>Me thinks the lady doth protest too much.


Maybe, but I think the critics were excessively sanctimonious and unkind.
Personally, I'm pleased she responded. Somebody needed to; I should have.

I don't mean that I think the critics are even slightly bad people, I'm
sure they aren't, but I do think we sometimes tend to get into a
"road-rage" type mindset when we get behind a computer terminal and are
addressing something we have a strong opinion about. We need to keep in
mind that we are more apt to aid our point if we are respectful. I always
(well, almost always) remember what Everett Dirksen (Republican minority
whip in Congress back eons ago) used to say: "The oil can is mightier than
the sword." A wise man. He probably didn't have a computer!

And there is also the possibility that we might actually be wrong! (It
happened to me once! You're supposed to laugh here.)

Dick Johnson
Pullman, WA
johnsonre at wsu.edu



>----- Original Message -----
>From: <MBlanchrd at aol.com>
>To: <TWEETERS at u.washington.edu>
>Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 5:28 PM
>Subject: More on starlings
>
>
>> Tweeters,
>>
>> To the overwrought and rhetoric-shrieking people who flamed me...if you
>had
>> bothered to actually READ the plans for the trap, you would have seen that
>> the trapped starling is totally unharmed by the experience until it's
>removed
>> from the cage. The cage is large and roomy.........far larger,
>> proportionally, than the one that the chicken you had for dinner last
>night
>> spent its entire life in, until it was slaughtered. (in a way far more
>> painful than mine, but a whole lot cheaper).
>>
>> Amazingly, considering how knowledgeable he is about birds, Mr. Anderson
>> conveniently forgot to mention that it's legal, both by federal as well as
>> state regulation to trap and kill, or even keep as pets, starlings, house
>> sparrows and rock doves. It's legal because they are non-indigenous
>species.
>>
>> So are Norway rats and German cockroaches. Do your feelings of love and
>> concern extend to these creatures as well, disgusting and unpopular as
>they
>> are? Do you allow them to live in your house with you, because they have a
>> right to live, too?
>>
>> That's your business, but when they overpopulate your house, they're going
>> move into your neighbor's house, and then it becomes a health hazard. Will
>> you then stand and scream platitudes, and threaten to sue the Health
>> Department when they come to kill the rats and spray the cockroaches??
>>
>> Do you live in a house made of wood? Plywood is made with glue made of
>bovine
>> blood. Does your child keep goldfish in a bowl (a totally unnatural
>> environment for them ) far too small for them, using chlorinated water (a
>> poison to aquatic creatures) on the few occasions when he or she remembers
>to
>> clean the fish bowl? By the way, did you have children? I didn't. I cannot
>be
>> blamed for the over-population of this planet that is the very base of all
>> our environmental problems. Did you try to fight the appointment of Gail
>> Norton to the position of secretary of the Interior, where she will
>> undoubtedly destroy all the gains made in the past decade? No? Was it too
>> much effort to email our Senators, who, by the way, wholeheartedly
>endorsed
>> her nomination?
>>
>> We are the cause of this mess, and we need to clean it up. I realize that
>my
>> killing two dozen starlings a year may not put a dent in the total
>> population, but it has certainly benefited the native bird species in my
>> immediate neighborhood. Perhaps you should extend your misguided
>benevolence
>> for non-indigenous species to your own.
>>
>> Michelle Blanchard
>> MBlanchrd at aol.com
>> Oly, WA
>>