Yes readers, all two of you, Today I received this:
“We reviewed your account and the information you provided, and we have decided that you may publish on Amazon.com again.
Your future submissions may be subject to additional review prior to being published. This may result in a delay in publishing.
If any of your submissions fail to comply with our Content Guidelines, your KDP account, and any CreateSpace account may be terminated. You may also lose access to optional KDP or CreateSpace services.”
OH YEAH?
I had to email every person who reviewed more than one of my books and ask them to remove their, honest, unsolicited reviews… I think that sucks.
I’m now on Smashwords – Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple etc- and if you want to download one of my books please do it there
On a Happy Note, I was nominated for a Rhysling Award!
“The Rhysling Awards are named for the blind poet Rhysling in Robert A. Heinlein’s short story “The Green Hills of Earth.” Rhysling’s skills were said to rival Rudyard Kipling’s. In real life, Apollo 15 astronauts named a crater near their landing site “Rhysling,” which has since become its official name.
Nominees for each year’s Rhysling Awards are selected by the membership of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Each member is allowed to nominate one work in each of two categories: “Best Long Poem” (50+ lines; for prose poems, 500+ words) and “Best Short Poem” (0–49 lines; for prose poems, 0–499 words).
The Rhysling Awards are put to a final vote by the membership of the SFPA The Rhysling Anthology is available to anyone with an interest in this unique compilation of verse from some of the finest poets working in the field of SF/F/Horror poetry.
The winning works are regularly reprinted in the Nebula Awards Anthology from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., and are considered in the SF/F/H/Spec. field to be the equivalent in poetry of the awards given for prose work— achievement awards given to poets by the writing peers of their own field of literature.”
So I’m impressed:)
My Poem, Signs that the World might be Ending, or Making Pink Lemonade is published by Zoetic press
NONBINARY REVIEW ISSUE #13: URBAN LEGENDS FROM SNOPES.COM
It happened to a friend of a friend. You read it on a conspiracy theory website. It seems like it should be true. It’s a heartwarming story. This is the stuff of urban legends, and the place you go to prove or disprove those legends is Snopes.com. But where do those stories come from in the first place? What are the stories behind the rumors? In this issue, twenty-seven authors and artists confront twenty-seven rumors, theories, and 
legends to give us the reality behind the website.
I think this is a very cool concept – It’s works based on Snopes stories.
I’d add the poem here, but I’m not sure if I should.
As for Monsanto being the antichrist, I was thinking of that when I saw they hit Avaaz with a 168-page court subpoena that “commands” them to hand over every private email, note, or record we have regarding Monsanto, including the names and email addresses of Avaazers who have signed Monsanto campaigns. 
They’re a $50 billion mega-corporation, infamous for legal strong-arm tactics like this. They have unlimited resources.
I used to have a gig lecturing about Island Evolution and biology on cruise ships – FUN!
But once, in the Q & A someone asked me how I felt about Monsanto and I said they are the anti-Christ – I wish I’d been less flippant, but even though I LOVED that gig, I do believe Monsanto is evil incarnate, along with Dick Chainey, And the current Republican party… And it’s not the act of genetic modification I object to, it’s their poisoning of the earth.
Below is a rant I had to cut from my latest book (II in the Eddie Evers Electric Detective Series, The Hollywood Portal) because it reads as if Ayn Rand were an environmentalist… by that I mean it’s not helpful to the book- just my own rant….. BUT I DO BELIEVE IT…
“In the 1980’s,” Onde said, “the scientific community noticed a die-off of amphibians. Why?”
She looked at me as if expecting an answer. Ah, the old Socratic method. Well, two could play at that game.
“Why?” I asked.
“Chytrid fungus.” She said, smiling enigmatically and sipping her drink.
I sighed, it was gonna be a long night.
“Chytrid is a type of fungus. Most feed on dead organic matter.”
“Like zombies and Congress,” I said.
“Others are parasites.”
“Like lawyers and politicians.”
“But in 1999 a new species of chytrid was described that infects the skin of amphibians. It was named Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis or ‘Bd’ for short.
“I love nicknames. Let’s call it Bd.”
“It roughly translates to mean ‘frog chytrid,” she said. “It appears to have infected most of the world’s approximately 6,000 amphibian species.”
“Why not call it amphibian chytrid then?”
She ignored me and finished her drink. I watched her Adam’s apple slide delicately up and down, taking the smooth whiskey with it. I wondered what is in inside of a man that makes him yearn for the things he knows will hurt him, love, liquor, and a desire to be someone’s savior.
“Bd causes the skin to become very thick,” she said, “which is deadly to amphibians because they absorb air and water through their skin.”
“Unlike zombies, Congress, lawyers and politicians who absorb nothing.”
