Of Salmon-Bashing, Vaccinations and Flags

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 17, 2000

An Insight reader in California who monitors the weirdness that passes for environmentalism in some circles passes along a report from Oregon, the scene of great battles over efforts to save the salmon. According to the article in Western Livestock Journal, five Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife employees were caught on video clubbing hundreds of salmon to death with baseball bats. The "explanation" is that the doomed salmon were hatchery-bred fish taking up space in breeding areas that officials wanted freed up for returning wild salmon. "Can you imagine the uproar if any member of the public were caught doing that?" our correspondent asks.

* Recent Insight articles and column items have noted problems with vaccinations, ranging from protests by military personnel over questionable anthrax inoculations to the incredible number of inoculations youngsters face today. In line with all that, a reader sends along a story about a 30-year effort to vaccinate the people of Egypt against a blood parasite. Unfortunately the vaccine was given with unsterilized and reused needles, and now one-fifth of the population is infected with hepatitis C, and many also carry hepatitis B.

* On another front, this column continues to take more hits than Fort Sumter over labeling the "Stars and Bars" a Confederate battle flag. Wayne Larcinesi writes to add that the battle flag should be referred to as the "Southern Cross." He's undoubtedly right and will get no argument here. In the Briefs Bunker, our powder is being saved for the as-yet-unidentified revisionist who thought to perk up our comatose prose by adding the "battle flag" phrase in the first place.