On Round-Up

I know a little bit about history; there’s a saying, “a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing”,

and a long time ago I pondered that one.  Just now the thought came, dangerous to who?,

dangerous to the person who has just been enlightened, or dangerous to others who have known

all along.

A while back,  in the forties, the American army captured the Ruhr Valley, Germany’s industrial

heart. Among other documents sent back to Washington from various factories were formulas

for nerve gas, which were promptly distributed to  the chemical industry in the U.S.A.

Dow, DuPont and Monsanto were among the beneficiaries.

A number of years ago a friend of mine sprayed the bilge of his boat with roach killer,[if you’ve

ever seen a roach’s reaction to such a spray, it is quite apparent a nerve agent is present],

the next morning he woke up to find his thumb and forefinger paralyzed. Months later

it took surgery to restore movement. Myself, I can connect the dots. Again, it was years ago

that I witnessed the use of Round-Up  on a stand of weeds. Even then I wouldn’t touch it

with a ten foot pole  but I was curious of the result.  Weeds are universally loathed, so for

the most part they are not allowed to survive that long. These weeds were different, a forty

by forty foot area of them that had remained untouched for over a year.

Weeds are like humans, I’m serious,  think about it, we’re populating the Earth like weeds, ha,ha!

Again, like us they had grown, thickened, indeed their lower portions were becoming bark-like,

all in all, quite hardy plants.

I came back a week later. They were stone-cold dead, every one, still standing like cornstalks in

a drought, and I’ll tell you something, if you were drenched in that shit so too would’st thou be.

Islander.

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