To the Editor:

Goffstown residents are reporting that fishing in Glen is pretty good this year. Bass, trout and the usual lake fish are being caught, much to the pleasure of most anglers, both on docks and boats.

There are also the strange sightings of a few dorsal fins that have already been reported (see "There Must be an Election Coming Soon"). 

There is another strange anomaly occurring in Glen Lake. There is another fish specie that seems to accompany the political sharks and is currently being caught in Glen Lake -- red herring. This is an interesting type of fish that shows up at some strange times for some strange reasons.

Red herring are mostly a cheap “trash fish” and are used to bait lobster traps. They are also used in merry-old England to train the foxhounds to catch foxes.

When the foxhounds are being trained to follow the fox scent, the dead red herring (being a really stinky fish when dead) are dragged across the fox scent trail to distract the foxhounds from the fox scent. Eventually the successful foxhounds learn to ignore the red herring scent in order to follow the right scent trail to catch Mr. (or Ms.) fox. This successful foxhound training technique has found its way into the English language as a very commonly used metaphor.

In the good-ole US of A, the expression “that is a red herring” has to come to mean anything that is political spin, distraction, smoke screen or anything else that is intended to lead people onto the “wrong trail.” And there are plenty of “red herrings” to be caught during the political season.

One of the favorite “red herring” that politicians use are various “hot button” issues. These include, and aren’t limited to, gay rights, women’s rights, race/religious issues and various metaphorical wars on poverty, drugs, terrorism and etc. “Special interest” groups all try to insert these issues into political discussions to forward their agenda, but they can be a distraction from more important issues.

Shouldn’t a government really be addressing the massive issues that require collective agreement?

The graphic below shows such a problem that is confronting all US citizens:

According to Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “National Debt Is Our Biggest Security Threat.” (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/24/adm-mike-mullen-national_n_624096.html).

Has anyone heard politicians actually describe what they would do to reduce debt? Would they do it?

What would an honest conservative “government of the people” (GOP?) do to reduce total credit market debt? Shrink the size of government? Become non-interventionist? Become pro-personal liberties? Reduce taxes (including the stealth taxes such as inflation?) Seriously reduce spending?

Another “red herring” is the attempt to pass S.510, a bill to supposedly help with food safety (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHUeyD_KCrI). 
The bill actually, intentionally or not, will almost crush small healthy farms without safety issues.

Some of the older, smarter fish in Glen Lake have learned to “clean the bait off the line” without getting “hooked.” That may be a good skill for the rest of us to learn during this political season.

I just thought that you had a “Right to Know (R2K).

Ivan Beliveau
Goffstown