The Peg Leg Update has a new online home: ThePegLeg.com

You can find all our archived content (everything you can see here) over at the new site, along with everything we’ve made since the beginning of 2010.

See you there!

“It’s a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.”  – Andrew Jackson

“I love talking about nothing.  It’s the only thing I know anything about.” – Oscar Wilde

 ** Any writer is invited to join the Brookings Fictioneers Club – a group currently forming to provide a forum for writers to share their work with others and get some excellent, enlightened feedback.  Even if you haven’t finished your novel yet (Yes, that was a joke.  Have you seen the shit I write?  Novel my ass), send in some journal entries, or a plain old fact-report of something going on in Brookings.  It’s great practice, the input you will recieve is mature and insightful, and taking one step in the process of getting your work out to someone, anyone, always leads to more opportunities.  Email alhanson1141@jacks.sdstate.edu or cuneiform.ation@live.com for details or with submissions. 

** If you need a little inspiration, this piece details Garrison Keillor’s creative process:

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/features/comic-strip/

** Lastly, you – that’s right, you, boy or girl – should think about playing rugby.  The SDSU club is a great way to stay in shape, go a little crazy, have fun, make great friends, and learn one of this planet’s most elegant and brutal sports.  If you are interested in simply learning how the game works, this Saturday (Feb. 13) is the Rugby Sevens World Cup.  The SDSU Rugby Club will be hosting a Cup Watching Social – a chance to 1) watch the game with friendly people who love talking to strangers and 2) drink beer with the funnest people in the world to drink beer with.  If you don’t believe me, just email cuneiform.ation@live.com. 

This is what the sport looks like when it’s pretty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odBhjElGaBY

This is what it looks like when it’s gnarly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcGNfG6oawI. 

Have a good hump day urbudddee!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2wgHwYC-ZE

And visit this site:

http://demonsheep.org/demonsheep/

If you’re interested in joining S.F.T.E.O.D.S.F.O.P.D., an organisation dedicated to combating demon sheep in their various manifestations.

“I love talking about nothing.  It’s the only thing I know anything about.” – Oscar Wilde

This is the flavor I captured from Wilde’s quote, distilled through the membrane of my cerebrum and spread back out with the brush of free verse:
 
“Nothing to Say” 
 
“Experiencing a little confusion is
Having nothing to say is
Waiting
What um huh i
Just sat down let me
Crack this beer first
Oh yeah i was going to write that
 
That i can’t think what to write so the
Spaces in between motion
Create motion of their own
And i jones for a dip (won’t take it)
And sip beer in the back of the library
Trying to remember what i was going to say.
Pry nothin.”

-ps>flux, feb 2010

Recently I made friends with a unique entity – he called to me because he wanted me to take him out snow bustin.  I was leaving Briggs Library the other afternoon – I had happened to catch a ride to campus that morning because I woke up two minutes before my class started – and as I was leaving the library, planning on walking home, this bike and I caught each other’s attention. 

This bike was completely trapped underneath a huge snowdrift, except for its handle bars poking out of the disgusting snow – this drift was one of those beasts that’s been melting and refreezing for months, accumulating a porous crust of dirt suspended in diseased, late-winter sidewalk ice.  This bike looked like it had been burried up to its neck in sand by a tribe of malicious librarians – waiting for carnivorous ants or the scorching January sun to deliver a cruel death.  Little did the primitive librarians know how resilient this breed is; only weak bike species die this way. 

This one looks at me cautiously, but he recognizes something; he is both pleading and challenging.  An unlocked lock curls around one of the handlebars peaking out of the snow, flashing like a “Vacancy” sign on a seedy motel that doesn’t really need to clarify – it’s obvious no-one’s using or caring for this property. 

I plung into the drift, getting in up past my knees.  I can feel snow pouring into the tops of my shitty, unlaced Nikes.  I grasp the handlebars in one hand, plung my other hand into the snow and search around until I find a grip on the seat.  I wiggle it loose, than change position, jerking it out by the rear wheel like a Lab playing tug-of-war.  I finally drag it out of the snow. 

“Oh, thank you,” the bike says shakily as I pick it up and gently drop it on the concrete, bouncing it to shake off the snow and ice.  His voice sounds like the Tin Man, except he’s obviously Hispanic.  The brand is an unrecognizable Wal-Mart type with a blue-green color scheme and the kind of “X-treme” lettering I haven’t seen since the mid-nineties.  The handlebars are just straight, metal tubing, with no rubber or plastic grip-pads. 

“I’ve been in there since November.  I thought UPD picked up all us loose ones over Christmas Break”, he says.  

“I think the school is trying to cut a budget or somethin lately - everybody’s talkin about some recessed economy shit”, I explain. 

“Oh… Huh.  Hadn’t heard about that”, he ponders, “News about that stuff doesn’t make it into the cycle world really.  I don’t pay much attention – don’t concern me”. 

“I dig that”, I reply.  “Wanna ride?” 

“Fuckin duh, homes”, he chuckles and shivers with excitement.  “Let’s make this ice and snow our bitch.  I’ve got a a bone to pick”. 

I find out his name is Rocinante, and he is an amazing conqueror of winter terrain.  His gears don’t shift, but they’re pretty much locked in a one-to-one ratio, good for peddling in low traction situations.  Just one brake works, and that’s only if I squeeze with every muscle fiber in my forearm.  He’s heavy, but this, along with fat, thick wheels, makes him an unstoppable beast – crashing through drifts and over bumpy, wet ice patches.  Energy surges through my frame and his, fusing into a manic snow bustin session.  “I would have loved to meet you as a kid,” I yell down to Loco Roco, as I have started calling him.  I lean into a turn through a deep puddle in the MetaBank parking lot.  I feel a back wheel sliding from under me on a hidden ice patch as a wave soaks our left flank, than the wheel catches on a crack or bump down there.  I grip the handlebars and jerk Roco straight – somehow not crashing.  “Holy shit, you’re amazing”, I congratulate him on his rock steady handling.  

“That’s nothin bro”, he replies. 

When we get home, I clean his gears and oil is chain.  “Hey man, I don’t need no lube – What kinna jerk off you think I am?”, he pretends to be a tough guy, but I can tell he likes the loose-juice.  I can’t fix the brakes, but figure the intense grip required ascertains that anybody riding Roco is up to his standard of toughness.  It makes a loud, rusty squawk when it’s engaged – should alert any pedestrians that a crazy dude’s bustin through on a bike and may not be prepared to stop gracefully. 

So I’ve been snow bustin around on Loco Rocinante lately.  He’s not my bike, but I’m afraid to leave him sit somewhere.  I’d hate for some imperceptive soul to deem him waste and trash him.  But he’s not mine either, so I park it in front of the library, or the rotunda, or the coffee shop, or the bar, and I jam him in a snow drift – no kickstand or bike rack, just standin up straight and challenging with his tires half-stuck in the snow.  I leave the unlocked lock dangle on the handlebar, and when he wants, he’ll send that look at some other crazy mutha and they’ll take a new trip. 

If you’re that lucky one, I just ask that you oil his chain.  For me, please.  I don’t have to ask you to be crazy or ride hard on him.  The only people who get on bikes like this are on a different level, a higher energy.  Feel me if you got the vibe, keep lookin if you don’t.  But lube the gears and chain – it doesn’t have to be the perfect weight of bike chain oil; you can use WD-40, dribble some used motor oil or dab some Vaseline on the cassette, fuck, use lotion if that’s all you’ve got -

It’s better than nothin.  When you’re on this trip, you appreciate everything above nothin.  Roco’s a stallion of the streets, an alley-blaster, a curb-jumper.  His story is mine and yours – it’s the kid’s with thousands of dollars in credit debt, gettin kicked out of another apartment, had no money for years but always got a buzz - the single mom who works at the call center, livin with her three kids (three dads) in Mobile Manor, only in her thirties, but loosing her teeth and throat and organs and soul to menthol cigs, trippin cid on motorcycles, Southern Comfort, and that glass-nasty go-fast, but hasn’t touched a video lottery machine since she got a mouth to feed - steady loosing grip on the delicate margin between used-up junk and an angel of the streets – but the brightest burnin adrenaline buzz in a dull, slushy world. 

