Chicago Alderman Feasts on Asian Carp: Bottom Feeder Eats a Bottom Feeder

I just hate cannibalism like this when one bottom feeder eats another. West side Alderman Walter Burnett (27th Ward) joined the Fox News Chicago team to eat some Asian carp per his ridiculous suggestion early last week that “the poor” could eat the Asian carp and cure the problem that Lake Michigan faces over the invasive species.

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For those unaware of the trouble with the bony Asian carp, the fish has been rapidly invading Illinois waterways and is headed straight for Lake Michigan. The Asian carp has no natural predators here and scientists think that the fish will wildly over populate and drive out other, native species. But, Oh Alderman Burnett has the most ingenious solution. He says that “the poor” can eat them up and keep their population down. Yes. He’s serious. Chicago Aldermen, you see, do not get their jobs because they are too terribly smart and Burnett proves he does not rise above the average level of aldermanic genius. I mean, seriously. “The poor” will eat the carp and solve the problem? So, what… is City Hall going to supply each “poor” person with a nightcrawler and a fishin’ pole and a recipe for the bony, hard to cook, Asian carp? Or maybe Alderman Burnett will sponsor a new Chicago law that will require the Asian carp to march down to City Hall and surrender themselves to the cooking pots? What a child-like suggestion, Mr. Burnett. Really, they must screen all candidates for alderman by ascertaining if they rode the short bus to school in childhood! This is just like a Chicago Alderman. Lots of yammering and not one logical, common sense proposal. How does this fool think that the Asian carp are going to get to the “poor people” he wants to feed? Who is going to cook them? How are they going to be cooked? But, even if it made logical sense to have “poor people” eat the carp, the plain fact of the matter is that they couldn’t be caught fast enough and eaten quickly enough to stop them from over populating their environment. Scientists and fish and game folks are all worried that the Asian carp will destroy the Great Lakes and will forever change the ecosystem of these great waters. Me, I’m not so worried. Already the eco system of the Great Lakes has been changed several times over. That is the nature of, well, nature. Despite the gauzy ideas of the “pristine nature” of any particular region promulgated by tree huggers and enviro nuts, environments change all the time due to so-called invasive species. There isn’t a spot on earth that is “just like it always was.” Trees die, species die, fauna changes, new animals take over the territory of other species… it’s how nature works. So, if the Asian carp “takes over” the Great Lakes it’ll be just another of the millions of changes that have likely happened in the Great Lakes over the centuries. It is what it is and Alderman Walter Burnett is not enough of a genius to stop it.