> Monsanto has a public image problem -  like Darth Vader 
> had a public image problem. Remember, this is the company 
> that had to publicly deny they were trying to develop a 
> termination gene in seeds. Why did they have to publicly 
> deny this? Because somehow a rumour got started they were 
> working on just such a gene, and given Monsanto's track 
> record, everyone figured the rumour was true.

Fictional villains in children's stories aside, beekeepers ALSO have massive
public image problems. When we are so bold as to keep bees in suburban or
urban settings, we have a press that loves to put exclamation points after
things like the number of bees in a hive to make them seem scary.  

Beekeepers ALSO have to publicly deny rumors that "get started", like the
one that got started about swarms being anything other than absolutely
docile and harmless.

Should mere rumors, especially when proven false, become a basis for ongoing
condemnation? How would beekeepers fare under this scheme?  I think that
beekeepers should be able to engage in more critical thinking. Something
about "judge that ye shall be judged" and "he who is without sin throwing
the first stone" fits here.

Let me stress that I would not trust any multinational corporation any
further than I could comfortably spit a rat.  But my distrust does not in
itself make them any more "good" or "evil", my distrust is merely my own
cynicism.  

Also, "Vader" means "Father" in Dutch, so the moment he appeared on screen,
my son and I knew precisely how the movie would end.




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