Monthly Archives: May 2019

2 Billion Dollar Judgment Against Monsanto’s Roundup

5 Replies

On May 13, 2019, a California jury awarded plaintiffs Alva and Alberta Pilliod a verdict of $55 million in non-economic and economic damages in addition to $1 billion each in punitive damages against Monsanto.  Monsanto unsuccessfully attempted to refute the plaintiffs’ toxicology expert who testified that Monsanto made glyphosate – the active ingredient in Roundup – fifty times more toxic by including polyethoxylated tallow amine in tis formula.  Expert testimony stated that this ingredient facilitates the ability of glyphosate to penetrate the skin leading to quick dispersion to the bones, where lymphoma originates…….

Click on the URL below to read the entire article:

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/13/health/monsanto-roundup-cancer-verdict-bn/index.html?utm_source=CNN+Five+Things&utm_campaign=f60a97c6b8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_05_14_05_04&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6da287d761-f60a97c6b8-90605325

Bougainvillea

2 Replies

Click on photo to enlarge.

fotd

For Cee’s FOTD

Her Majesty

2 Replies

image courtesy of Mohammed Metri on Unsplash.


Her Majesty

She had the best instruction in how to act serene––
a necessary attribute if she would be queen.
And though she lacked true courage, at least she appeared plucky.
Daily, they assured her that of all she was most lucky
to have been born of royal blood—to have been truly chosen,
and that is how, over the years, her heart was slowly frozen.

 

The prompt words today were courage, chosen, serene and lucky. Here are their links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/14/rdp-tuesday-courage/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/14/fowc-with-fandango-chosen/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/14/your-daily-word-prompt-serene-may-14-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/13/lucky/

Screen Shot 2019-05-13 at 3.21.27 PM.png

Lucky: The Pleasures of Advancing Age

5 Replies

 

(Click on photos to enlarge.)

Lucky
(The Pleasures of Advancing Age)

If I were a golfer, I fear there’d be no putting,
for my grass is lush and verdant— badly in need of  cutting.
Meanwhile, the bougainvillea has gotten out of hand.
It’s like a barbed wire jungle—every twisted strand.
If I were more rambunctious, I’d grab work gloves and scramble
to gas up the mower and to tackle every  bramble,
but those days of industrious gardening are far back in my past.
Those Olympian feats of plant and tend simply didn’t last.
Instead I lie here in my bed growing and trimming words.
Outside, through the curtains, I hear the wakening birds.
I hear the front gate opening, make out the squeak of wheels.
Is there a single reader who detects how good it feels
to just fluff up the pillows and type on throughout the dawn
as Pasiano trims the thorny vines and mows the blasted lawn?

Prompt words today are verdant, meanwhile, rambunctious and lucky. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/13/rdp-monday-verdant/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/13/fowc-with-fandango-meanwhile/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/13/your-daily-word-prompt-rambunctious-may-13-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/13/lucky/

Bougainvillea against Blue Sky: Flower of the Day, May 13, 2019

2 Replies

IMG_1849.jpg

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Wit’s End Challenge: Wheels

2 Replies

Wheels!!!

 

Click on photos to enlarge.

 

 

 

https://witsend-travel.com/2019/05/10/weekly-photo-challenge-wheels/

Mother’s Day Long After Mother

2 Replies

daily life color219

Mother’s Day Long After Mother

I feel the promise of rain in the gusting wind,
and in that far off wail of babies tired of the family gathering,
wanting their mothers to themselves.
Mother’s Day in Mexico is a three-day strung-out affair*
stretched out over the motherly memories of Gringos and Mexicanos.

Flowers fill the aisles of Costco and then melt
into the populace, streaming out in grocery carts by the threes
to mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers.
Pink cakes with chocolate scribbles fill huge center bins at Walmart,
appreciation of mothers being a going commercial concern
all over the chainstore world.

My mother I nestle in my memory like a beautiful uncut gem.
I trim off what ugly parts there might have been.
Rough stone falls away from the faceted center
until there she is, finished, refined in memory,
the way that she would want to be–
every hair in place, lipstick carefully aligned over a silly
Erma Bombeck grin, a small dog in her lap.

Or, better, wipe off the lipstick and muss the hair.
That same dog stretched out,
fencing in her stomach, waist and thigh
as she lies spread careless on the sofa,
asleep, a book having just fallen from her hand.

*By way of a short explanation, Mother’s day in Mexico  is always celebrated on  May 10,  whereas by those expats such as myself who grew up in the U.S., it is celebrated on the second Sunday in May, which this year fell on May 12. 

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/12/rdp-sunday-finish/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/12/motherly/

“Aretes” Flower of the Day, May 12, 2019

9 Replies

Yolanda calls this an “aretes” flower, which means earrings.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day prompt.

Empty Stocking

8 Replies

 

Empty Stocking

Early in September, below the slippery slide,
Ella McLauglin asked me if I would step aside
and let her have a turn at it before I took another,
and since I looked around and couldn’t see her older brother,
I said no girls could play on it. This slide was just for “men,”
then bounded up the ladder and slid on down again.

Later, In October,  I thought it would be fun
to raid our neighbor’s pumpkin patch, to smash them and then run.
Some friends wanted to help me, but I wielded the bat.
Those pumpkins all exploded with such a lovely “splat!”
Mr. Cramer chased us, but he fell and hit his head,
and by the time he reached our house, I was snug in bed!

At the beginning of November, right after Halloween,
I opened sister’s window and removed the screen.
I found her bag of candy, making off with all the best,
leaving her with licorice and apples and the rest
left over after I had taken chocolates and  toffee.
What I left? The gross flavors like cinnamon and coffee!

But for all of December, I remembered to be good.
Mom had said that Santa kept accounts and that he would 
know if I was naughty, so I knew this was the time
when I needed to be perfect—the very paradigm
of virtue, yet in spite of this, I must sadly relate
that all my efforts to reform simply came  too late.

It seems that I just waited too long in turning face.
You can’t just come in sliding tardily into base
when it comes to changing “naughty” check marks into “nice,”
for Santa checks his naughty list more than once or twice.
Next Christmas I am going to be sure that I remember,
that Santa also checks the months that lead up to December!

 

 

Only two prompts  had been posted by 4 a.m. this morning when I was ready for a rhyming.  Those prompt words were slide and paradigm. Here are their links:
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/12/fowc-with-fandango-slide/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/12/your-daily-word-prompt-paradigm-may-12-2019/