Three to get ready

Here's an interesting NY Times piece about how racial bias works, even when people aren't consciously aware of it.

While we're at it, it looks like WV's new Republican legislative majority wants to go after prevailing wages, i.e. lower wages for working West Virginians.  Here's a look at some of the misinformation behind that effort.

On the bright side, everything isn't bad in WV. Apparently, it's getting easier to catch 50 inch muskies in the state's rivers. Y'all can have my share of those.

Fishing for a compliment

I was all about to blog on some serious topic today, but first things first. It turns out that a young man from El Cabrero's small WV home town recently caught a state record-size blue catfish in the Ohio River. The leviathan in question measured 47.75 inches in length and weighed 52.95 pounds.

(When I was a kid, the old guys would have said that it took the water five minutes to fill in the hole that the fish came out of.)

((Also when I was a kid, the old guys would tell us stories about giant catfish lurking in the bottom of the Ohio and Kanawha. Who would have thought they were right? I mean, these are the same guys who told us stories about bottomless rivers, snipe hunting and haints...))

(((Come to think of it, I kind of miss the old guys.)))

The angler in question reveals a secret of fishing that I've long suspected: the key is not to try. He told the press he was only trying out some new gear on his boat and had no intention of catching anything.

I'm pleased to say that after being duly measured, the leviathan was released live. Click here to see the beast.

REPEAL RITUALISM. According to this NPR report, the energy behind repealing the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) seems to be fading.

ONE TO WATCH. More and more states, including WV, are trying to pass legislation that would create voluntary retirement accounts for workers without pensions. WV's bill passed the state House and one Senate committee before dying. We'll be back to push for it.

NO CLIMATE CHANGE HAPPENING HERE, BOSS. West Virginia's ruling class officially denies this.

CINCO DE MAYO. Here's some stereotype busting.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Since when was a marathon a sprint?

Even though the world is going to hell in a handbasket, I can't help but pause to note that Kenya's Geoffrey Mutai (birth certificate status unknown) ran the fastest marathon ever in Boston, with a time of 2 hours, two minutes and three seconds, almost a minute faster than the previous record.

It looks like it's only a matter of time before somebody breaks the two hour threshold.

I've done three marathons myself and usually it takes me about a week. Well, it seems like it anyway. I'm not sure I could go 26.2 that fast on a bicycle.

Maybe if it was all downhill...

THE FACTS ON TAXES can be found here.

DENY THIS. Here's something from the Washington Post on politically motivated climate change denial.

WHAT WE'RE MISSING OUT ON: a lot.

GOING FISHING, orangutan style. OK, so they use tools. But do they lie about the once that got away?

URGENT BUCKTOOTH DINOSAUR UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Fish tales

When I was a kid, I used to love fishing, although for some reason I lost the habit as I got older. I have several fond memories of times spent along river banks.

Once when I was pretty little, I took my Zebco reel out to what we called "the Mud River dam" (this was way before the real one was built in Lincoln County). It consisted of some rocks and metal that created a waterfall of something like two feet. It was huge at the time, however.

There was a sandbar below the "dam" that I chose for a fishing spot. After casting in the line, something took the bait and tore all along the river bottom. My heart pounded and I was sure I was about to land The Big One. I gradually reeled the monster in to the river bank.

It turned out to be a crawdad. There's probably a deep significance to that.

Anyway, one thing I remember as a kid were all the stories about giant monster catfish that were said to haunt the Ohio and Kanawha. It turns out that those stories were right. The high point of my weekend newspaper reading experience was this Gazette-Mail story about a Sissonville fisherman, Dustin Hagy, who caught a four foot long, 60 pound cat in Dunbar.

You've got to see the picture to believe it.

Congratulations to Hagy, who got it weighed and photographed before turning the beast loose once again, apparently none the worse for the wear.

Some get the big cats; some get the crawdads. That's life.

THE LONG WAY HOME. Here's a veteran's powerful first hand account of dealing with post-traumatic stress problems after returning from the war in Iraq.

ALMOST THERE on health care.

GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS. The recession may be officially over, but not the parts of it that hurt people. It's like being cured of a disease but having the symptoms linger and even get worse.

DEBUNKING THE DEBUNKERS on climate change, by way of Ken Ward's Coal Tattoo.

IF YOU WANNA GET TO HEAVEN, get in line.

URGENT MANTIS SHRIMP UPDATE here. The picture is worth a click.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED