Running for Your Life: They’re OUR Zombies !

Pity the poor deep staters …  When it comes to civilian mind control, they thought their clever creation of the internet would be enough to benumb the citizenry to deeper depths of nonparticipatory democracy (yes, only 55 percent of voting-age citizens voted in 2016 http://cnn.it/2nj9KbW), promoting time-sucking entertainments that have the welcome effect of diminishing respect for such evils as government and serious news media.

Then along come the Russians. Who, during World War II, or so the CIA believed, were “engaged in a wide-ranging program of testing LSD. It genuinely thought that the Soviets might develop mind-control drugs and turn every American into an obedient, communist zombie. One CIA officer testified that he and his colleagues were ‘literally terrified’ at the prospect.” (Preceding is from a recent cover article by Time magazine, http://ti.me/2nOOcSn).

Now the Russians are at it again. Turning the free internet against us. This time, as this week’s testimony by the FBI director (you know, the guy who more than any single government official is responsible for turning the tide against Hillary in that 2016 election that drew the weakest voter turnout in twenty years) makes clear, the deep staters won’t stop until the Russians get the hell out of our internet.

I take the subway every workday in New York City. I walk the streets, see the dulled eyes of folks in their internet addiction.

Hey, Russia, back off. They’re OUR zombies.

Next: Running for Your Life: Barkskins, the Book

Running for Your Life: Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow!

It’s a storm, not a curtain call.

This winter storm (March 14) is pretty blustery and late-season record-producing in some areas. (Primarily the coastal north of New York City, although the forecast had it that we were going to be suffering like never before, ie, beware the snowpocalyse !)

Storms are not personalities. This one is called Stella ! (Exclamation mark required, especially when it comes to my family life, because of Stella, my daughter K’s adorable pitbull.)

I do my best NOT to listen to the news when it comes to severe weather. In keeping with an earlier post of mine regarding public information and ratings, there are few events more representative of just how hyped the entertainment surrounding something as natural as weather conditions can be. And don’t kid yourself. Those news folks on broadcast, cable and local stations are all about entertainment. At least that’s certainly the case here in New York City …

Meantime, if you can, take a cue from the kids and get out in the Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! and play in it while it lasts (without staring into your phone and watching the weather entertainment shows …)

Next: Running for Your Life: Barkskins, the Book

Running for Your Life: Runner for the County

So that will be it. It is true that you can’t keep an old dog down. For reasons that I’m sure I’ll detail in a blog to come, this marathon training experience is going to be one of a kind.

Sunday, Oct. 1, the marathon in The County. That’s Prince Edward County for the uninitiated. Where the best wine in Eastern Ontario can be found. (At the vineyards –  http://bit.ly/2ngAOth full disclosure, these wine-growing folks in this link amount to my Canadian “family” – not the LCBO.)

That’s all for now. Got some training planning to get down to! On that Sunday in October I will be four days short of my 62^nd birthday – 42 years since I started this whole running for your life gig.

Oh, and by the way, this gig has saved my life. This time, I’ve got some incontrovertible evidence. 

One day soon I’ll reveal all …

Next: Running for Your Life: Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow!

Running for Your Life: Vive Le Vive

There comes a time every once and a while when you encounter journalism at its best. That happens to be the case with this article (link below) by Jake Halpern in the current New Yorker.

Halpern didn’t get to Vive, a safe house in Buffalo committed to helping refugees who arrive at its door, in the days after President Trump signed the first of his executive orders that cracked down on illegal immigration. Halpern went there long before, and kept going back. He doesn’t judge the people he meets. He listens, he travels with them. He follows their lives, their ups and downs.

It’s as much about Canada, the new leader of the “free” world, as Nicholas Kristof put it in a recent column (a few blog posts ago here on “Run4YrLife”), as about the United States. It may not change your mind about immigration issues, but it’s a helluva prescient piece of reporting. What is needed.

Check it out: Vive Le Vive !

http://bit.ly/2mLR70n

Next: Running for Your Life: Runner for The County 

Running for Your Life: Run Through the Flu

To tell you the truth I don’t know if it has to do with running, but still …

Each year in late winter it’s the same thing. Flu bug stories dominate the news. Be sure to get your flu shot, the stories blare. A strain of flu is proving to be especially virulent. Be safe, and be “armed”   –  As in, with a needle prick of anti-flu serum.

I followed through on this public service warning once. I dunno about a dozen years ago. And promptly fell sick as a dog. For the first time I could remember.

Since then (and for years before that) I inoculate myself through long-distance running. Wake up with a little bit of a sore throat? Run a little longer, a little harder. Feel a fever coming on? Same deal.

Today, a rainy one in Brooklyn, my wife M asked if it weren’t a better idea for me to run in the gym, on the treadmill. Otherwise, you’ll catch cold.

Nope. Out of doors I go. In the rain, a cold sweat just comes on earlier – and not one that feels the least bit like the flu.

Next: Running for Your Life: Runner for The County