Teddy Roosevelt, who used to ride the Dakota prairies, used to promote “the strenuous life.” I tend to think he’d approve of my sojourns in Minot once a year, because they feel pretty strenuous. I get to spend very little time alone, have to relate to people, and fight with swords three times a day. Not to mention the setting up and tearing down of our camp that bookend the event.

On the other hand, Roosevelt despised “hyphenated Americans,” so he’d probably have hated Hostfest altogether.

It makes me laugh–and wince–every time I think of it. There I stood, with blood pouring down my face, feeling my hand swell up to match the exact contours of my battle glove, deciding that I definitely couldn’t do another bout. So what did I tell the audience? I did my little safety speech, about how we’re carefully trained to avoid anyone getting hurt.

My injury did get me out of helping to tear the camp down, so it wasn’t a total loss. Instead one of our members drove me to the emergency room, where I sat watching “Harry Potter and the Chamber Pot of Secrets” on the communal TV until I got in to be X-rayed. As previously reported, it was just a broken blood vessel. Slightly painful and a nuisance, but no biggy. (By the way, I don’t think I have the flu. I seem to have a bad cold.)

Afterwards, Ragnar came and drove me home. He told me he had a sore place on his side, and thought I might have broken one of his ribs.

I said, “Gee, if I broke your rib, and you didn‘t break my hand, that makes me…”

“The winner!” he said.

We both laughed.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I bet that hurts.”

“Oh man,” Ragnar replied, “it sure does.”

The Depiction of Animal Cruelty Law is being called into question in the U.S. Supreme Court today in an attempt to finalize the illegality of distributing film which shows animal cruelty. That would make adding footage to your documentary which depicts something horrible done to an animal as unlawful as child pornography. Showing slaughterhouse footage in your documentary on the food industry could be against the law, if the Supreme court rules broadly in favor of this legislation.

“The threat to the film community is obvious when one considers films such as ‘The Cove’ and ‘Food, Inc.,’ to name two recent ones or ‘Roger and Me,’ to go back just a little ways,” said Michael C. Donaldson, a Beverly Hills lawyer, speaking for four documentary-maker trade groups that joined in filing a brief in support of Stevens. “Certainly videos concerning hunting could fall within this statute, even though, as in Stevens case, the hunting was legal where the video was shot.”

This may be a case in which congressmen wanted to stop a particular perversion, “crush videos,” but wrote a law which reasonably applies to far more than that. You can read more on what the justices have said and the prosecuted filmmaker’s intent on Bloomberg.com.

I’m sorry this won’t be very long. I’m not feeling very well, and it’s difficult to type. More details will come later.

The last day of battle went pretty well, and I felt we’d gotten past whatever our trouble was. Then, in the very last program, I received another stab in the upper lip, and got a whack on the hand that immediately set it swelling inside my fighting glove, leading me to cancel our very last fight.

An X-ray revealed that no bones were broken. It’s just a broken blood vessel. But my velcro splint makes typing a little difficult.

I don’t know why my favorite sport has suddenly become dangerous. If we can’t figure out the problem, I may have to hang up my helmet.

Also I seem to have caught something that kept one of the other Vikings out of action for a day. There’s no consensus on what it was. He thinks it was Walking Pneumonia, while somebody else said H1N1 Flu.

Cheers!

World has a stirring interview with a guy working to get alcoholics and other addicts on their feet (subscription required). “Misdirected compassion was keeping those people on the streets and killing them on the installment plan, a little every day,” said Bob Cote of the organization Step 13. He said the holidays are a bad time for pan-handlers, because $10 from someone trying to be compassionate can enable them to kill themselves. “They’ll get drunk, get hit by a car, or maybe freeze to death,” he said.