world without a code
decency can be fatal
liability

Sounds like a comment on the current political scene regardless of party or maybe just life in America in the age of social media and maybe it is.

Today’s haiku is taken from a line in the article, “The Wild Bunch at 50: the enduring nihilism of Sam Peckinpah’s western” by Charles Bramesco (Tue 18 Jun 2019)

Bramesco writes, “The Wild Bunch stands out as the first western to go full-bore with its reappraisal of frontier narratives, and remains the most ferociously modern example by virtue of its coal-black heart. The question of integrity’s importance, utility and limits haunts the band of no-goodniks as they cut a dusty swath through the Texas desert. They turn on one another whenever convenient, more than willing to step on each other’s faces to climb out of mortal peril. As Holden’s leading man Pike Bishop growls, “$10,000 cuts an awful lot of family ties.” He speaks this crucial line of dialogue to his compatriot Angel, soon to be left for dead as a captive of a sadistic general in the Mexican military. When his change of heart comes, both too little and too late, the abrupt growth of a conscience cues up the bloodbath grand finale. Decency can be a fatal liability in a world without a code.“

He also writes of the Wild Bunch, “They fear they just weren’t made for these times, in an America with no use for the gunslinger myth.”

My fear is that I am not made for these times, in an America with no use for common decency.

Food? Existential
necessity, carries love.
Daily life structure

Grandma’s food was a conduit that transmitted love. Peasant women worked too hard and too much to find time to cuddle and play with the kids; instead, they would make their favourite dishes. This is another source for the ethical value of food – it carried love . From ‘Bread is practically sacred’: how the taste of home sustained my refugee parents By Aleksandar Hemon

Another well-written article from the Guardian. (UK)

Sign of a Nation
Equal justice, right and law
Hats Off! Flag passing!

Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
A dash of color beneath the sky:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!

Blue and crimson and white it shines,
Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines.
Hats off!
The colors before us fly;
But more than the flag is passing by.

Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great,
Fought to make and to save the State:
Weary marches and sinking ships;
Cheers of victory on dying lips;

Days of plenty and years of peace;
March of a strong land’s swift increase;
Equal justice, right and law,
Stately honor and reverend awe;

Sign of a nation, great and strong
To ward her people from foreign wrong:
Pride and glory and honor,–all
Live in the colors to stand or fall.

Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums;
And loyal hearts are beating high:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!
Henry Holcomb Bennett

Henry Holcomb Bennett (December 5, 1863 – April 30, 1924) was an American author, journalist, and poet.

Bennett was born in Chillicothe, Ohio on December 5, 1863. He attended Kenyon College and graduated in 1886. He moved to Kansas for a time before returning to his home town as a journalist. He also began submitting creative writing to various newspapers and magazines.

Bennett was the author of poems such as “A Desert Love Song” (Munsey’s Aug. 1902) and “Gangway! Gangway”, (National Magazine Mar. 1901) and the short stories “The Face of Ompah” (National Magazine June 1900) and “A Glorious Privilege”, (National Magazine Nov. 1900) but remains best known as the author of the popular patriotic poem, “Hats Off – The Flag Goes By”.

It was first published in The Youth’s Companion on January 13, 1898. It was collected in An American Anthology in 1900, edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908). The poem was also published in The Young and Field Reader, Book Five, Boston, Ginn and Company, c. 1915, submitted by Ross I. Morrison, Sr and Woman’s World in July 1919. It was soon published and sung widely—especially on the 4th of July. Years later, poet E. E. Cummings recited the poem at his class’s commencement.

Bennett is buried in Grandview Cemetery, Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio, USA. (wikipedia)

Technology so great …
Can go to outer space, but
can’t get glasses clean

I think it really got bad for me with the plastic or polycarbonate lenses and for the life of me I cannot get them clean.

I cannot get that greasy film off.

I have tried everything from space age wipes to extra extra special cleaning clothes.

I have spent 10 minutes polishing my glasses only to put them on and and seemingly instantly, a fingerprint shows up.

So I live with it but geeeee whizzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

My grand daughter recently saw a photo of me when I was kid, before glasses.

She said, “It’s Poppa when he could see!”