It’s been a tough week. Let’s take a break and discuss the catfish inspection program.

There was a time when I had no strong feelings about this subject, but that was before the 2012 election, when we learned that Representative Paul Ryan’s favorite sport was “noodling,” which involves walking along the river and grabbing catfish by their throats. “You get your hand inside the fish, so they kind of, they come up on your hand,” the soon-to-be-vice-presidential candidate told The Times. “Then you just squeeze wherever you are on that fish and pull it out. I know it sounds a little crazy, but it’s really exhilarating.”

Don’t you miss that election? Back then, we had Mitt Romney’s dog on the car roof. Now we have Barack Obama’s website on the fritz.

Anyway, catfish have seemed a lot more interesting since then. And they’re currently a big issue in Congress, where the House and Senate are trying to put together a joint farm bill. It is very important that they get this done, because otherwise, at the end of the year, the country will revert to Depression-era agriculture laws and we all fall over the dairy cliff. I am not saying another word about this because I know you’re suffering from cliff fatigue. Just don’t plan for any events in early 2014 that involve purchasing a lot of ice cream.

One of the differences between the House and Senate versions of the farm bill involves a special catfish inspection office in the Agriculture Department, which Congress created in 2008. The office, which is supposed to check imported catfish to make sure they’re safe to eat, has yet to start up, although it’s already cost us $20 million.