This is not bicycle related but I like the bicycle community and have had some rather sizable responses to topics I have brought up on thechainlink.org

So I was headed to a Chicago police station the other day to file a police report. As I walked up to the station I noticed this rather extreme gesture and was wondering if I could get some feed back from my Latin American brothers and sisters in the cycling community.

It was a dead rooster in a box at the foot of a Chicago Police barricade in front of the police station.

It is such an exciting time to be alive and a Chicago citizen. It's like being alive during the time of George Rogers Clark. For those of you unaware of Midwestern history concerning the revolutionary war and American Independence. George Rogers Clark fought for the independence of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Western Kentucky & Tennessee, Missouri, and Wisconsin. Interesting story about a famed self proclaim Indian killer who sided with the Indian tribes of the Great Lakes and Ohio River valley along with Midwestern militias to maintain independence throughout the region and secured free trade around the Great Lakes and the Northern Mississippi River. If you are into American History at all it's a super interesting part of the American Revolution that was completely left out of the history books. There is a memorial in Vincennes Indiana which is a often forgotten National monument outside of D.C. Limestone complements of the quarries around Bloomington Indiana. For any cyclist who is a fans the the movie "Breaking Away" which takes place in Bloomington home of Indiana University and IU's "Little 500".

Off topic. So it's exciting to be a Chicago citizen right now. Very exciting indeed. I will post this photograph I took in front of a Chicago police station of a dead rooster at the foot of a police barricade.

Now I do not know as much as I would like about my Latin American sisters and brothers culture but I do know a little. I have been a keen study of the human condition for as long as I can remember and have studied anthropology since my senior year of college. In the winter of that year I along with good friend Joseph Devoir and a fellow named Paul from Wisconsin organized a trip to the Dominican Republic with the help of SW Michigan Rotarians. During preparation for this trip I read a book called "Why Cocks Fight" being about the social and political unrest of the island of Hispaniola. This book was an amazing peak into Latin Machismo. Which being a Caucasian American is considered to be unsavory behavior when it comes the role of men and women in the home, community, government and military. But I had learned by that point in my life not to pass judgement while being a guest in another's house. This provided a clear head when submerged in the Dominican culture of the bario of Aguas Negras.

If anyone at all has any input on the gesture or roots of the the gesture of presenting a dead rooster at the foot of the police station I am turbo interested in learning what this means or where it was derived from.

Cheers and it was a beautiful cycling day today.