Aedes aegypti mosquito potentially carrying the Zika virus. Courtesy Wikipedia. Introduction Researchers discovered the  Zika virus  in the Zika forest of Uganda – in 1947. It is a virus not much different than the viruses causing dengue, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, West Nile fever, and St. Luis encephalitis. The Zika virus eventually spread throughout most of the world. Mosquitoes carry and spread the Zika virus. But for decades the Zika disease afflicting humans was free of brain deform or the shrinking of the infant’s brain  known as microcephaly (a Greek term meaning tiny brain-head).    The 2016 Olympics in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil I heard the name Zika for the first time in 2016 during the Summer Olympics in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Reporting on the  PBS Newshou r  offered warnings for those going to Brazil. Other large media went almost berserk. They were shouting that women near the Olympics site were giving...

Crop spraying. Courtesy Wikipedia. I recently watched  The Eugenic Crusade,  a  PBS  documentary on “improving” human evolution. Sir Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, took two Greek words,  well  and  born , and coined Eugenics. He reasoned natural evolution was a messy, violent, and lengthy process that could use some human ingenuity and science for the benefit of the ruling classes. Eugenics in America American scientists and philanthropists grasped on Eugenics as a saving valve from the  reality of too many poor whites, blacks and immigrants in America in early twentieth century. Eugenics, and the fake science behind it, led to the sterilization and imprisonment of thousands of undesirable: immigrants, Jews, the poor, the mentally and physically disabled, and the “morally delinquent.” The Nazis in Germany learned from the eugenics experience of America. They exterminated millions of Jews and other “unfit.” The def...

Radio interview, 5 October 2018 I talk about my experience at the EPA, focusing on what I learned about the politics and dangers of pesticides and the regulatory system in America:

Man using a gasoline-powered leaf blower. Ban leaf blowers: Courtesy Davis Wiki. The gasoline-powered leaf blower is a careless technology. It arose from a political environment that has been welcoming almost everything for profit.  Cars, Airplanes and Tractors  I have been a critic of technology for a long time. By technology I mean machines designed supposedly for the benefit of humanity, but, in time, turn out to be a menace. Such machines like airplanes, automobiles, tractors and most of the machinery employed by the industrialized farmer came into being for making human life easier. However, in about a century these technologies threaten human life and life on the planet. Airplanes and automobiles use petroleum, which is a major cause for global warming.  The industrialization of agriculture has been an unmitigated disaster. It brings back the dark ages in the name of efficiency and science.  How does it do that? It forces small family ...

A friend and I went recently to a Greek festival at San Juan Capistrano in southern California. The day was sunny and hot, the traffic from Claremont to Capistrano heavy. The festival unfolded in the buildings and open green space of the Capistrano Community Center. There were several hundred people at the festival: some of them were probably non-Greek or Greeks who no longer spoke Greek. With a plate full of food in my hands, I had a difficult time finding people who spoke Greek. Finally, I joined a couple when the man said he spoke Greek. However, this second generation Greek probably understood some Greek but he could not speak Greek. He was born in Utah and his wife was a Mormon from Utah. He said he was Eastern Orthodox Christian and had no trouble being married to a Mormon. In fact, I liked his wife because, in contrast to his pro-Trump nonsense, she expressed uneasiness with the trashing of the environment by Trump.   The Greek festival at San Juan Capistrano ...

I never met Daniel Ellsberg. I vaguely remember him from the 1970s when he leaked confidential military documents about the Vietnam War. Those documents chronicled how America planned and fought an entirely useless but deadly war in the forests, rice fields, and cities of Vietnam and other countries of Southeast Asia. In time, some of those secret documents appeared in a book,  The Pentagon Papers .  I read that book during my service at the US Environmental Protection Agency. I learned something about the Pentagon, the industrial-military complex, and that bitter conflict.  But I also learned something about Ellsberg. I admired his decision to risk everything for a higher purpose: telling Americans the war in Vietnam was immoral and unwinnable. His courage was contagious. I could see his life was blowing the whistle on Pentagon corruption and, especially, Pentagon’s planning for “fighting” nuclear wars. This touched me profoundly. I, too, was a whistleblowe...

A friend recently put me in touch with Janet Brown (not her real name). This is a woman from Chicago who had the misfortune of renting an apartment that had been sprayed with the neurotoxic pesticide chlorpyrifos. DowDuPont produces this deleterious substance.   In late August 2018, Janet Brown visited me and we spent several hours talking. Her real education started in the poisoned apartment in Chicago. She had read my book,  Poison Spring . She wanted to talk.  A poisoned apartment Our discussion was mostly about pesticides and the Environmental Protection Agency, which “regulates” toxic pesticides like chlorpyrifos. I told Janet Brown a few of my EPA stories. And she told me her astonishing story.  Janet Brown grew up in Illinois. She got married to a doctor. She had hopes of becoming a doctor herself. However, the poisoned apartment blew up in her face, causing a tsunami of psychological and health adversities and pain. House fumig...