Archive [May 2000]

FISH KILL

In the Great Smoky Mountains, not all trout are created equal. Some are destined to live, and some to die … as decided by the feds. Using antimycin, a poison, National Park Service bureaucrats are planning to exterminate — yes, kill — all rainbow and brown trout in as many as ten streams.

Tennessee’s Sam’s Creek has been designated as the initial testing area. What could possibly possess these official guardians of the ecosystem to resort to such bloodshed? It’s because they consider the indigenous brook trout, which now inhabit streams at higher elevations, to be a superior race of fish. And they are determined that the noble brook trout reclaim their rightful habitat.

Of course, the treatment would kill most aquatic life in the streams, as well as the insects they feed on. But that’s okay. “We are mandated to protect and preserve all native species,” says Smoky Mountain National Park Fishery biologist Steve Moore. Oh.

Mitchell Betty, a local trout growers, is worried. “Anytime you introduce poison into nature’s stream, I got a real problem with that,” he says. “I’m concerned about the objective of these people. They’re obviously not sportsmen. If they just want to return the land to the way it was 1,000 years ago, then that doesn’t make any sense. And where does it stop?”

I can answer that one. Don’t you know by now? It never stops.

Squaw This

Under a bill signed by Maine Gov. Angus King, all communities and natural landmarks containing the word “squaw” must now be renamed. The word, you see, is offensive to Native Americans — and to women. It’s said that in some American Indian cultures the term is derogatory, meaning a woman of ill repute. According to state Rep. Donald Soctomah, the Passamaquoddy tribe’s representative and sponsor of the bill, “It took a lot of work from people in the native communities to open up and talk about something that’s as heartfelt as this.” About time, too, I’m sure you’ve seen Native Americans and soccer moms bursting into tears in their family vans upon seeing highway signs for Squaw Pond.

The new Maine law affects about two dozen mountains, waterways, and other locales. A special commission plans to recommend new names, which will be inflicted upon Maine residents next year. Other states have similar laws. In Colorado, even the endangered squawfish was renamed. It’s now the Colorado pikeminnow. (The fish themselves, however, were not consulted.)

S.O.S

For many years, Hillary Clinton, defender of children’s rights, compassionate champion of the oppressed, chaired the board of the left-wing Children’s Defense Fund. Ironically, as recently pointed out by columnist Brent Bozell, the logo of the Children’s Defense Fund features these words: “Dear Lord, be good to me, the sea is so wide, and my boat is so small.”

Yes, and inner tubes are even smaller.

So has that organization or its former chairperson leapt to support Elian Gonzalez? Hardly. At first, Hillary’s spokesman Howard Wolfson said, “Hillary Clinton knows that we must take politics out of this decision.” Tell it to Fidel.

Later, the First Lady said that she “understood” why the SWAT team just had to be sent in to snatch the child at gunpoint. Seems that’s her idea of a rescue.

Water, Water Everywhere

From each according to his wetness; to each according to his thirstiness. That’s the new mantra from the United Nations. The third-world dictators who run the U.N. are no longer just satisfied with emptying American wallets to finance their socialist fiascos. Now they want to drain our reservoirs, too. On March 22, to mark “World Water Day” (I kid you not), the U.N. called for — of course — the equal distribution of freshwater resources. “The international community must exercise its right and responsibilities to provide water for rich and poor alike, for all competing users, equitably, reliably and affordably,” decreed Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He decried a sharp increase in worldwide water consumption. (Stop it, all of you!) In fact, he warned that within the next 25 years two out of every three people on earth will be living under ‘water-stressed conditions.” Sounds bad. Chinese water torture, even.

You know, Algore has the perfect opportunity here to ingratiate himself with the U.N. crowd. He can announce that, if he’s elected President, America will pay its U.N. dues not in dollars, but in gallons of water. Giving new meaning to the term “soaking the rich.”

Fill out Thy Census!

What’s the big deal about the census, you ask? The federal government is only asking a few personal questions. It’s not as if they were intruding into, say, a place of worship.

Oh, really?

Rev. Albert Hitchcock of Wiser Lake Chapel in Lynden, WA was livid after he received sermons he was supposed to give to his congregation — from the Census Bureau. That’s right: U.S. Government-Issue sermons. The package, sent Federal Express, also contained more than 100 pamphlets to be passed out to parishioners. Folders titled “Census 2000 information for congregations” contained messages (in English and Spanish) to be printed in church bulletins and announced during worship services over six weeks. “Your credibility throughout the community makes you an ideal partner for this critical endeavor,” wrote Census Bureau Chief Kenneth Prewitt in a cover letter.

But Rev. Hitchcock doesn’t want to be the governments’s “ideal partner.” He asks what gives the Census Bureau the right to “commandeer” the church to do government business.

“They presume that they’re going to use my authority in my congregation to put my stamp of approval on what the Census Bureau is doing?”

“Not a chance,” he says.

Get ready for the SWAT team, Reverend.