How many monthly critical mass bike rides sport a rooster as a participant?

Not too many, I imagine. But our monthly second Saturday ride (we also engage in the traditional, last Friday of the month ride, but that’s another matter) is occasionally joined by “Mr. Clucky”, the bike-riding rooster of South Beach.

I’m wanted at the traffic-jam.
They’re saving me a seat.
I’m what I am, and what I am,
Is back on Boogie Street.

Currently, Mr. Clucky and his owner, MarK Buckley, are faced with an eviction notice.

It seems the city of Miami Beach has a ordinance against the keeping of farm animals within city limits.

This is all well and good. I mean that in the most literal sense.

Without bothering with the tedium of delving into the matter, I would assume the rule was established to prevent the use of central urban areas for incompatible rural, farming activities.

Such as Animal Husbandry.

Thus the banning of farm animals in the urban core.

Miami Beach Assistant City Manager Hilda Fernandez, in an interview with the Miami Herald, said “but it’s not about what he does outside his home. It’s about living with the rooster in the home…”

This may seem a trivial matter. And no doubt, the manner in which it is portrayed in the mainstream media would tend to trivialize it.

But what does this tell us about underlying principles that govern human society?

How does this apparent media sideshow illustrate a pervasive lack of understanding of how we determine and operate our social structures?

While the “rules” governing behavior within the urban landscape may be correct, this controversy shows the lack of understanding of just what a “rule” (city ordinance, in this case) is and what it’s for.

Tho’ all the maps of blood and flesh
Are posted on the door,
There’s no one who has told us yet
What Boogie Street is for.

I find it a bit scary that someone can rise to the position of assistant city manager of Miami Beach while lacking a clear grasp of the nature of rules, and the consequent rationale for their enforcement.

Where I live, in Little Havana, a nearby and equally urban community (one must cross through the heart of downtown Miami to get between the two), I can recall being plagued by early morning rooster crowing.

But the impetus for the enforcement edict appears not to be any material harm that Mark and Mr.C. do.

There appears to be no complaint that Clucky crows in the wee…

No, the problem seems to be simply in the choice of species Mark made when selecting a pet.

We formulate rules to facilitate mutually beneficial social interactions.

Rules are not ends in themselves, but rather a means to an end.

If I must drive a nail, I go to my toolbox and pull out my hammer.

But Hilda Fernandez, put in charge of wielding the collective hammer of the citizens of Miami Beach, sees Mr. Clucky not as a bird, but as a nail to be driven.

Now I don’t mean to pick on Fernandez; as I pointed out earlier, this lack of understanding is pervasive.

Rules exist to promote human harmony. This cannot be the case if they are treated as entities who’s interests must supersede the interests of the inhabitants of the societies they define.

So come, my friends, be not afraid.
We are so lightly here.
It is in love that we are made;
In love we disappear.

It must be grasped that rules are agreements amoungst entities, not entities in their own right. And therefore cannot be ascribed qualities that are the sole province of entities.

Rules, by nature, do not have interests. Only living beings have interests.

Bewildered by your beauty there,
I’d kneel to dry your feet.
By such instructions you prepare
A man for Boogie Street.

And it is the legitimate promotion of those interests that rules exist to facilitate.

“Clucky believes in peace, protecting the earth and being kind to animals. Mr. Clucky, a mascot for EarthSave, Critical Mass and PETA, was named Best Activist in Miami Beach, 2008, by Metromix magazine.”

Says Mr. Clucky’s website.

A chicken understands…

Will a municipal bureaucrat listen…?

And perchance—learn?

—The Bikemessenger

[Poetic interludes from “Boogie Street” by Leonard Cohen]