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The Museum of Australia Democracy (MoAD) is abuzz following the opening of its latest exhibition, answering the perplexing question what do honeybees and democracy have in common?

HiveMind: Honeybees, Democracy and Me officially launched yesterday, ahead of World Bee Day tomorrow, 20 May, giving visitors a unique look at a little-known history of Australias federal parliaments.

The exhibition commemorates the achievement of William Yates, a Victorian Liberal backbencher in the 1970s, who first introduced beekeeping to Australian Parliament House grounds (now Old Parliament House).

On 1 April 1976, Yates asked the then Speaker of the House, Billy Snedden, if he could keep bees on Parliament grounds. Thinking it was an April Fools joke, the Speaker granted permission, not realising it was a serious request.

Three days later the beehives appeared in the Speakers garden.

Peter Yates AM, son of William Yates, said his father always had a sense of humour and wanted to bring some fun to Parliament when he became the Member for Holt (located in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria).

Holt had never been won by a Liberal politician before and hasnt been since, Mr Yates said.

He didnt expect to win so arriving here, he decided that Parliament House was pretty boring, and people were too serious.

While the introduction of the bees was a contentious topic at the time, Australia was one of the first countries in the world to allow beekeeping on Parliament House grounds and William Yates became a recognisable figure among the hives.

Mr Yates said his father was a person who had ideas that were often not of then, but of the future.

Dad was prescient, he knew how important bees were to agriculture.

He knew how important bees are to our society and so to have this role of his acknowledged in this way by the Museum of Australia Democracy is something that all of our family is incredibly proud of.

Yates left parliament in 1980, taking his beloved bees with him, caring for them until the day he died.

In 2017, the tradition of beekeeping at Parliament House was reignited by Cormac Farrell following a parliamentary report on honeybees.

The head beekeeper said the idea behind bringing the bees back to parliament was due to a sustainability initiative implemented to recognise the critical role bees play in agriculture and to educate parliament on the industries that rely on bees.

Without them we basically wouldnt have a lot of our crops, Mr Farrell said.

It was really about making that connection to that understanding and having an extra, practical hive on site allows people to experience what its like to be a beekeeper.

Honey from these hives appear as gifts for visiting dignitaries and groups but the other unbee-lievable link to parliament is bees have a very clear and democratic voting system.

Bees actually use a democratic voting system as part of their daily lives, Mr Farrell said.

So, our democracy is not a unique human thing, its something that stretches literally back to the time of the dinosaurs.

When bees are making life and death decisions, they do sort of an interpretive dance in the dark that other bees have to feel to figure out the vote.

The biologist Professor Thomas Seeley discovered that it takes 27 votes in a bee democracy for a decision to be made.

Mr Farrell said that politicians often get a kick out of the honeybee democracy, especially when looking at how the hives choose and remove their leaders.

Sometimes the queen will start to lose her mojo the colony will crush her to death and cook her but they also like to chew her wings off and throw her out the front door so she cant get back in, he said.

There is no back bench for bees!

Along with sharing objects and stories of honeybees in Australian Parliament, the exhibition features a hand-made democratic hive collaborative art installation.

It started as a collaborative art piece constructed by members of the public during the Enlighten Festival in March 2020.

Members of the public were invited to write words of advice or life lessons on hexagonal panels to become part of a honeycomb puzzle, panels which are now displayed in the HiveMind: Honeybees, Democracy and Me exhibition.

MoAD director, Daryl Karp, said it is a light, playful look at the history of honeybees on the grounds of the nations decision-making house and an insight into how the collective decision making of bees can teach us many things.

Bees provide a template for democracy, the sweet spot of collective decision making, Ms Karp said.

They are natures example of democracy in action, and we hope to take visitors to the real heart of what democracy is in a way that, hopefully, surprises and inspires.

HiveMind: Honeybees, Democracy and Me is now open at the Museum of Australian Democracy, Old Parliament House in Canberra. This is a free, non-ticketed exhibition on show until 2022.

