New York City Blog Nov. 10 – Nov.. 16

Dow has received EPA permission to manufacture a new herbicide. Whoopee! May I write the lengthy list of instructions in 2 point font? Here are some familiar phrases: When used according to instructions…if you’re elderly, an infant or a farm worker… beware. This is followed by a list of chemicals with as many letters as a Greek name. If you are like me, you usually don’t read the labels past the caloric content.

My protagonist, Detective Steve Kulchek, inherited a love of science from his Aunt Bess. Aunt Bess belonged to a gardening book club that met at the Arsenal in Central Park. I too belong to the book club and it’s opened a world to me that I didn’t know. I read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring only recently. It’s like admitting you never read To Kill a Mockingbird.

Over fifty years later, Rachel Carson is still controversial. Disagreeing with her thesis that the chemical DDT had harmful effects, is fair. I’m bothered by the shocked attitude as if Carson presumes to question the mighty gods of science. Here’s an example of a capitalist god putting a mere mortal in her place: Steve Forbes, in an article called Mass Murder, writes:The shock is not the misinformation found in a nearly 50-year-old book or the fact that environmental extremists, many of whom seem to be antipeople anyway, cling to it. It’s that governments, foundations and health agencies still pander to these lethal prejudices.

To quote “Big Yellow Taxi”
Hey farmer, farmer, put away your DDT
I don’t care about spots on my apples,
Leave me the birds and the bees
Please

Bye until next week
Bye until next week