Friday, October 07, 2005

Rain rain rain and poison sprays

I thought the rainy season might be over, but yesterday late afternoon and last night we had a lot of rain, and it went on most of the night. And of course all the little and big creepy crawly critters came in the house to get out of the rain. No scorpions though. And it is very overcast today, and I expect it will rain again later.

The four bouganvillas along the south wall of this house are all starting to bloom and look great. Actually, three look great and are growing tall and blooming. One was sprayed with an herbicide by a neighbor and doesn't look so good. I heard the neighbor outside and ran out to stop him, so he only really damaged one of the bouganvillas. But he killed a whole small garden I had nutured right outside the door to the downstairs unit here.

I guess the good thing (cynically speaking) is this whole strain of herbicide-happy men will probably become sterile or die young from pesticide exposure. I am only half-kidding and half not kidding. Most of the people I see spraying with pesticides and herbicides use no protection. I have even seen them jokingly spray each other. It is frightening. I would be very surprised if any of them washed their hands after spraying. I am picturing them going home in the clothes they wore for spraying and holding their kids on their laps and exposing them to the chemicals too.

I don't believe many of them read the instructions and warning on the labels. Of course, many of them may not be able to read the complicated warning labels anyway. I think is another version of corporate genocide: offering extremely toxic chemicals to people with little or no education about their safe use.

This is turning into another very negative post, but I guess no sunshine does that to me. Or something.

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