Stump Lane
in the dirt since history began

Milbridge Days

it escalated into
a pushing contest
and just kind of
kept going

it blossomed again
on a side street

and in the middle
of the Cod Fish Races
it really got
a little out of hand

Yes, a drunken brawl and general disorder at the Milbridge Days’ Cod Fish Races Saturday. If you were wondering what cod fish races are:

The races are held in a baseball field on a 90-foot course. Each team consists of four people who must dress in four pieces of firemen’s gear and then run across the field clenching a greased, dead, 20-pound cod. About midtrack, firemen spray a stream of water from their hoses through the running codfish-wielding racers who try to dodge the dousing. [Bangor Daily News]

But it’s not the regimented wackiness of cod fish racing; it’s the disorderly break from civil Norms that festival is all about:

The ancient concepts of jubilee and saturnalia originate in an intuition that certain events lie outside the scope of “profane time,” the measuring-rod of the State and of History. These holidays literally occupied gaps in the calendar–intercalary intervals. By the Middle Ages, nearly a third of the year was given over to holidays. Perhaps the riots against calendar reform had less to do with the “eleven lost days” than with a sense that imperial science was conspiring to close up these gaps in the calendar where the people’s freedoms had accumulated–a coup d’etat, a mapping of the year, a seizure of time itself, turning the organic cosmos into a clockwork universe. The death of the festival. [Hakim Bey]

Punching someone in the face because one thinks they deserve it, may not be the most creative use of one’s freedom, but fuck, it’s more autonomy than I exercised this weekend. I’m such a tool, all I did was walk out the in door a couple times, and nervously set the cruise control at 9 mph over on the highway, (and even then, I reflexively touched the brakes when I saw a state trooper up ahead.)

IT IS NOT TRUE that business owners/investors/stock holders take all the risk in capitalist endeavors. Workers take on risk. Labor and time are investments. Even when a wage has been agreed to and paid in return.

Case in point:

The IUE-CWA, United Steelworkers (USW) and the Operating Engineers (IUOE) plan to appeal a bankruptcy judge’s approval late last week of a plan to allow the new GM, which now is owned primarily by the taxpayers, to take away health coverage from 55,000 retirees at some GM and GM Delphi plants. [AFL-CIO]

Just as standardized test scores are a piss poor method of assigning a value to young people, “net worth,” is a piss poor way to evaluate a person’s net worth. When conferring esteem based on monetary measures, one ends up rewarding the willingness to engage in exploitation.

Much ado in the Blargosphere about this today. There are a lot of theories floating around as to the story behind this picture.

I called newly minted Democrat, and former Warren Commission staffer, Arlen Specter’s office for a statement. Specter offers the most compelling explanation I have seen.

The Single Look Theory:

1. French President Nicolas Sarkozy looks at something,
2. causing President Obama to look down
3. at a white sneaker,
4. the nosing of a concrete stair,
5. a young delegate’s hand,
6. and something else.

Well, assessing the legacy … It seems to me one things which we should be thinking about, is that [Vietnam war architect, Robert] McNamara represented all of those superficial qualities of brightness and intelligence and education that are so revered in our culture. This whole idea that you judge young kids today on the basis of what their test scores are, how smart they are, how much information they can digest, how much they can give back to you and remember. That’s what MacNamara was good at. He was bright and he was smart, but he had no moral intelligence. What strikes me as one of the many things we can learn from this McNamara experience is that we’ve got to stop revering these superficial qualities of brightness and smartness, and bring up a generation which thinks in moral terms, which has moral intelligence, and which asks questions not, “Do we win or do we lose?” Asks questions, “Is this right? Is it wrong?” [Howard Zinn]

Remember Ward Churchill? The marginalized and discredited college professor, who when asked what it would take to motivate people to stand up in protest of the Iraq war, replied:

I don’t have a ready answer for that. One of the things I’ve suggested is that it may be that more 9/11s are necessary.

The FOX News analog for marginalized and discredited college professor Ward Churchill, is former CIA Bin Laden Chief Michael Scheuer, who when asked what it will take to motivate people to stand up in protest of illegal immigration, replied:

The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.

The pwogs are beside themselves. This fellow dares us to, “Imagine what would happen if someone on the left had said this.” Ward Churchill would prolly tell ya.

MADE THE MORNING commute for the first time today. It has rained every work day since I got serious about trying this. And despite a forecast calling for showers this afternoon, and the admonitions of the Guys from Area 51, I looked at the absence of torrential rain as an opportunity to roll this morning in the fog and cool drizzle. I did the 8.8 mile ride in 40 minutes. (Including the time it took me to stop and fuck with the chain.)

I mounted a rack on the back of my bike to carry a bag with a change of clothes and my lunch. Found out that one of the bolts I used to mount the rack prevents me from shifting into the highest gear, or else the chain can skip off and get stuck under that bolt, necessitating a stop to fuck with it on the way to work.

Later, I will post “after shots” of the modifications I made to the bike to get it commute ready.