Running for Your Life: Remaking of the Presidency, Talking Points

 Rule of law as it pertains to a reproach of presidential power herein subscribes to mob truth: i.e., there is no legitimate position that would threaten the mob boss. And, yes, the central rule of mob truth is there is always one supreme boss who demands loyalty above all else.

·        The press as it operates in its quaint, constitutional role as the checker and balancer of non-democratic rule is outdated and to be dismissed as such.

·        Corollary to above point: Social media now acts as press. The presidency, in its voices on social media, heralds news as disrupter of responsible journalism, which no longer holds sway, is an artifact of the pre-personal technology era.

·        Tech disrupters like Jeff Bezos of Amazon blur political lines (no universal health care, but health care for benighted employees),  co-opts a crucial part of what’s left of responsible journalism by going out and buying the Washington Post company.

·        Democrats, who choose to make common cause with the tech disrupters, mark an earlier state in the postmodern presidency. Call it the tech-big government-deep state complex.

·        The current president does that one better: he takes up his own giant space on Twitter as presidential disrupter to promote mob rule; one fact is right, all others evil and corrupt.

·        Control philosophy rooted in the thinking and Leviathan practices of one Roy Cohn, one-time mentor to the current president.  

Next: Running for Your Life: Resistance Obsession

Running for Your Life: Vestibule of Light, a Poem

What is this vestibule

of light – the tired and glazed look of

the young – how does

one find the way

when the crowd

is all – a niche

interest nothing but

a peculiarity that is

viewed as something foreign –

and potentially dangerous –

that reasonable people

would destroy

 – Morgan Library, Nov. 22, 17

Next: Running for Your Life: Resistance Obsession

Running for Your Life: Cozumel Captured

It’s called the Coz Café, Coz for Cozumel, and it’s expat central with espresso colonial.

Here is where I wrote my first poem in I don’t know how long (not shown here), in part as a reaction to the following framed message that appears on the wall that best conveys adventure in the meta-nuclear age of travel and leisure.:

“I have seen things. Awful things. Empty coffee cup things.”

Next: Running for Your Life: Resistance Obsession

Running for Your Life: Running Partner Surprise

Usually, well for about forty years, I run alone. Today (Jan. 15), though, there was an exception.

A man in the middle of Prospect Park flagged me down and I stopped to see what he wanted. He was holding a smartphone and he said two words in what I didn’t at first take as a question:

“Skating rink.”

After a pause, I said, “I can tell you where that is.”

Then I explained a pretty straightforward three-part route.

“Have you got that?”

The stranger feigned confidence and nodded his head, ever so slightly.

I resumed my run, but then after a few strides returned to him.

“I’m going that way. I can show you.”

He grinned, and in his civilian clothes of jeans, light winter coat and soft-soled shoes, started to run. I slowed a bit, but soon we were running side by side at my regular pace.

“You visiting?” I said.

He stared at me blankly.

“From China?”

“Yes,” he said, beaming. “Chinese.”

We ran in silence together for about five minutes until we were in earshot of the shrieks of children skating at the rink on this public  holiday in New York City.

“There you are,” I said, pointing in the direction of the outdoor rink.

“Thank you very much,” my running friend said.

I ran ahead, and when I double-backed on my road home I looked for him but couldn’t spot him, although the scene was very festive indeed.

Next: Running for Your Life: Resistance Obsession

Badass?

When did it happen that everyone of a certain age either was or felt it was in their best interest to be a badass?

Next: Running for Your Life: Running Partner Surprise