Monday, January 03, 2005

Who You Gonna Call?

From today's Boston Herald, a story on the recent tragedy that took the lives of five local fishermen:

The families of five fishermen lost at sea memorialized them at a service in New Bedford yesterday and asked Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank for help changing regulations they say force fishermen to stay at sea in bad weather.


Well, he IS an expert at hightailing it back to shore.

New Bedford Mayor Frederick M. Kalisz Jr. said he will travel to Washington Thursday to meet with William Hogarth of the National Marine Fisheries Service for clarification of current fishing regulations that he said can penalize fishermen up to 3,000 pounds of their allowable catch if they cut off a trip.


OK, I'm going to plead "total lack of knowledge or expertise" here. Maybe some of my readers could explain the logic (or lack thereof) that went into this. It does appear that the mayor of New Bedford is taking the more sensible approach to the problem. I mean, is Teddy Kennedy the person you want to be calling on for help in reducing or eliminating potentially harmful, and seemingly illogical, government regulations? Come on, he lives for that shit!

Seeing as it's too early in the morning to come up with a witty analogy here to close the post, feel free to leave your two cents worth of closing thoughts in the comments.