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 Copyright ©2003-2008 Anthony Canales |
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 Anthony Canales is the President of the San Fernando Valley NRA Member’s Council. He works as a Quality Control Manager in Glendale, California. He is married with one son. The opinions expressed in 'News Briefs' belong soley to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Rifle Association of America or the NRA Members' Councils of California. |
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03-20-2008
12-31-2007 |
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November 24, 2004
"...Noah enters into the scene, and begins
working in his garden.
God: ' Noah!'
Noah: (Looking up) ' Is someone calling
me?'
(After a moment, shrugs and goes
back to work.).
God: ' NOAH! '
Noah: ' Who is that? '
God: ' It's the Lord, Noah. '
Noah: ' Riggghhhhttttt......"
-Partial lines from the famous
comedy skit by Bill Cosby,
"Noah, Right"
To All,
Perhaps everyone should be forewarned- Make
sure that one accepts no substitutes before one follows the call to preserve all
the animals in the world:
Hunting The Perfect Beast (Or, How
Long Can You Tread Water?):
Recent coverage in the press calls one's
attention to yet another by-product of the almost absolute penetration by
certain Left Wing "Forces of Darkness" into prominent organizations
nationwide- the capture of the leadership of various respected groups by those
with the goal of following a "Progressive" world view.
For example, several Mainline Protestant
denominations, such as the Presbyterian Church-USA, have been waging a
well- publicized war on firearms rights. But they have also forcefully
opposed the Bush Administration's foreign policy as
related to the UN, the right of Israel to exist as a state guaranteed by a UN
vote, and whether or not the current Iraqi conflict is an "illegal war"
(thus
implying that all participating American military forces "war criminals".).
Likewise such sympathies can been seen in the
Legacy Media. Since Election Day 2004 the near unanimity of the panic, over
the fact that Team Bush swamped Kerry with a ground game not seen since Vince
Lombardi, has been a sight to behold (It is not often when one gets to see so many
barrels of ink turned into sour grapes, nor so many pixels turned into tears
of rage and denial.).
It also may be said that, for the first (and
only) time Algore has been right when he talked about playing on the fears of
various Liberals. After all, their greatest fears are that of being out of
power and that they are not taken seriously for their policies and
philosophies.
But perhaps amongst the most vituperative of
groups who lost big on Election Day 2004 is the environmental movement, whose
success at penetrating sportsman's groups is now apparently affected by their
being in the distinct minority.
As has been covered in such magazines as
"America's First Freedom" (pro-Second Amendment, conservationist in
orientation) to "Field and Stream" (apparently not so pro-Second
Amendment, and leaning preservationist alongside the Humane Society/Friends
for Animals cabal and some fellow-travelers over at the Outdoor Writers Association of
America), the effort over whether sportsmen and sportswomen can be "lead
astray" by the siren song of false praise by Preservationist/Restorationist
acolytes has been outed by none other than Kayne Robinson, President of the
NRA.
Earlier this year, at an Outdoor Writer's
Association of America meeting, Robinson brought to the attention of those
assembled that the presence of the Sierra Club was ultimately a "bad thing".
That is because they were busy "trashing" pro-gun and pro-hunting members of
the Congress such as Larry Craig, Max Baucus, Don Young and others who are trying to
preserve hunting access for the 'little people". But these same members get
short-shrift from the Greenies because they also would open up national forest
areas to roads (Something to do with the thinning of timber, in an attempt to
reduce the potential for fires. Just ask Duncan Hunter.), among other things.
As a side benefit, said roads would
make National Forest access to the disabled more possible towards the goal of
opening up wilderness access to those disabled Americans currently limited
from large swathes of public land. Lastly, timber thinning may help limit
future outbreaks of pine beetles and other tree diseases, something of which
has adversely impacted forest health, game populations, and scenic vistas over
too many acres across the western states.
