IS A BUTTERFLY A FISH?

As I established in my last column, we don’t have to worry about an uprising of fish, because, not only do we have a fully trained military to protect us, we also have all those licensed fishermen who can bait a hook without injuring anyone except maybe their own thumbs.

 A license ensures that a person is not only competent, but has been trained, and has passed a test to do something complex such as driving a car. When misused, an automobile can be classified as a deadly weapon.

 So, why do 41 states require make-up artists, who work in spas and salons, to have licenses, and gun owners do not?  I think it’s because applying makeup can be very dangerous, especially when the make-up artist pulls the trigger on his high-capacity foundation spritzer, and a woman’s smile turns into a smirk.

Unarmed security guards are licensed in 32 states. North Dakota even requires them to have 1000 hours of experience before becoming eligible to walk around and check the doors. Who needs guns when you’ve got snowballs?  Lots of folks need licenses to do a variety of things. In Louisiana a person needs to pass an exam for a floristry license, because that will assure people that you’ve been well-trained and will not put Poison Ivy into a wedding bouquet.

And then, there’s the marriage license. Some people want to control who should be allowed to marry the person they love, but those people don’t care if the prospective father-in-law   brings an assault  rifle to the wedding. However, I do admit that buckshot is hard to control.

I am not sure that sex is more dangerous than an AK-77, but a lot of it has to be licensed. Whether you have a strip club, nude dancers, a store loaded with sex toys (not motorcycles), adult books, videos or sex films the owners have to go through stringent licensing requirements.

In Florida, minors are protected by laws that they cannot be involved in sex films. That is certainly vital!  All children should be protected from the monster who carries an assault camera loaded with film!

By the way, if a person doesn’t have a  license for all of these things, he’d better hire an attorney who does, because if you have a license and you break the law, you are in big doo-doo.

So, to end this perplexing tale, Time Magazine (June, 2022) informs us that the District Court of Appeals in California made a ruling on May 31st that, “Bumblebees can indeed be classified as fish for the purposes of being protected by the California Endangered Species Act.” Consequently, if you want catch a fish, get a license and buy a butterfly net.

Esther Blumenfeld