From: groucho!thinh@uu.psi.com (Thinh N. Nguyen)
Subject: [JOKE] Medflies and salmons.
Originator: daemon@media-lab.media.mit.edu
Reply-To: groucho!thinh@uu.psi.com
Organization: SCV Relay
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 05:21:11 GMT

Phie^'m lua^.n: LIFE IN THE US. PART II


Hi netters:


This weekend, I was cleaning up the apartment. Box the old newspapers for recylcing
and I saw an article on the Aug 19/92 San Francisco Chronical that caught my eyes:

"First Batch of Sterile Medflies Released in South San Jose" 

"State agricultural officials started releasing the first of millions of sterile 
Mediterranean fruit flies in south San Jose yesterday with the hope of interrupting
the breeding cycle of the harmful pests."

"The sterile flies, dyed a fluorescent pink to distinguish them from healthy Medflies,
are expected to mate with fertile flies causing them to produce sterile 
eggs, .....Officials said they plan to release about 30 million sterile 
flies each week until December."

This explains all the pink stuff I've been seeing in my pho+? laterly. I cannot 
tell the different between a med-fly and a honey bee so it's very hard for 
me to imagine this stuff really happened in my backyard.

About the vasectomies that they did to 650 million flies in a government lab 
somewhere in Hawaii. I don't know how they do it but I hope they use 
enough local anesthetic on these poor flies. I couldn't find any good book 
to learn more about Medfly's reproductive systems but my guess is 
that they are extremely small. We are talking about a few micro-meters off 
and "good night Irene!"

Just imagine there were a few openly heterosexual Medflies who are looking for love 
in all the wrong trash cans in the Bay Area when it happened. With compliment 
from the US government there are 650 million well tanned flies from Hawaii. With leis 
in their necks and Kamehameha drinks in their legs and no place to stay, these 
flies come to look for a good time. Dressed in Fluorescent pink, they will fit 
right in with the Bay Area party animals. And everything is already fixed. I 
mean, like, you ain't gona knock nobody up or nothin'. You may say: 
How about deseases? A fly ussually have a life expectancy of a few weeks. 
What kind of deseases are you talking about?
 
That is not all, listen to this from the same article: "...Many of the male
flies being released have been selected for their sexual aggressiveness ..."
We are talking about real studs and lady-killers here. Just imagine all 
the parties and good times all these flies were having and we, the taxpayers, 
foot the bill. 

How can we explain story like this to our friends and relative in VN? If they
believe me, I will quit my job to sell "agent orange" to them as fertilizers. 
What kind of government, in their right mind, would finance such an operation. 
Talking about "family value"! 

If the government have the money for this kind of project, I have a proposal. 
Let's do a "romatic night for the salmons". These poor fishes usually swim 
upstream from the ocean to the mountain while avoid being smoked by human 
or eaten alive by other predators to mate once in they life and die. They 
don't even have time for a cigarete afterward. I say we should truck all 
of them safely to a nice quiet stream where the water is clean, put 
Mozart on the CD player, light some candles and let them have fun. I 
think they deserve it more than the flies do. What do you think?

I have a few questions about the salmons. Was it THAT good for them? How do 
they know? What about those salmon that didn't go upstream during mating 
season? Have we ever caught any salmon in the ocean swimming around saying: 
"Hell, it's too much troubles. I'll just take a cold shower tonight."? May 
be we can ask those guys in Hawaii to do a study on this.

bye,
Thi.nh n. Nguye^~n