Readers are also reminded, of
course, of the
well-documented position of the Humane Society (who still opposes any form of
sport hunting) as well as the "weasel words" that substitute as an acceptable
policy over at the Sierra Club's own website. A review of said policy would
reveal the following:
"...Sierra Club's Policy On Sport Hunting
& Fishing:
Wildlife and Native Plant Management,
Sport Hunting And
Fishing- Wildlife and native plant
management should
emphasize maintenance and restoration of
healthy, viable
native plant and animal populations,
their habitats, and
ecological processes. Acceptable
management approaches
include both regulated periodic
(boldface inserted) hunting
and fishing when based on sufficiently
scientifically valid
biological data and when consistent with
all other management
purposes and when necessary total
protection of particular
species or populations. Because national
parks are set aside
for the preservation of natural
landscapes and wildlife, the
Sierra Club is opposed to sport hunting
in national parks..."
Given past experiences with the
Preservationist/Restorationist Movement here in California, one only has to
look at the access restrictions, the closed guzzlers, and the extermination of
non-native species (trout in the Sierras, the trapping out of chukar in parts
of the
High Desert) to see the true inclinations of the environmental movement. A
close parsing of the above policy statement puts hunting access subservient to
absolute compatibility with other preservationist/restorationist policies. In
other words, if given their way, any accommodation of the Sierra Club's policy
would require the ecological equivalent of hitting the California Lotto (1:
25,000,000 chance).
If environmentalists were to
have their way, pheasant, chukar, and hungarian
partridge hunters (especially in the Mid West) could see their sports
disappear if preservation/restorationist goals become the absolute law of the
land. All of these birds were "imported" from outside the United States, and
thus conflict with the policies on native species.
Likewise deer hunters would face their relegation to third string, after deer populations would be "reserved" for predator restoration programs and the general theory of population balance to match certain hypothesized criteria of carrying capacity of the lands involved. In other words, "periodic" would mean that deer hunting would only be allowed when wildlife biologists would certify, after the appropriate public comment period, that the deer populations that do well enough over the spring and summer to justify a hunt to "cull" populations of any deer excess beyond the needs of restored predators.
The chances of this
happening for a majority of the deer areas nationwide would be, for all
intents and purposes, almost nil.
What is more, if the wild stream "trout
access" story is any indication, there is a suspicion that only a privileged
few would have a chance to continue the hunting tradition until such time as
the United States "imitates" Great Britain and bans hunting altogether.
Whether this may be a reason for some sportspersons to make common cause
with anti-hunting groups, and at the expense of their fellow sportspersons,
remains to be established.
Now, this is not to say that sportspersons are not concerned for the environment. Where there are no game species, nor game habitat, there is no hunting or fishing to speak of. Sportspersons could logically question coal industry practices, in Eastern Montana, for example, where it would appear that mine owners could afford to fill in currently inactive open pits with the material from adjacent tailings mounds. But the conditions around such towns as Colstrip, Montana have not stood in the way of the existence of good populations of Boone and Crockett-class mule deer, pronghorn antelope, and even migratory rest stops for large populations of ducks and geese.
But it would also seem that the preservationist/restorationist crowd would give no credit to those mine operations that are currently engaged in remediation efforts, such as the planting over of land parcels previously denuded by mine activity.
Likewise, the controversy over shutting down forests to logging deserves a review. The public has a right to get the best deal, from a revenue and environmental "footprint" standpoint, when it comes to national forest timber. On the other hand, the lumber companies have no incentive to provide those roads that allow for disabled access, fire-control access, and the type of thinning needed to keep endangered plant and animal species free of the threat of uncontrollable wildfires if the rules to remove timber are such that it is more cost effective to import the lumber from Mexico and Chile.
What is crystal clear, though, is that the near-immediate cessation of economic activities as called for by the various environmental groups would have a transcendentally adverse impact on the economic status of all citizens. In addition, the loss of gross domestic product would reduce the near term availability of profits that could be put back into protecting the environment in the first place.
In other words, the nation's economic golden goose would be plucked, dressed, and thoroughly cooked. And with that would be the movement to maintain the environment.
