
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 17, 1995                   TAG: 9505170032
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BEETLE WILL SURVIVE SOMEHOW

I suppose most people would think it's good news that science has invented a potato that kills any Colorado potato beetle that comes near it.

Personally, I wonder and worry about things like that.

I'm not a scientist, but I think it's a very good bet that the Colorado potato beetles, who probably aren't dumb, will realize they're being wasted in great numbers and will merely do a little mutating.

You know how that goes. A couple of years from now we have the Colorado asparagus beetle. Or the Colorado radish beetle.

I don't think, however, that there is any chance that we will get lucky and watch the Colorado broccoli beetle kill the entire annual crop of this vegetable that is very good for us.

If such a beetle appeared, mothers and dieticians who hate fat and fried stuff would demand a crash program to develop a broccoli that killed its own beetles.

The Associated Press said they fooled around with the genes in this germ in the soil to make the killer potato.

I really hate it when somebody fools around with genes. We could ask a lot of questions.

What if this meddling with good old Bacillus thuringiensis does something that nobody understands and the beetle-less potato starts thinking it's a cantaloupe and proceeds to taste like one?

I have enough trouble with broccoli. I couldn't stand mashed cantaloupes with my oven-baked chicken.

Scientists say this murderous potato won't have anything in it to hurt birds, humans, your old dog Tray or nice insects.

Yeah. Sure.

Farmer Jones sits down to Sunday dinner, throws a big dollop of mashed potatoes on his plate; whomps on a quarter pound of country butter; two tablespoons of salt, and is a dead man long before the North 40 needs plowing again.

Nutritionists, mothers and my own wife will say that Farmer Jones did himself in with all that butter and salt. But you and I know better.

As the result of genetic tampering, something happened deep down in those particular potatoes and they killed Farmer Jones because its genes told them farmers are bad guys.

If that isn't the truth, please explain why any number of lawyers ate dollops of buttered and salted, and normal, mashed potatoes right along with Farmer Jones and lived on as the butts of cruel jokes for years.

I have to go now. Thinking of all that country butter on mashed potatoes has made me quite emotional.

by CNB