Give A Man A Fish? I Don't Think So!

Fishing is a lazy man's sport, which is precisely why it always appealed to me.  It still does, except now, in my eighth decade, I'm too lazy to participate.  Granted, it is, like boating, one of the very few sit-down, drinking sports but, still, it seems like too much work at my age.  What's that old saying?  "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day."  I say, don't give a man a fish and you feed yourself.  He's a grown man, fishing is easy and so is going to Whole Foods.  He should take care of himself and quit bothering you.  Pass the tartar sauce, please.

"Ahm a thinkin' 'bout catchin' me a big ol' bass."

Recently I learned that fishing has graduated to the pantheon of lazy endeavors thanks to those happy drunks in Australia.  Apparently, in an effort to not interfere with their drinking hand, some wastrel decided that it was far easier and more effective to have a drone carry the fishing line from your reel to a target beyond the range of a typical inebriate's cast.  The drone, whining and looking like a large tasty insect, hauls line and lure via remote control to where the lunkers lie.  Once the desired location is reached and assuming you haven't miscalculated and run out of line, the lure is dropped and the drone idles above the water.  As it is with all new inventions, there are still some kinks to be worked out of this clever way of snagging finny prey.  There have been several instances of fish hitting the lure hard enough to drag a $1000 drone to a watery grave.  Also, depending on how hungry and large the fish is, a drone can be mistaken for a delicious winged insect snack and be consumed as an hors d' oeuvre, never in his wildest nightmares, envisioned by Sir Isac Walton.  So much for 21st Century fishing.  It may be best for the truly indolent and impecunious to stick to a cane pole and worms, though word has it that the drone thing has really caught on in Florida. (Natch)

In other news...
It distresses me to report that today singer (???) Bjork turned 54 years old.  That means she could, quite possibly,  be inflicting her crimes against the musical world and us for another thirty or forty years.  Oh, the humanity!!

On a happier note:  Bei Bei, the giant 4-year-old panda has left our National Zoo where he has been on loan from China.  He will be returning to his homeland where he'll enter a government-run breeding program.  It seems to this reporter that a similar program for retired geezers in this country might be worth exploring.  The line forms over here.