She rose slowly, walked back to the whiskey and poured herself another drink. She was absorbing plenty. I was envious. She raised her eyebrows, but I shook my head. I thought I’d hold out till she told me that Bd was infecting babies.
“Not all amphibian species infected with Bd become sick or die. In fact, resistant species are a major concern because they can be carriers.”
“The Typhoid Marys’ of the amphibian world,” I said, just to show I was still with her.
“Since its discovery, Bd has been found on every continent and it’s spreading at an alarming rate.”
She sank back down on the couch and looked at me with those wide, pale eyes that missed nothing.
“But Bd is not new. In fact, it’s one of the oldest types of fungi in existence. It’s always been there – but now, suddenly, it’s deadly. Why?”
We stared at each other as if the answer might lie between us.
“In the 1990’s,” she continued, “bats begin dying mysteriously. Why?”
I shrugged.
“They were suffering from a disease called White-nose syndrome, because of the white mold that grows on the muzzle of hibernating bats.
“It too turned out to be caused by a fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, or Pd.”
“Lemme guess, Pd colonizes the bat’s skin?”
She nodded. “Pd is not a new fungus. It’s been around for a long, long time, but now, suddenly, it’s spreading and it’s deadly. Why?”
I shook my head.
“In 1990’s,” she said, “bees begin dying mysteriously. Why?”
She didn’t wait for me not to answer.
“Colony collapse disorder, or CCD. It occurs when the majority of worker bees disappear. We don’t know what causes it.
“Mites and viruses are a problem. They can cause anything from wing deformity to dysentery. But once again, they’re nothing new. “
“Bee diarrhea?” I asked, looking at my thermos of coffee. I made a mental note to switch to sugar.
“Viruses cannot live independently. They can only multiply inside the cells of a host.”
“Like barristers and legislators,” I said.
“Aren’t you forgetting zombies,” she said raising a perfectly arched eyebrow. I raised an imperfect eyebrow back. It was as close to a joke as she’d ever gotten. Granted it wasn’t very funny, but humor takes training. The woman had obviously been wasting too much time on physics and chemistry. Being a natural, takes a lot of practice.
“Colony collapse disorder is an RNA, the same kind of virus that caused AIDS, Mr. Evers. And just like AIDs, chytrid and White-nose, CCD by itself is not a killer. All these virus and fungus do is weaken the immune system so that other diseases, already extant, become deadly.
“I believe that by poisoning the earth and water with pesticides we have weakened the planet’s immune systems to such an extent that, in effect, we have given the earth AIDs.”
She sipped her drink. It was almost finished. If she kept on expounding her theory I might join her for the next round. She was more depressing than a library of Russian novels.
“What can we do?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“Well, banning a family of pesticides called neonicotinoids would be a start – We did it with DDT – we can do it again.
“In 1939, DDT came on the market. It was a powerful insecticide and was hailed as a miracle. It was initially used by the military in WW II to control malaria, typhus, body lice, and bubonic plague and it produced amazing results.
But what’s poison for the pest is also poison for the pollinators. DDT had a very long half-life and decimated insect, fish and bird populations. It also caused birth defects and cancers in mammals.
“In 1962, biologist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, which claimed that continued use of DDT would lead to a world without bees, butterflies and birds. And, as a result, in 1972 DDT was banned.
“In 1996 agrochemical companies, Bayer and Monsanto developed neonicotinoid resistant crops. Soil treated neonicotinoids is toxic to all but the genetically modified crops. Not only does this wipe out many wild plants necessary to maintain bird, bee and butterfly populations, it also makes the crops lethal to insects.
“Neonicotinoids too will lead to a world without bees, butterflies, and birds. And while neonicotinoids are being slowly being restricted throughout Europe, all measures to constrain their use in the US have been resisted.”
“Well, big-money resistant politicos are hard to find,” I said.
“A few agrochemical companies have agreed to donate money for thin ‘no chemical strips’ along the enormous farms that are being poisoned by neonicotinoids, as if a wind couldn’t blow deadly pollen over a fence. And the sad thing is, Mr. Evers, is that this is being viewed as a victory.”
“Politicians respond to cash much more readily than they respond to science,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “And of course, all these companies have scientists on their payrolls who deny the evidence.
“Analogous conditions are happening in the dairy industry where cows, forced to eat meat or grain instead of the grass which their stomachs were designed for, must be continually infused with antibiotics to keep them healthy. Bioengineered hormones injected into cows to increase milk production, cause elevated levels of puss, antibiotics residues and cancer-accelerating hormones all of which end up in the milk.
“I’m sure glad I take my coffee black,” I said. All I had to worry about was a little bee dysentery.
“Today, 80% of the world’s antibiotics are used to treat healthy animals – and this overuse, this misuse, causes the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”
So, that’s today’s blog- feel free to write me on questions OR if you want a free download code to any of the new books!!!