For more information, visit http://www.moadoph.gov.au/exhibitions/hive-mind/

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The unique exhibition celebrating democracy and bees - Canberra Weekly

Every nation visualizes its history within certain periods. English historians usually rely on their monarchies to define time; they refer to Tudor England, Regency England, and Victorian England. In France, everything before 1789 is considered lancien rgime, followed then by the Revolution, then a number of republics and empires. (They are currently on republic for the fifth time.) Germany is even more straightforward: There is the broad sweep of German history before Adolf Hitlers rise to power and World War II, then Stunde Null, or zero hour, to mark Nazi Germanys capitulation on May 8, 1945, and then the postwar era begins.

Some scholars and activists, by the same token, break down American history into presidencies or party systems. But it might be more accurate to think of our history in terms of a recurring cycle of Reconstructions. The First Reconstruction, after the Civil War, saw the birth of multiracial democracy, the enactment of laws and constitutional amendments to protect it, and then its steady decline as white supremacists pursued Redemption, Jim Crow, and nearly a century of night. Then came Brown v. Board of Education, the dismantling of de jure American racial apartheid, a wave of civil rights activism, and a federal government that would send federal agents and National Guard units to enforce it all.

From 1957 to 1968, American democracy expanded by greater leaps and bounds than at any other point since the destruction of the Confederacy. The Supreme Court enshrined the one person, one vote rule into constitutional law despite intense opposition from conservatives and business interests. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to ensure free and fair elections across the entire country. Even the Constitution itself was amended twice more, this time to abolish poll taxes and to give presidential electors to the District of Columbia.

This time, multiracial liberal democracy proved slightly more enduring than it did in the nineteenth century. The Voting Rights Acts most effective protections survived just shy of 50 years before a conservative Supreme Court majority gutted them in 2013. And today, multiracial democracy is under attack again, and arguably the most concerted attack in our history. Activists like the Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II, who rose to national prominence while protesting anti-democratic measures in North Carolina that same year, have argued that the right to vote is inextricably linked with fights for social and economic justice.

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Our 250-Year Fight for Majority Rule and a Multiracial Democracy - The New Republic

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Want to be in an art exhibit at Fort Myers Rauschenberg Gallery? All you need is a stamp, a postcard and a little creativity.

Thats the beauty of the new Postcards For Democracy exhibit, says renowned artist/musician Beatie Wolfe.

Its an exhibit inspired by the post office and democracy. But its also a democratic exhibit: Anyone can take part, no matter who they are or where they live.

You dont even have to be an artist.

We just wanted this to be as open and inclusive as possible, Wolfe says, and just have everyone and anyone that wanted to send a card. And whatever that card ended up being was great.

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"US Mail" by Denise Woodward, one of many postcard-art works featured in the "Postcards for Democracy" exhibit.(Photo: Special to The News-Press)

Wolfe created the art project with singer/composer Mark Mothersbaugh of art-rock legends Devo.

The idea was to championthe U.S. Postal Service and its essential role during the 2020presidential election. Both Beatie and Mothersbaugh are longtime fans of the postal service, and the friendslove to collect stamps and send letters (and often art) through the mail.

It kind of inspired us, Mothersbaugh says. I think we were impressed when our government started talking about eliminating the post office which was something we just thought was an integral part of our democracy and something that was very important to keep alive.

The project started as a collective art demonstration supportingthe U.S. Postal Service, mail-in voting and the right to vote. But it eventually grew into much more than that.

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Artists/musicians Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo and Beatie Wolfe co-created the new "Postcards for Democracy" exhibit.(Photo: Ross Harris)

People from all over the world submitted postcards decorated with all sorts of topics: The 2020 election, of course. And the post office. And Trump. And Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. But also Black Lives Matter. Human kindness. Racism. Feminism. QAnon. Science. The environment.

And there were other, less political topics, too: A one-eyed alien holding its arms out for a hug. The leg lamp from A Christmas Story. A monkey astronaut declaring I dont wanna go to space! A sun rising over the planet Earth. And lots of Devo-themed art, including the bands famous energy dome hats and their slogan, Are we not men? We are Devo!