Ride him – listen to the story about bustin ice and stayin unlocked.

When I was a kid, I used to go out on my bike right after a big rain – sometimes during.  I especially loved those psychotic thunderstorms with huge drops that somehow fall faster and harder than normal rain. 

I would go out and ride my bike and play this sport I called puddlin, which has really simple rules and appeals to a more-or-less universal audience.  In this sport, I would peddle my bike as fast as I could through the biggest puddles I could find, and there would be this huge splash and it would fly away from my tires like a speedboat wake and I would get soaked and have clumps of mud stuck to my face.  This activity triggers the purest, earthy-est adrenaline rush you can hope to ride.  I suggest trying it. 

There’s a lot of puddles on the ground around Brookings right now - and a lot of piles of slushy snow, and big ice patches, too.  If I thought puddlin was extreme, the game I now play every time I have to go to work or school is far more intense.  I call this sport snow bustin – it combines deep puddles of a February semi-thaw with the above-mentioned nasty winter riding habitat.  Although I only infrequently splash myself on purpose with mud and cold water these days, I still find the bike an ideal vehicle for navigating the sloppy conditions one encounters this time of year – especially big puddles.  I still think it’s fun to peddle through a puddle (just say it out loud), but I go slowly so I don’t get my jeans too wet if I have to be somewhere civilized, with normal people, later.  I still love watching the rungs on my wheels throw that distinct wake in the dirty water with a tight, rhythmic, wet flipping sound as the aluminum spokes splash down and up through the surface plane. 

Puddlin is an extreme sport.  One never knows what’s in a puddle that will create some excitement - a curb, a pothole, a stick.  Often as a kid I would find myself ripped out of a triumphant puddle-blast and thrown over the handlebars of my Wal-Mart brand mountain bike – skinning elbows and breaking fingers, having to endure the agonized, post-crash breathlessness rolling in a cold mud puddle, gasping painfully and looking back at my bike lying in similar condition, asking, “What the fuck was that?”  Recently I acquainted myself with this delightful nuance while snow bustin.  I jumped off a curb into a puddle, not realizing that it contained a beastly deep specimen of Brookings’ “innovative” storm drainage system.  I literally landed, and slid forward a foot or two, on my face, taking the full impact of the crash on my forehead.  This happened while I was biking with my dog; he laughs at me when I crash. 

Although this gritty biking style is fun and can really help navigating terrain that would require tedious, careful stepping and soaked shoes, obviously it presents some unique challenges.  During the current season, puddles can hold another, even trickier hidden obstacle – ice patches.  Water and ice combine in treacherous micro-geology with deep piles and ruts of slushy, heavy snow that can send you into a fishtail faster than a Blazer will pull out in front of you from a stop sign even though you have the unmarked intersection.  This weather doesn’t just present static challenges to dynamic activity; snow bustin is hard on a bike’s mechanics.  I find myself knocking crap off my gear cassette and oiling the chain almost every other day, and stopping in the middle of a ride to fix my brakes – either they won’t engage or won’t relax their grip on my back tire.  I’ve wrestled and played football and rugby  - with this background, I can honestly say this activity is the second must extreme sport I’ve played.  (Rugby’s still gotta take first place – but then again, I never have to manage the mechanical interface between water, ice, and moving metal parts when I play rugby.)    

