The marlinspike knife

Posting pictures is fussy and iffy  around here. The reasons are simple. I am inept. I work from a disorganized computer. Still, it's sometimes easier and more fun than trying to create a few dozen words of coherent thought, hence the knife photo.

I've had others, but Davie Jones snatched them because I neglected  a first principle of seamanship: Any knife you use at sea  (or, in one case, on the Kawishiwishi River in the far north woods)  should be tied to your body.

It is a marlinspike knife, or a bos'n's  knife, or a rigger's knife, among other names.  The sheepfoot blade reduces surprise punctures in your sails. The  spike is for marling, from "marlin," a nicely aromatic  tarred twine. To marl is to wrap marlin around another line, for appearance, chafe protection, better gripping.

The spike helps Jack separate strands of the marlin and to wind and tighten it around the larger line.  It sees just as much use in splicing and complicated knotting. It punches holes in leather,  canvas, and annoying ship mates.

In one case,  a Buck version also intimidated a young lady security attendant at Washington National. This was pre-TSA, in the era when carrying a pocket knife into the Friendly Skies was not , ipso facto, a terrorist act. She summoned a mature cop who shrugged it off and waved me to the boarding area.

Geeking it out:  A marlinspike may also stand alone, a simple tapered metal thing. A wood version is a fid. You are now prepared to go to sea.

This one is marked "Spencer 1976."  The white paint number suggests it may have been issued to a cadet some where.  Damned midshipmen kids are always losing stuff.

Maybe we should outsource congress, too.

L1 Identity Solutions of Stamford, Connecticut, has sold itself in two parts:

1. It owns a spook shop, although it calls it a "government consulting business," a sort  of overflow catch basin for the CIA.  The company is selling this part of itself to BAE of Farnborough, Hampshire, England,

2. The main part of the business is biometric devices, software, and databases, and there's a good chance this includes the drivers license in your wallet. These get sold to France's Safron.

So,

(1) not to worry old chap

(2) et dormez bien

This transfer of another chunk of our security to foreign contractors results from CEO Robert LaPenta's inability to turn a buck on one of the world's hottest technologies.

Great-Grandpa Goodwrench's multi-tasker

The "Hawkeye Wrench,"  from Marshalltown,  to help you keep your Maxwell Mascotte  in shape.

The alligator jaws  handle various size nuts. The center  holes are dies for chasing 5/16 -- 3/8 -- and /2- inch threads. Note the screwdriver on the left jaw and the deep marks suggesting an early mechanic found it a useful hammer, also.

My Sunday Sermon

A girl I love married an astute man, and I sometimes discuss government with him, mostly in an effort to cleanse him of a few notions which I find insufficiently anti-statist.

When ever I think of him and of government in the same paragraph, I am heartened,  even though he still insists it is good that taxpayers underwrite athletic stadiums. That is because, in a fit of disgust at theocratic politicians, a disgust I share, he once remarked loudly that these guys do not comprehend that "a government is not a religion."

Leading us to this morning's text.

Which opens thusly:

Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness...


Out of rhetorical compassion, I  omit the remainder of my written harangue this Sabbath.