Shame, shame shame

Those of you that have been following my blog are aware that my boss is running for the NC House of Representatives.  And as I have been helping him in that effort there has been absolutely no time available to wet a line and precious little time to devote to my artwork.  Virtually every waking moment has been spent on politics and I've just about had enough of it.  What a dirty enterprise it is.

I remember the days when individuals considering a run for elected office were fearful of the skeletons in their closets.  I’m sure that that fear eliminated many potential candidates, and for some of them that was probably a good thing.  I long for those days when a youthful indiscretion or a period of financial hardship was all that potential candidates had to fear.  Times have changed.

Today’s candidates must fear much more.  They must fear the lies that are told; the total fabrications and half truths that are pulled out of context from anything they have written or spoken in the past.  All of us have seen this total disregard for the truth on display at the national level, but now it has reached the state and even local level.

The "win at all costs" philosophy has become the norm and it makes one wonder why anyone, no matter how noble their motives, would ever submit themselves to this stuff.  On Tuesday night, November the 2nd, I'm going to take a very long shower.

Casting For Recovery

 

Here's the finished illustration for Casting for Recovery

Pssst...Hey buddy, wanna buy a trout?

With the street value of powdered and rock trout reaching astronomical levels, it is no surprise that trout farms are being targeted by enterprising thieves. According to the October 2nd Asheville Citizen Times, “A brazen thief or thieves broke into Sunburst Trout Farm in Canton and stole 600 pounds of fish. Farm owner Sally Eason said she and her husband saw some fish entrails near one of the trout ponds Wednesday. The guts were out of place, but neither of them investigated.On Thursday, they went to harvest the pond.
“There should have been around 600 pounds in the (pond), and there was virtually none,” Eason said. She thinks the theft probably occurred Tuesday.

The abduction was well-planned. Eason figures a truck was used to commandeer the large quantity of fish, but that required getting into the facility, which is fenced. The gate showed no sign of forced entry and the lock was not damaged.

“How they got them out is beyond us,” Eason said.

With increasing regularity, on my visits to local streams I have found the same situation. A beautiful stretch of water...a clear fall day, and stretches of water that in the past have been quite productive. What else could explain my having gone fishless? They too, must have been abducted.

Try as I might, there is no other explanation. I have good if not great tackle, a fine assortment of flies and over fifty years of experience. Yet no fish to show for my efforts. I’m left to believe that the miscreants responsible for the theft at Sunburst have depleted our local waters and have lowered their standards and begun to target farm raised trout to meet the burgeoning demand.

It couldn't be anything else.