I hope you take some time to practice this sport.  It enables a rider in very utilitarian ways to efficiently navigate hazardous pedestrian and road surfaces.  Not only will it make your trip from the library to the bar a lot faster, it’s a huge rush if you’re crazy enough to get on the ride. 

Read (6.b) for the story of the perfect vehicle for this kind of riding, and significant thematic development of the vibe in this game.

In the video below, F.A. Hayek and John Maynard Keynes show up to an economics conference. (Sounds exciting already, no?) The men, giants in their polar camps of economic thought, rap their way through explaining their theories on economic booms and busts, or the business cycle.

For more on Hayek, read this excellent tribute by Murray Rothbard here.

.

In the nine days the video’s been up on YouTube, it’s already gotten nearly half a million views.

For a short refutation of Keynesian theories, read this article by Frank Shostak. He argues:

Rescue packages aimed at saving the economies of the world are just laying the foundation for more misery in the months ahead. Many commentators and economic experts who advocate strong government stimulus measures never bother to ask how those measures are going to be funded — and by funding we mean real stuff: where are all the bread and the potatoes going to come from?

It doesn’t occur to the Keynesian sympathizers that it is the fiscal and monetary policies of the past several decades that have given rise to nonproductive consumption. The outcome of all this is the vast amount of bubble activities. How can more of the same Keynesian policies — policies that have inflicted massive damage on wealth producers — revive the economy?

What is now required is not more Keynesian policies but rather allowing wealth producers to move fast and start generating real wealth. What is required is plenty of productive consumption. More government spending and the massive pushing of money by central banks only strengthens nonproductive consumption, thereby delaying prospects for a meaningful economic recovery.

And if you would like to read an in-depth look at why we mid-recession economic inquierers should look to Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian School instead of Keynes, read The Failure of New Economics by Henry Hazlitt, available for free here. [pdf]

.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171427

From the order:

Sec. 3. Closure of Detention Facilities at Guantánamo. The detention facilities at Guantánamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order. If any individuals covered by this order remain in detention at Guantánamo at the time of closure of those detention facilities, they shall be returned to their home country, released, transferred to a third country, or transferred to another United States detention facility in a manner consistent with law and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States. [emphasis mine]

About 200 detaintees remain at Guantanamo Bay. I am shocked. I thought Obama was going to change the world, but he couldn’t even follow through on a promisorial order that led his supporters to claim two days after his inaguration, “See? The Change has come.”

And this says nothing about the precedent the administration has set for detention policies (and those it has adopted from the previous administration). Even if this one camp is closed, the policy remains: they, agents of the U.S. federal government, can put people in a cage for an indeterminate length of time and fail to charge them with any crime.

Glenn Greenwald summarizes this date on his blog today:

…exactly that which very recently was condemned as “a dungeon, a gulag, a tropical purgatory, and a black-hole embarrassment” is now magically transformed into a beacon of sober pragmatism from a man — a Constitutional Scholar — solemnly devoted to restoring America’s Standing and Values.

According to this AP story, military personnel at the base are preparing makeshift tents “in case waves of Haitians leave their homeland and are captured at sea”. Don’t worry though, the story assures that the Haitians won’t have any contact with the prisoners.

Our generous government is also allowing immigrants from Haiti to temporarily live and work in the U.S. Only catch: they had to have been in the U.S. on Jan. 12. [More on the Haiti situation and one Representative's response here.]

Originally published in 1952, I think this excerpt from Frank Chodorov’s One is a Crowd [pdf available for free download here] befittingly describes the past year:

Is not the State an idol? Is it not like any graven image into which men have read supernatural powers and superhuman capacities? The State can feed us when we are hungry, heal us when we are ill; it can raise wages and lower prices, even at the same time; it can educate our children without cost; it can provide us against the contingencies of old age and amuse us when we are bored; it can give us electricity by passing laws and improve the game of baseball by regulation. What cannot the State do for us if only we have faith in it?

It is time to turn off the television. (Except for Conan tonight, of course.)