American Notes: Aug 5, 1985

Physicians welcome the sudden willingness of patients to undergo tests for cancer. Colorectal cancer, which affects primarily men and women over 50, strikes some 138,000 Americans every year and kills 60,000. But regular examinations and early detection could save up to 40,000 more lives annually, according to the American Cancer Society. As a result of the attention the President's illness has attracted, the Massachusetts branch of the society has scrapped a 1981 poster that asked, "What is the cancer no one talks about?" The new one reads, "What is the cancer everyone talks about?"

No one should understand the principle of blind justice better than Attorney General Edwin Meese. Still, he may have been slightly taken aback when he learned that a warrant for his arrest had been issued. Meese's trouble started two weeks ago, when a municipal court clerk in Los Angeles accidentally discovered the five-year-old warrant while scanning computer records. The top cop, it seems, had committed the crime of jaywalking in 1980, right in front of Ronald Reagan's California campaign headquarters. His fine: $10. When Meese, then Reagan's chief of staff, did not pay the penalty, it automatically increased to $130.50, and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. The matter was then apparently forgotten.

Meese cleared his name last week with a check and a letter of apology in which he told the court that he thought the fine had been paid. Meanwhile, back in the computer room, another desperado came to light. On the night when the future Attorney General of the U.S. was caught crossing the street illegally, the President's campaign manager was cited as well. Still outstanding is a subsequent warrant--for the arrest of CIA Director William Casey.

Mention killer bees and almost anyone will smile, recalling the long-running skit on TV's Saturday Night Live in which actors donned striped bee costumes and snarled, "We're the killer bees! Give us your pollen or your wife!"

Well, it may no longer be a joke. The killer bees, imported from Africa to Brazil for research, escaped in 1957, and their offspring began advancing slowly northward. Last week a killer colony was confirmed for the first time on American soil, in an oil field some 60 miles from Bakersfield, Calif. The bees are believed to have hitched a ride north on drilling equipment shipped from Latin America. The killers are no more venomous than domestic bees, but they are easily provoked and attack in great numbers. They were first reported in California by an oil-field worker who watched aghast as a swarm of the bees stung a rabbit to death. California authorities killed the invaders with an insecticide.

Unfortunately, the queens' cells had already been abandoned. Says California Agriculture Official Clare Berryhill, "We're pretty well convinced that we have two queens and their colonies out there."