Letters to the editor July 31

River regulations

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks should help the trout in the Flathead during this drought, but hoot-owl restrictions are only a temporary fix.

They don’t address the long-term health and quality of the fishery, which, compared to its pre-settlement condition, is deplorable. FWP should begin restoring the fishery by closing trout fishing upstream of the Old Steel Bridge, and keep it closed until the 10-pound bulls and 5-pound cutthroats of the past are common again.

Subsistence fishermen shouldn’t mind a closure, since they’d rather catch something larger than 6-inch trout. Catch-and-release fishermen may think they should be exempted, but they do stress fish, and kill some inadvertently. They discount this loss as negligible, but how much loss can the fishery withstand, especially as fishing pressure continually increases?

Short of enacting a permanent fishing closure, FWP should require trout fishermen to use hookless flies. A hungry trout will bite a fly whether it’s tied on a hook or not, but he’ll drop it when he tires of fighting the line. So instead of being handled (or mis-handled), the fish swims back to his hole and waits for another bug, while the fisherman still gets to pursue his hobby of playing with his gear and pestering fish, without hurting them.

There’s no need to hook and traumatize sensitive fish like cutthroats when we have hardier, invasive species like bass, pike, sunfish and perch that should be caught, killed (or released, if you really want to punish them for being here), and eaten.

— Bob Love, Columbia Falls

Affirmative action

It is time for affirmative action to be tossed on the ash heap of long outdated travesties of justice. Perhaps 50 years ago there was some justification for advantaging one race over all others, but surely that ship has sailed. Racism is racism whether aimed at Blacks or at all other races while favoring Blacks.

Although AI and ultrafast computers may replace much of the thinking in everyday medical practice, I don’t care what color my doctor’s and especially my surgeon’s skin is as long as they achieved their position due to accomplishment rather than skin color.

I am astounded at the medical community blaming all health issues in the Black community on racism in medical school admissions and racist medical practice rather than tackling the real causes . . . poverty, single parent households, poor quality of urban public education and lack of support for school choice, urban crime and violence, etc.

Progressive politics and policies have no place in medical school admissions. I applaud the use of some subjective criteria such as community service as a reflection of commitment and work ethic in addition to scholastics in gaining admission, but skin color has no place as a major factor in medical school admission.

In medicine as in all endeavors let’s fight to select the very best and brightest, not because they have a particular skin color, but because they are the most qualified person for the job. You may prefer to see a person of color in the captain’s seat when you board a commercial flight, but I prefer to see the pilot who is capable of landing the airplane safely in the Hudson River when the engines fail and allowing all on board to survive unharmed regardless of skin color.

— David Myerowitz, Columbia Falls

Rebate checks

The MAGA crowd has told us that when the federal government sends out extra checks to taxpayers it ushers in crushing inflation, puts the economy in a shambles and may be a harbinger of End Times.

Those same folks will tell you that when Montana sends out an extra check to taxpayers, it’s a happy little “well-deserved tax rebate.” If they are wrong, then we should expect to see “Thank you, Gianforte” scrawled on our gas pumps. If the economy wasn’t in such a shambles, he might have risked sending out even larger checks.

As for hastening End Times, if anyone is flirting with that, it’s climate deniers.

— Fred Larsen, Lakeside