Moresubmissions are arriving every day, Mothersbaugh says.

We love the post office and we love what its about, he says. And it (the art project)just happened to coincide with what was happening at the time in the country.

But, you know, theres still things coming in today. We have new cards sitting on the table today. And theyre not talking about the election. Theyre talking about other things. Theyre about other aspects of human existence.

The Postcards For Democracy exhibit features decorated postcards from people around the world, including this one by Dan Opalenik.(Photo: Special to The News-Press)

Thats why gallery director Jade Dellinger plans to change up the postcards in the world-premiere exhibit. At least twice during the shows three-month run, hell take down all the old postcards from their narrow shelves and replace them with an entirely new batch.

Dellinger expects that people who visit the gallery might be inspired to go home and create some art of their own, in fact. And those postcards might pop up later in the exhibit.

Its very much an ongoing thing," he says, "and were encouraging people to participate.

Wolfe and Mothersbaugh say theyve gotten sacks full of postcards for the exhibit, but they have no idea how many theyve collected. Thousands, they guess.

Its a bunch! Mothersbaugh says. Sorry, neither of us wanted to count.

Now about 1,000 of those postcards are being shown at Rauschenberg Gallery (Dellinger hasnt counted those either).

Wolfe says she's impressed with the creativity on display. The postcardscover a wide spectrum of the human experience and touch on some of the issues and feelings we've all had over the last year.

Its almost like this physical time capsule, a time portal in some ways, to whats been going on," she says. "I think its so wonderful that its being preserved in physical form in a very much digital age.

You look at those cards, and you see so many different facets of our collective human experience and identity, and I think thats whats really powerful about it. It feels very much like it represents what weve been going through.

Ron Logan's "Help Your Neighbor," one of many postcard-art works featured in the "Postcards for Democracy" exhibit.(Photo: Special to The News-Press)

Mothersbaugh and Wolfe say they wanted to do what they couldto help something they love: The U.S. Postal Service.

We just wanted to bring an awareness, Mothersbaugh says. We werent hearing anybody speaking up for the post office, so we said, Well dang it, were gonna do it! Because we had many reasons to be thankful.

Dellinger loves the idea of making the postal service participants in the exhibit, as well.

Youre kinda challenging the postal service, he says. At the same time, youre sort of entertaining and being grateful toward them by allowing them to be art handlers.

The project started last year, but the Fort Myers show will be the first time the postcards have been shown in an art exhibit. The world premiere sprang from Dellingers long relationship with Mothersbaugh and Devo, the 2021Rock n Roll Hall of Fame nomineesbest known for their 1980 hit "Whip It."

Guy Adams' "The World," one of many postcard-art works featured in the "Postcards for Democracy" exhibit.(Photo: Special to The News-Press)

Dellinger wrote the bands 2003 biography, We Are Devo, and he also worked with Mothersbaugh on a Tampa museum exhibit of his work. Theyd been talking about doing something for Rauschenberg Gallery, too, and then Postcards for Democracy happened.

Dellinger says hes impressed with the mountains ofpostcards that poured in after Beatie and Mothersbaugh announced the project last year.

They were getting thousands of postcards coming in the mail, and some people doing things daily and sending it to them, Dellinger says. And many people going to great effort and doing really clever, really beautiful, really wonderful artworks.

Sometimes it was a simple message, but many times it was a real labor of love that was trusted to the USPS letter carriers. And of course, everyone loved that idea.

The exhibit includes three authentic USPS stamp machines near the gallery entrance. For $1 in quarters, visitors can buy an art stamp featuring the exhibit logo anda drawing of Wolfe and Mothersbaugh.

Then theres the music Mothersbaugh contributed to the show: Seven hours of stream-of-consciousness organ music playing on a loop in the gallery.

Mothersbaugh who has a thriving career as a composer for TV, film and video games wrote and performed the song on an old home organ. He titled it The Most Powerful Healing Music in the World.

