They're going to do one more test on Jen sometime today, and she should be home this afternoon. Thank you to Anonymous for your kind comment.

With mysterious ailments on my mind, I noticed this story about toxic dumping and subsequent riots in Ivory Coast. This is yet one more example of corporations assuming that they can do whatever they want to the poor. If this isn't environmental racism, it's definitely environmental classism. The poor always get the shaft, and Ivory Coast, the last time I checked, is one of the poorest countries on the planet. I'm glad they're fighting back. If I was there, I'd riot too. It's a shame though that this is pretty much the only recourse for them. It's bad enough that people without money (either individually or collectively) are treated as second class citizens, but to endure illegally dumped toxic waste is the ultimate insult.

Of course most of us are aware that this sort of thing happens all of the time in the U.S. too. Not only does our lifestyle cause problems at home, but all over the rest of the world as well. It's often more subtle (but not always) than what is happening in Ivory Coast, but you don't have to dig deeply to find a multitude of environmental insults. With that in mind, I recently discovered a reference to this man in James Bishop Jr.'s biography of Edward Abbey, Epitaph for a Desert Anarchist. He's one of my new heroes.

Anyway, we're all walking cesspools of toxins. Every time we eat and every time we breathe we're taking more of them in. I don't advocate violent revolution, but it would be great if each and every one of us spent time fixing the problem. The System is broken. The System is a sewer system. The waste never really goes "away," it just cycles its merry way back into the soil and into the air and into the water and into our bodies, forever and ever, no matter how much money somebody behind a big desk made from it.

Long live the Fox!