettors are a bunch of unshaven dudes who don leather jackets in the summertime and are missing two fingers and walk with a limp. It’s such an archaic stereotype � Bettors know the sports gambling world and the �real world’ are one and the same.� The staff of ThePostGame.com was more sympathetic of Donaghy. �Donaghy does sound like a money-hungry sociopath bent on wealth accumulation,� wrote the site’s editors. �But the premise of his very successful handicapping service does prove he at least knows something about the NBA game � and how referees are influencing the results, whether they’re involved on the gambling side or not.� �This guy’s got some terrific insights about how the NBA wants refs to call games,� agreed commenter Cash23. �That said, no way would I ever trust that man with anything.