An anonymous piece featured in the "Postcards for Democracy" exhibit.(Photo: Special to The News-Press)

The exhibit, he jokes, will do more than just entertain and enlighten visitors. You can go in and not only see all these cards, but you can come out healthier at the other end. I had the first clue when I had a cut on my finger. And while I was playing the music, I watched it heal.

Mothersbaugh and Wolfe have no plans to stop the art project anytime soon. Theyre continuing to accept postcards and might eventually show the exhibit elsewhere.

They hope it helps their beloved post office and spreads their mutual love of mail something Wolfe says helped her immensely during the pandemic.

Mail during lockdown, it was really the one thing that was keeping me sane, she says. I was just writing tons of letters and mailing art to people.

And a lot of people, it seems, love mail and the post office as much as they do.

We had no idea that it would get such an overwhelming response, Wolfe says. I think a big part of the whole project is just the joy of mail.

I think so many people have remembered how wonderful it is to make something and send it. Its so much more than just being a means to an end. It brings all this kind of joy.

The exhibit opened May 17, but its not too late to send your artwork through the U.S. Postal Service. In fact, Dellinger hopes that happens.

Its really a project that can truly be open-ended, hesays. Its really about continuing to participate in this ongoing kind of conversation thats happening.

To take part in the exhibit, make a postcard and mail it to 8760 Sunset Blvd., CA 90069-2206. For more information, visit postartfordemocracy.com.

Connect with this reporter:Email crunnells@gannett.com or connect on social media at Charles Runnells (Facebook),@charlesrunnells (Twitter) and@crunnells1 (Instagram).

What: Postcards For Democracy

When: Now through Aug. 8

Where: Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at Florida SouthWestern State College, 8099 College Parkway S.W.,Building L, south Fort Myers.

Admission: Free

COVID rules: Masks and social distancing required

Info: 489-9313 orrauschenberggallery.com

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Exhibit takes on U.S. mail, 2020 election. 'We love the post office,' says Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh - News-Press

The dark is rising. Anger, hate and violence are running rampant across the land. Hardly a day goes by without a mass shooting. Lies, half-truths and innuendoes all flow like water from a mountain spring. What can be done to stem the tide of ignorance and irrationality gripping the nation? Who will light a candle against the darkness?

American democracy is on the auction block. Did you ever think you would live to see the day when a president of the United States would assemble an unruly mob and direct them to the Capital in order to prevent the certification of an election? Few would have imagined such a thing. Yet here we are running down and sentencing the worst of the storm-troopers. What a sorry state of affairs.

Whatever happened to the American dream of truth, justice and the democratic way? Somewhere along the way the country took a wrong turn. People bought into the delusional thinking of Donald Trump, the conspiracy theories of QAnon, and the big lie of a stolen election.

How are we going to get ourselves out of the mess we have created? An old proverb tells us that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. All the institutions of our society government, corporate, media and education will need to join forces to promote democratic values. Lighting a candle against the darkness may be the first step toward saving the nation.

Stanley Ivie

Richfield

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Letter: American democracy is on the auction block - Deseret News

Most United States citizens consider ourselves fortunate to live in a modern, maturedemocracy. We appreciate the great freedoms and abundant material things our democracy affordsus. But while we all know the old adage that freedom is not free, neither is democracy. Our systemdepends on citizens being in ultimate control of the government through a written constitutionwith checks and balances, frequent elections, term limits, free speech, free press, the right topetition the government, the right to bring lawsuits against the government, referendums, recalls,and more. Unfortunately, too few of us take the time to actively participate in our democracy.

Which brings up another adageyou only get as much out of a thing as you put into it.So, how much are we putting into our democracy? How much are we as a countryinvesting in making sure our citizens are informed, knowledgeable, and prepared to fullyparticipate in our continuing experiment in self-government?

Our Current Investment in Civics EducationSchools can help prepare our youngest citizens for their critical role in our democracy. In fact, public education in the United States historically had the three related purposes of preparingstudents to participate in life as citizens, to engage in adult work and careers, and to becomefunctioning members of their communities.

