a moral duty
maybe … it fails to invoke
a legal duty

“Mr. Arredondo has contended that he was not the incident commander, and his lawyers said it does not matter in the context of the indictment. “Such an allegation may invoke a moral duty to perform his job well, but it fails to invoke a legal duty,” the lawyers argued in their filings.”

From the article, “Former Uvalde School Police Chief Asks Court to Toss Charges” By Edgar Sandoval.

The article sub headline is, “Investigations have singled out Pete Arredondo for the delayed police response to a 2022 school shooting in Texas. He is expected to appear in court for the first time on Monday.”

I hate to say it but I guess I see the point the lawyers are trying to make.

Chief Pete Arredondo MAY have had a moral duty to perform his job well and protect the lives of those little kids in Uvalde but that doesn’t mean he had a legal duty to do anything about it and just because he let a little thing like … a lack of morals I guess … that and the ability to live with himself should not leave him open to legal prosecution for not performing his job well and not protecting those kids.

While I can see their point, those lawyers lose me along the way there somewhere.

But I have to ask, would I have been any different?

Had I been Chief of School District Police … goodness but I hope so.

sometimes don’t care for
nothin’, sometimes search heads for
meanings, stories, stars..

For Labor Day, 2024, a haiku based on the poem Work Gangs by Carl Sandburg as published in his book of poems, Smoke and steel, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920.

Box cars run by a mile long.
And I wonder what they say to each other
When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack.
Maybe their chatter goes:
I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line.
I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they
splintered my boards.
I came from Detroit heavy with a load of flivvers.
I carried apples from the Hood river last year and this year
bunches of bananas from Florida; they look for me with
watermelons from Mississippi next year.

Hammers and shovels of work gangs sleep in shop corners
when the dark stars come on the sky and the night watchmen
walk and look.

Then the hammer heads talk to the handles,
then the scoops of the shovels talk,
how the day’s work nicked and trimmed them,
how they swung and lifted all day,
how the hands of the work gangs smelled of hope.
In the night of the dark stars
when the curve of the sky is a work gang handle,
in the night on the mile long sidetracks,
in the night where the hammers and shovels sleep in corners,
the night watchmen stuff their pipes with dreams—
and sometimes they doze and don’t care for nothin’,
and sometimes they search their heads for meanings, stories,
stars.
The stuff of it runs like this:
A long way we come; a long way to go; long rests and long deep
sniffs for our lungs on the way.
Sleep is a belonging of all; even if all songs are old songs and
the singing heart is snuffed out like a switchman’s lantern
with the oil gone, even if we forget our names and houses in
the finish, the secret of sleep is left us, sleep belongs to all,
sleep is the first and last and best of all.

People singing; people with song mouths connecting with song
hearts; people who must sing or die; people whose song
hearts break if there is no song mouth; these are my people.

it’s like the dentist
unpleasant sometimes, but lots
have been there before

Adapted from a passage by Stephen Vincent Benét in the short story Everybody was Very Nice as published in the book Thirteen O’Clock by Farrar & Rinehart in 1937.

That last is the salient note here.

Published back in 1937.

Feeling this way, back in 1937.

“Oh, it was a lot simpler in the old days,” he said. “Everything was for marriage — church, laws, society. And when people got married, they expected to stay that way. And it made a lot of people as unhappy as hell. Now the expectation’s rather the other way, at least in this great and beautiful nation and among people like us. If you get a divorce, it’s rather like going to the dentist — unpleasant sometimes, but lots of people have been there before. Well, that’s a handsome system, too, but it’s got its own casualty list. So there you are. You takes your money and you makes your choice. And some of us like freedom better than the institution and some of us like the institution better, but what most of us would like is to be Don Juan on Thursdays and Benedick, the married man, on Fridays, Saturdays and the rest of the week. ” and he grinned.

For myself in this passage, divorce is incidental.

It’s that cry of Oh, it was a lot simpler in the old days.

Someone once said something along the lines that each generation has to discover the 10 commandments for themselves.

Maybe I always understood this to mean the original 10 commandments.

Maybe instead, it means, each generation has to discover the 10 commandments … for that generation.

Only that’s a bit hard to work out, somehow.

At least in this great and beautiful nation and among people like us.

It’s rather like going to the dentist — unpleasant sometimes, but lots of people have been there before.

Thou shalt not press send?

sometimes dreadful sense
lonely with his burden once
buoyancy is gone

For rarely is a man so alone as on the trail, especially under a canoe. He is then shut off completely from his fellow. Tom and I have sat for hours by a camp-fire at night, without a word to each other, each of us thinking his own thoughts, but with a most acute sense of companionship. Meditation is not lonely, even when it is solitary. But on the trail, with a heavy load, and weary, a man is intensely alone. The exertion, the pounding activity, the noise of one’s own heavy breathing, of one’s own heart beating, the implacable insistence of sweat — all these give something of the loneliness of severe pain, and forbid the soothing attunement of the spirit to the universe, which makes communion out of contemplation. In a sometimes dreadful sense, a man is lonely with his burden on the trail, once it has become a burden, once the buoyancy is gone.

From the book,  The Incomplete Anglers by  John Daniel Robins,  Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Canada Ltd,1943.

But on the trail, with a heavy load, and weary, a man is intensely alone.

The exertion, the pounding activity, the noise of one’s own heavy breathing, of one’s own heart beating, the implacable insistence of sweat — all these give something of the loneliness of severe pain, and forbid the soothing attunement of the spirit to the universe, which makes communion out of contemplation.

In a sometimes dreadful sense, a man is lonely with his burden on the trail, once it has become a burden, once the buoyancy is gone.

Once more, the loneliness of severe pain, forbids the soothing attunement of the spirit to the universe, which makes communion out of contemplation.

No wonder sometimes I feel so tired, once that buoyancy is gone.

And once that buoyancy is gone, how do you get it back?

Sometimes no price would be too high for just a solid night of sleep.

happiness to know
that it is a rising and
not a setting sun

“I have often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising and not a setting sun.”

Ben Franklin as quoted in September 17, 1787: A Republic, If You Can Keep It at https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/constitutionalconvention-september17.htm

Dr. Franklin is supposed to have said this or wrote this to James Madison or Mr. Madison remembered Dr. Franklin saying this when the United States Constitutional Convention finished their work.

Maybe it was one of those things that was too good for someone not to have said so history decided Dr. Franklin said it.

He was famous for saying things he never said and his autobiography might not have been the way it happened but surely, was the way it should have happened.

BUT I DIGRESS!

Dr. Franklin is supposed to have been looking at the designed carved into the back of the chair of the President of the Constitutional Convention, a feller named George Washington.

Driving to work this morning I new that as I looked east I was seeing the sun rise out of the Atlantic Ocean.

It matched my spirits.

Hopefully, if Dr. Franklin was around today and watching CNN he might once again say, “I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising and not a setting sun.“