Program date:  Sunday morning, PDT, August 05, 2001

You asked for feedback on this morning's program, so here's some.  Like
most of my fellow conservatives, you have the wrong take on the Klamath
Falls business.

Until 1905, much of the Klamath Basin was a swamp.  (Swamps in the
Pacific Northwest are also known as "watersheds.")  Before the Bureau of
Reclamation "reclaimed" it for agriculture, at a cost of many millions
of taxpayer dollars, it was a system that generated wonderful salmon
runs.

Salmon are fish.  When people catch them, money is made.  When the
salmon are gone from a watershed and its river systems, the salmon
fishing business is gone from the ports at the end of those rivers.  Why
in the world would you people, supposedly conservatives, support a
government subsidized business that totally destroys a perfectly viable
non-government-subsidized business?  Are you conservatives or aren't
you?

The question isn't "are fish more important than people."  It's "are
subsidized agricultural jobs more important than non-subsidized fishing
industry jobs?"

I am the editorial director of Oregon Magazine and a conservative who
believes in principles, not bumper sticker slogans.  If you wish to keep
my respect, you will begin to research these questions rather than
responding with knee-jerk reactions like a pack of flaming liberals.  I
love Rush, and Ollie is a personal friend, but they're all wrong on this
one, as are you.

Frankly, I'm going to write an editorial about this, and you folks
aren't going to come out looking very good.

Larry Leonard
Oregon Magazine