The first goal is essentially civics education. What value do we place on achieving thisgoal today? Governments at all levels have given little support to developing civics educationover the last thirty years, according to the March 2, 2021, Educating for American Democracyreport sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Department ofEducation. At the federal level, we spend five cents on civics education per student each year,significantly less than the fifty-four dollars per student for Science, Technology, Engineering, andMathematics education. Danielle Allen, Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethicsat Harvard University, discussed this disparity in an Oct. 8, 2020, interview on Harvard EdCasttitled The Role of Education in Democracy. Her point was not that less money should be spenton STEM, but that the lack of support for civics education results in an inability for young peopleto understand democracy, be motivated to participate in it, [and] to have the skills and tools theyneed to participate effectively in democratic self-government.

The Cost of Neglecting CivicsIn a wonderful, wide-ranging discussion sponsored by the Center for Strategic andInternational Studies on April 14, 2021, titled Civics as a National Security Imperative, UnitedStates Supreme Court Justices Sonya Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch discussed the importance ofcivics from their perspective as judges of the highest court in our country. Justice Sotomayor citedthe wide disparity on STEM and civics spending discussed above. Both Justices discussed thetroubling lack of knowledge about how our government functions, the low rate of participation ingovernment, the surprisingly large number of people who disapprove of democracy, and howpervasive false information is in our society, especially as spread by social media.

The Justices identified these dangers as resulting from a lack of civics knowledge, whichequips citizens to discern false information regarding our government and its functioning. JusticeGorsuch noted that more often in history, democracies fall not from external threat but frominternal discord. He noted democracy is not an automatic thing. Recently, foreign enemiescapitalized on our internal divisions and discord to further divide us, and Justice Gorsuch noted, it is no surprise that a lot of the false misinformation spread on social media is deliberately spread by our enemies to sow disagreement internally in the country.

Our democracy suffers when we as citizens are unable to fulfil our responsibility as theultimate control of government. We have to make reasoned decisions at the ballot box and in theother means of exercising our power. We cannot fulfill this responsibility when we do not knowhow our government functions. As Justice Gorsuch stated, when we are uninformed, not only dowe allow unresponsive and dysfunctional government, but we also allow foreign and domesticthreats to endanger our democracy.

Among the strengths of the American legal system are civility, civil discourse, constructivedisagreement, critical thinking, and respectful dialogue. Both Justices spoke of how society atlarge could use these principles, practiced every day in our courts, to bridge the divides we nowface.

By failing to educate our young people and ourselves on our government and our civicresponsibilities, we risk losing the freedoms we value so highly. We may have well-educatedSTEM students, but if we lose our democracy, in what kind of country will they live? In thatevent, we will all have to ask ourselves, did we pay the appropriate price for democracy?

Curtis L. CollierUnited States District JudgeChair, Eastern District of Tennessee Civics and Outreach Committee

Carrie Brown StefaniakLaw Clerk to the Honorable Curtis L. CollierImmediate Past President, Chattanooga Chapter of the Federal Bar Association

Eliza L. TaylorLaw Clerk to the Honorable Curtis L. Collier

* * *

In the recent opinion What is the Price of Democracy?, the authors advocate a return of basic civics in the education curriculum. I wholeheartedly agree and thank them for their advocacy. However, I find it somewhat disturbing the learned authors used the term democracy 15 times, but not once used the term Republic in their writing. Both terms are necessary to accurately substantiate and better explain the authors advocacy.

To illustrate, the opening paragraph should have read Most United States citizens consider ourselves fortunate to live in a modern, mature democratic Republic. We appreciate the great freedoms and abundant material things our democracy affords us. But while we all know the old adage that freedom is not free, neither is democracy.

There are other places in the opinion where Republic rather than democracy is the proper term to describe our country. By using the noun Republic appropriately to accurately describe the United States, and the use of democracy to describe the political process used to operate our Republic, the authors would demonstrate the difference and help inform a reader who may not have the benefits of a Civics class.

Ironically, the misused terminology helps to show the need and necessity to return a course in United States civics to our Republics education curriculum.

Bryan Bowen

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What Is The Price Of Democracy? - The Chattanoogan