I agree about so many plants being poison. The farming/ranching community and those who live in town do have different views on things such as this. In town, our domestic animals are more picky about what they eat (in most cases) than livestock are. So we tend not to worry. My mother loved the tropical look of castor bean plants. She had a whole row of them along the back fence. As a little girl, I used to collect the pretty beans and play with them. What if I had put one of them in my mouth and accidentally swallowed it? Well, I wouldn't be here today. And back in the 50's they probably wouldn't have even been able to figure out what it was that offed me. LOCAL CHILD DIES MYSTERIOUSLY.... The beans are too pretty, I wouldn't ever plant a castor bean seed where children are apt to be. However, I can't remember the last time I saw any child munching on leaves, so I think the other things are relatively safe. The human race is still learning about the medicinal properties of plants. Many can be beneficial for what ails you if you know what you're doing, but can be lethal if you don't! I watched a program recently that reported there are scientists who are collecting seed of every kind of plant they can find, for long-term storage, because all is still not known about the healing properties of many plants and they're afraid something will go extinct before they discover that it has a substance in it that cures cancer or AIDS, etc. Native Americans knew that chewing the bark of a willow tree would cure headaches. Aspirin, one of the safest and most widely used drugs in our country, used to be made from an extract of the bark. Now it's made synthetically, I believe. If you go to Wikipedia and enter the name of an herb or a flower, there will most likely be a section of how it has been used medicinally. This was one of the skills of the Native American medicine man. He knew his plants. It was a skill that was handed down for generations. But in my youth, doctors had low opinions of those who used "natural" remedies, suggesting there was no possible way anything like that could even work, and believing the patient would waste time in healing by going down that path. It is amazing to me how things swing back and forth within a long period of time. Now, in my so-called "golden years", doctors have started actually recommending the use of certain herbal remedies, and the eating of certain foods. I also read that the "witches of Salem" were actually victims of hallucinations brought on by ingesting mold on rye bread, which was a staple in the community. This mold was similar to LSD. No, I'm not a witch, or even leaning in that direction, should anyone wonder. But isn't it interesting when you consider the possibilities of the plants around us? (I wonder if Bermuda grass has any healing properties) ;~)

I watched all of it and thoroughly enjoyed it. The Eleanor and Franklin story fascinates me, so I've read a fair amount about them and watch any movie or documentary available. There's an outstanding mini-series, Eleanor and Franklin, starring Jane Alexander and Edward Herrmann, winner of many Emmys, made in the 80s, now available from Amazon and Netflix. It is so worthwhile. It portrays everything shown in last night's program. Alexander and Herrmann are at the peak of their acting power. Eleanor's personal life was heartbreaking beyond belief. She lived in the shadow of her controlling and criticial mother-in-law for almost the entirety of her marriage to Franklin, and she bore all the slights and insults without complaint. She didn't ask for a divorce when his affair with Lucy Mercer was discovered. She simply said that she would do whatever he wanted. So the decision to stay married was made by Franklin and his mother, for political reasons. It was his cousin Laura Delano who revealed to Eleanor that Franklin was with Lucy when he died. Most of the women who were close to Franklin hated and were jealous of Eleanor and IMO Laura couldn't wait to permanently and cruelly hurt her in the worst way, which she did. My contempt for Laura Delano knows no bounds. OTOH, Eleanor ignored Franklin's failing health in his final years. Payback, perhaps. His private doctors were incompetents; his primary doc was an ENT specialist, even though he suffered from heart disease and high blood pressure. After one attack, a cardiac specialist was brought in. He was alarmed at what he found and begged for changes in FDR's treatment and lifestyle, and was largely ignored by everyone. The details of FDR's final years in terms of his health are horrifying. This would not happen today with any president. In fact, anyone walking into a "doc in the box" clinic today would receive better treatment than FDR did.

From an American standpoint, it does sometimes take a bit to understand a British accent, but I've never found them difficult, it just takes a few minutes to adjust to the different intonations. That said, I live in New England, I'm a bit of an Anglophile anyway, and I've heard British accents all my life via PBS and BBC America so I may be in the minority. Now some Irish and Scots accents -- yikes. It takes me a while, but I can usually understand the speaker if I can just listen for a bit. Rapid speech would definitely be difficult. As far as "falling for" the accent, I admit guilt! I once took a college class just to be able to listen to the professor speak. He could have been reading the phone book and I would still have been entranced.

He who holds the remote is just now discovering the options we have. LOL We have the same model Sony BluRay at home and and on Maui. We have never investigated the various options until we tried the Netflix option yesterday. (Bomb.) We haven't cared because our library at home usually has whatever we are looking for (free) as soon as it's available anywhere. That's not the case here on Maui, and we are staying longer on Maui now. Here we can rent "Shane", "I Was A Male War Bride", etc. We got "Black Swan" from our branch of the Maui library -- one of the few 'recent' movies. We are also able to use our cable HD-DVR and watch recorded PBS programs at teatime. Our BluRay boxes date from about 2012. This one talks about "2010" options, but I assume that since they still show up on the menu, they are all still currently available. The Sony channel is offering "Truth" -- current movie we just rented from Redbox for $1.50/day. Looked like it was $6 to stream. Please walk me through the Amazon Prime membership as regards streaming movies. I see Amazon has at least one TV series we have been waiting to see: Season Three of "The Americans". It looks like it is $6 per episode. (Our library at home has this now, but we're not there, we're here!) We usually split a movie over two days of teatime. If we chose "The Americans" Episode One of Season Three, and had an Amazon Prime membership, how long would we have access to that episode? Could we *stop* and *resume*? (With Redbox, we just pay for two days, as time stops at midnight of the day you rent.) What's the cost to have Prime? (I very seldom buy anything online, so never looked into this -- certainly not for Hawaii, where shipping is a week, not days.) Thanks for helping guide two Seniors into the 21st Century.