It will be interesting to see how the movement to turn sportspersons against their own interests will ultimately turn out. Choices will have to be made, and allies in this newest front on the war to preserve firearms rights and outdoor traditions will have to be carefully chosen. If the majority follow the example of the likes of Jim Zumbo, Tom Gresham, Remington Firearms, and Leupold & Stevens, then perhaps the American Hunting Tradition will be preserved. But if the few end up successful in "selling out" the many, then a serious blow will be dealt to the effort to preserve the Second Amendment. And that in itself cannot be allowed to happen.
Story basis may be found at: http://www.sierraclub.org/huntingfishing/
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/199609/allies.asp
http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/columnists/
http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/columnists/
OWAA Boardmember Holly Endersby belongs to the following group, which affiliates with such anti-hunting groups as the
Animal Protection Institute and The Humane Society/Fund For Animals-
http://www.madelk.org/Table%20of%20Contents/
OWAA Boardmember Tony Dean had been a speaker at at Sportsmen for Kerry events last October, possibly indicating his political and philosophical world view
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/
OWAA Boardmember Peter Schroeder, apparent nuclear scientist, has been a previous speaker to outdoor writer associations where his specialty is getting complimentary travel, room and board by writing outdoor stories lauding the providers of those various services. A Sierra Club writer-apprentice noted his suggestions in the following:
T.M.B.J. (Thar' May Be Justice): Aficionadoes of the New York Times have, of late, been treated to a number of "oopsey-daisies" in the form of bad reporting, false reporting, made-up reporting, and biased reporting. In fact, it has gotten so bad that reporters and even editors have been forced to hit the bricks.
Likewise, observers of the Black Eye Network have been treated to the spectacle of Dan Rather taking out the entire credibility (such as it was) of the CBS News Division over the 60 Minutes II attempt to pass off forged Bush-Texas Air National Guard documents as the real thing. As of yesterday, comeuppance was exhibited with the announcement that Rather was ceding his position as anchor for "The Evening News", though not until March of 2005.
Even talk radio has it's "Artest" Award, where the radio host with the largest mouth and most rude comment is forced to "apologize" to the public at large. In this case, one is referred to to WTDY-AM (Madison, WI) host John Sylvester, who unfortunately referred to Secretary of State Designate Condoleeza Rice as "Aunt Jemima" (Careful there Sly, Condi knows football- she purportedly wants to be President of the NFL- and she probably has a whole passel of NFL linebackers who would just love to show you how long they could do a "sack dance" on your pointy little head).
But, until now, it has been a rare thing for a public health service to "turn and cough" on the issue of possible mis-reporting. In this case, Betsy McKay reported yesterday in the print edition of the Wall Street Journal about the discovery by the Journal that a seminal report on mortality rates due to obesity was in serious error.
The short version is the report, co-authored by CDC Director Julie Gerberding no less, apparently over-reported the number of deaths attributed to obesity. The original numbers showed a serious increase in the rate of obesity-related deaths from 1990 to 2000, where tobacco was being overtaken as a major cause of death. But analysis by the Wall Street Journal indicates that 80,000 of the 85,000 increase in deaths, declared by the CDC report to be due to obesity, were in error. Apparently mathematical errors are to blame, though one of such relative magnitude is a bit hard to imagine to have come from a competent staff.
Now, it is certain that the statistics junkies among the firearms rights community are all a-twitter about this latest boo-boo. What is more, the Journal is reporting that the CDC is reportedly preparing an erratum (a correction, otherwise known in the business as a "...never mind...") for release to the Journal of the American Medical Association upon conclusion of an internal investigation. Maybe even John Lott is, as of the writing of this post, crunching the midnight regression analysis in an effort to beat the CDC bureaucrats to the punch(line). Still, it will suffice for now that a public health sector so dedicated of late to disarm or otherwise deprive gun owners of tried and true (from a personal self defense standpoint) firearms designs is having to go back to the drawing board on it's methods. And if this incident eventually forces the CDC to be a little more "fair and balanced" in it's approach, forever rejecting the "one-tailed" methodology of a university system in thrall to the politically correct, then once again an unintended consequence has turned out to be for the benefit of the firearms rights movement.
Some story elements can be found at:
Respectfully,
Anthony Canales SFVMC-NRA
Copyright 2004 Anthony Canales All rights reserved. |
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