Running for Your Life: On Making Modern Love

It is has simply overwhelming the response to my wife Mary’s essay in the Sunday Styles Section of the New York Times. If you missed it, here it is: http://nyti.ms/1EqyZJL.

My great pal and New York Post writing and editing partner Mike Tully told me yesterday (March 15) that after reading this essay he felt compelled to preorder Mary’s new novel, The Jazz Palace http://bit.ly/1u2XLhD. He said he had every intention of ordering it on or near its official publication date. But that the beauty and craft of the Modern Love column was too enticing, so rather than let another minute go by, he stopped and preordered the book online.

Word to the wise: A preorder is an order. The only difference is, you will get the book sooner than the person who waits until the official date of April 7 to push that button.

To all those readers out there, don’t delay. Check out the book tab in the link above. And do like Mike. I swear you won’t be sorry.

Next: Running for Your Life: Finally, Running Outside Again !

Running for Your Life: Liberals Dead Tired of Hillary II

Welcome to the second in a series of arguments of just why Liberals Are, yes, Dead Tired of Hillary!

Three blogposts ago, you’ll find the first in the series. That argument gave the domestic political reasoning of why Liberals Are Dead Tired of Hillary.

For the foreign political reasoning, I give you the highlights of a crystal-clear damning of Saint Hillary (aka, Deleter of the Free World, Post cover, March 11) distilled from a review of two books, Hard Choices by Hillary Clinton, and HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton, by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, written by Jackson Lears in the Feb. 5 edition of the London Review of Books.

To wit:

• Despite [the differing styles of the Bush and Clinton candidacies], the intent is the same: rewarding friends and punishing enemies, the latter with such precision that one of her staffers fears Hillary will come to seem little different from “Nixon in a pantsuit.”

• Exceptionalists (as in, America must honor its unique responsibility for global leadership) like Clinton are unable to conceive of a multipolar world where some nations might prefer to go their own way.

• While she admits she “got it wrong” in voting for the invasion of Iraq, she shows no sign of having learned from her mistake … Clinton’s courtship of [General David Petraeus] reveals a deeper amnesia. Like most Washington policymakers, she has forgotten the failure of counterinsurgency in Vietnam.

• The exceptionalist outlook transcends party ideology; it is embraced by the Clintons, the Bushes and the entire Washington establishment. We badly need a public debate that challenges this consensus. But we are unlikely to have it, given the widespread assumption that Hillary Clinton is the only alternative to the all too real nightmare of Republican rule. (From a letter written in reply to a reader, March 19 edition)

Next: Running for Your Life: Finally, Outside Again !

Running for Your Life: Live at "The Jazz Palace"

Now’s the time. The worst of the winter is past and official spring is only spitting distance away. Winter had such a hold on us this year that we could be forgiven for losing sight of the fact that we were very nearly upon the season of the speakeasy: to toss our toques and scarves aside and don our spats and flapper dresses.

 ’Cause we’re about to be live at The Jazz Palace http://bit.ly/1AWKSSS.

The link tells you everything you need to know. First, that my wife Mary Morris is about to share with the rest of the world the novel, “The Jazz Palace.” Soon the characters I’ve lived with for years – think Don Draper of “Mad Men,” Walter White of “Breaking Bad” – will be fictive flesh.

I can’t wait to see what the rest of the world thinks of Benny Lehrman, the drama king of “The Jazz Palace.” But like “MM” and “BB,” you might be drawn more to others on the novel’s stage: Napoleon Hill. Or Pearl Chimbrova. Opal or Anna. Or Mister Marcopolis.

Click on the events button http://bit.ly/1AWKSSS. It will be filling with details in the days and months ahead. Your town or city isn’t on the list? Get in touch with your local bookstore. In a book club? Put it on the upcoming reading list. Maybe the author herself will come to discuss it.

Be ahead of the curve, because in no time at all the book will be everywhere. Everyone is invited to be there. To be live at “The Jazz Palace.”    

Next: Running for Your Life: Liberals Dead Tired of Hillary II

Running for Your Life: If-The-Greats-Were-With-Us Thursday

This is how Eugene O'Neill would respond in a tweet to a $1 million offer to write a screenplay for Harvey Weinstein:

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No .No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

Next: Running for Your Life: Live at the Jazz Palace

Running for Your Life: Liberals Dead Tired of Hillary

So, go ahead call me anti-Hillary. There are arguments to be made for Hillary, but here is the essence of the two pro-Hillary arguments, given the odds-on eventuality of her winning the 2016 Democratic nomination:

A vote against Hillary is a vote for the Republicans (read Bill O’Reilly and his two running mates). Besides, it’s time for a woman to be president.

Does the single name Hillary – think Beyonce, Rihanna, Madonna – imply talent and gravitas? Or showmanship? Talent in Hillary’s case is a cynical attempt to distance herself from the legacy and policies of her husband. That’s just not okay, or so say the members of the emerging iPAC, Liberals Dead Tired of Hillary.  

We in the growing segment of Americans who are tired of Hillary would like to exercise our votes, not stay away from the polls because we can’t find it in our hearts, minds or souls to vote for a Clinton, or God forbid, a third Bush.

It is past the time for liberals to beat the drum in support of candidates who are not Hillary (i.e.) Bernie Sanders http://bit.ly/1B7I6Ob or, even, Jim Webb http://bit.ly/1Gl9GMb.

Maybe we need a shrewd Nixon-like leader for the next eight years. Not Nixon? Who do you think Hillary was learning from by not allowing her official Secretary of State emails to become an embarrassment to her presidency. Look at what the official tapes did for Nixon’s. Watergate, oh, and read the Blood Telegram http://nyti.ms/1Gl9Sei and tell me that Hillary wasn’t trickier than Dick to NOT take the risk of having her SOS emails unearthed.

Domestic politics under Hillary? Here’s a quote for you: When most of the population either does not know or does not care that the lowest socioeconomic classes live in something akin to a police state, we should be greatly concerned for the moral health of our society.”

Where did that come from? That bulwark of economic social justice: The Wall Street Journal, in a review of The Divide by Matt Taibbi http http://nyti.ms/1gwlOwv, a must-read treatise on the injustice in the age of the wealth gap in the United States.

And how did the Clintons (yes, a vote for Hillary is a vote for Bill) figure in this. It was the Clintons who re-demonized blacks in a nakedly cynical grab for the southern vote by promising to “end welfare as we know it.” What’s more, while pandering the stain of black economic dependency to prejudiced white voters, they were overseeing the deregulation of financial markets so that the rich would get richer. Reagan may have been responsible for the evil of trickle-down economics, but it was Clintonian policy that did the major damage, that accelerated the wealth gap to the point that eventually led to the protesters of  …..

While the Clintons ended welfare as we know it, they built welfare-fraud police into something reminiscent of the Soviet system. Taibbi writes:

“Welfare fraud was prosecuted [under the Clintons] like never before, and welfare fraud investigators multiplied like rats in every state in the country, forming unions and lobbying agencies.”

Taibbi goes on: “ [The Clintons’] political formula for seizing the presidency was simple. [The Clintons] made money tight in the ghettos and let it flow freely on Wall Street. [The Clintons] showered the projects with cops and bean counters and pulled the cops off the beat in the financial services sector. And in one place [the Clintons] created vast new mountain ranges of paperwork, while in another, paperwork simply vanished.”

It may be time for a woman. But Liberals Dead Tired of Hillary sure don’t think this is the one.

Next: Running for Your Life: What If The Greats Were With Us!