Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was speaking to his sainted mother last night. But before jumping in a little background may be in order. Your Maximum Leader’s sainted mother lives on the same street she grew up on. For many years the house up the street was owned by a brilliant man who’s wife loved gardening. She passed on in 1985 and he recently remarried and moved to a huge horse farm in the country. Before moving, he sold his house (and large lot) to a developer. His house was demolished. The wooded lot cleared. And now 3 “McMansions” are being built on the same spot.
Anyhow… When the old house was demolished, the basement of the house was exposed. And remaining in the basement of the now-gone house were racks and racks of gardening chemicals. They were purchased between 1949 and 1985.
Your Maximum Leader’s sainted mother worried that there might be unstable chemcials in the mix. She worried that any chemicals down there might be harmful if not disposed of correctly.
Your Maximum Leader on the other hand wondered if there was any DDT in the racks. Cause if there was, he’d go and get it.
Damn. Wasn’t DDT such wonderful stuff?
Okay. If you are Rachel Carson is wasn’t.
But stop and think for a moment. DDT eliminated malaria in the US. One of the biggest killers of Americans in the South - eliminated by one chemcial. You don’t hear much about malaria in the US. Because there isn’t anything to talk about. For that we should all thank the Rockefeller family and DDT.
DDT, when not overused, is a great chemical. And it is a much maligned chemical. Just read this piece from Junkscience.com Your Maximum Leader would love to get some DDT and fog around the Villainschloss this time of year to kill off the swarms of mosquitos coming up from the small pools in the woods near the Villainschloss. They breed so quickly. The frogs and such just gorge themselves on mosquito larve and still the little bloodsuckers just keep coming. And they are those nasty tiger mosquitos. The ones with the little stripes on them. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t remember seeing the striped mosquitos when he was younger.
But he’d bet that DDT would kill them.
Carry on.
