John Ashcroft: Enemy of mollusks
Fascinating news from Hawaii.
A nice couple that I’m friends with (let’s call them “Tammy” and “Chuck”) recently vacationed on the island of Kauai with their kids “Roy” (age 5) and “Natalie” (age 2). Tammy and Chuck were shocked to discover that a universally beloved member of George W. Bush’s administration was wintering there.
Tammy reports from her iPhone:
“Guess who met John Ashcroft while in Hawaii?? We were staying in a house across the street and noticed him violently throwing (killing) snails into the street. Roy immediately began lecturing him that killing animals was not nice. He was killing African snails, which, he told us, are an invasive species. Still, Roy was not satisfied. He later told me that not all grown ups are nice, in reference to the ‘snail killer.’
Ashcroft said that any time it snows in DC, he flies to Kauai.”
I immediately summoned the staff at Media Matters and implored them to investigate. (I keep their senior fellows on speed dial in the event that someone from FOX News re-Tweets a Tea Bagger or a right-wing extremist. My motto: ”In case of fire, break glass.”)
Anyway, Tammy’s story checks out. It’s all true. The former U.S. Attorney General slaughters snails under the false pretense of ecological stewardship. We can now add “Mollusk Slayer” to the long list of his ignoble vocations:
Print This Post
I wish he’d go to Illinois and start throwing Asian carp out of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal — with both hands — before the invasive species enters the Great Lakes and crowds out numerous native species as it has in its long, leaping trek up the Mississippi River and ruins a multibillion-dollar fishing industry and other recreational activities.
I would eagerly join Ashcroft in any Great Lakes Rescue Mission. I cannot have the waters that cradle my home state overrun by those damn carp. I am sure Mike McGowan, a native Michigander, feels the same way.
It sucks that they’re invading, I guess.
Actually, I feel that natural selection will handle the situation. While it’s true that the invasives bring change to an ecosystem, populations of animals are always shifting, providing the competition which is the basis for evolution.
In fact, one of the things that we notice with plant species is that even though an invasive plant has explosive growth potential, the native plants, with thousands of years of adaptation and natural selection in that spceific environment, are often more than capable of exploiting ecosystem niches where an invasive cannot move, and that they can possibly mount a “come back”, with the resulting equilibrium being the result of the natural selection process.
15 years ago, it was the Zebra Mussle threating to destroy the Great Lakes. Everyone was up in arms. Today, no one cares. Why? Nature can, and does, cope, and so do we.
But killing snails in the street? That’s un-American!.
Doesn’t he know that if you simply let people kill them in restaurants, and call the snails “escargot”, you can get $16 for 2 dozen of them?
There is profit to be made!
http://www.deandeluca.com/MondoSearch/Results.aspx?QueryText=escargot
I don’t know what, if anything, you read, but in communities on and states bordering Lake Michigan, one can scarcely go a week without seeing an article somewhere or other about the continuing dangers and problems caused by the zebra mussEL. Many people still care about it very much, as it continues to ruin forms of fishing and boating and causes millions of dollars annually in dealing with such things as water intakes and clogged filtration systems. It may be selection, but it is in a real sense unnatural, as it was imported (in the bellies of foreign ships) rather than arose as nature’s way of dealing with what was already there.
Since when is slaughtering snails un-American? How many times have snails slaughtered humans ??? COUNTLESS, albeit a little less conspicuous than chucking them on the hard concrete. Let me demonstrate but a partial list : Parasitic infection from undercooked escargots; Anaphylactic reactions; Sharp little shells left carelessly on coral for humans to trample on and get a nasty infection which can lead to the dreaded diagnosis of dead. There is a dirty little war going on here, and John is only defending himself , and Americans everywhere, even in Hawaii….EVEN ON VA-CA Rock on John
I hate it when I’m diagnosed with dead…