Bio-Accumulating Ideas Like Heavy Metals

my dad's idea
like mercury
bio accumulate

my great grandfather
my mom's dad
my auntie maude

the lies wash through
the truth resides
ideas like heavy metal

ideas don't smell
odorless colorless
nothing to fear

The truth clings
past my life
my kids my friends

bio accumulate
mind accumulate
the truth and die free

Some flee toxins
Some flee ideas
Cognitive risk

I ate Plato
I ate Gandhi*
I ate Mandela

I ate Jesus
I ate Buddha
I ate Lao Tsu

I ate Black Elk
I ate Copernicus
I ate Ayn Rand

I ate Kahlil Gibran
I ate Aristotle
I ate my Grandfather

I'm eating Bob Dylan
I'm eating Steve Pinker
I'm eating Woodie Guthrie

Their ideas
Their little bitty kernel ideas
Bio accumulate in me

elemental

Mercury in Gold Mining in Africa

(Sarcasm alert)

"It's Ok!  It's recycled mercury, from USA lamp recycling.  We're using it to get virgin gold, not recycled gold!  USA lamp recycling (mercury retort) is all sold to us to get gold from rivers.  That's good!"


"It would be bad if we were getting value out of waste.  We get value out of rivers."

"And we don't have to work in a repair job."

Never mind THOSE poisoned children. (article on mercury poisoning of fish from African rivers)  The NGOs didn't photograph THEM.

(Link above to press release on mercury poisoning in African rivers, contaminating fish cultures and fish ponds established by Peace Corps volunteers like myself in the 1980s).

Mercury is used to mine gold.  News alert - it's far, far, far worse than gold extraction from aqua regia "acid baths", which I've never seen or heard of in Africa.   But all the policy debate is about how Africans "might" use acid baths for circuit boards, while in actuality, Africa is the final resting point for mercury which American recyclers spend billions of dollars to divert from our RCRA landfills.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.