Running for Your Life: “The Testaments” and You

Here’s a “Testaments” truth for you …

In reference to the novel by that title by Margaret Atwood, a sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale: Documents written by principals in a coup or even in a “legitimate” democracy aren’t enough to merit the undoing of a corrupt, even society-destroying command.

This observation was made by “The Testaments” reviewer at the London Review of Books, Deborah Friedell:

“If 'The Testaments' were truly a novel for our times, after Aunt Lydia and her allies had succeeded in getting the documents out, after having risked, as they do in Atwood’s book, discovery and death in almost every chapter, journalists would write about them; and nothing would happen. ”

Next: Running for Your Life: A Word on “A Warning”

Running for Your Life: Lonely Hearts

Times columnist Nicholas Kristof write about loneliness being a silent killer (11-17-19).

How people, depressed in a crushing solitude, have lost their way in the dog-eat-dog world that is modern life.

Conversation is one thing but continuity that comes from listening, from paying attention, what Zen followers call the sincerest form of gratitude, that will set us on a path to good health.

“Without:” that is the active ingredient that defines the inactive life “without” energy.

Without love, without meaning, what is a life?

Sorrow yields a living death. Isn’t that why we pepper our fiction with zombies – the sci-fi manifestation of the oblivion of without?

Smile and then what? Recover? Why?

Because when you believe in yourself, in the work you do, that you continue to do, you show the natural joy and boundless energy of, yes, the dog.

It is too bad that Kierkegaard did not write about the moral lessons of a dog, a dog’s nature, her behavior.

Oh, wait a minute, maybe he did. (This line courtesy of “Kirk” – my pal Kirk Nicewonger, that is):

“When one has once fully the realm of love, the world – no matter how imperfect – becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love.”

Next: Running for Your Life: Yes, David Jones!

Running for Your Life: Still Running

Here’s something that lies at the heart of this blog.

Running, of course.

Not every day but every other day. It’s surprising how many times I’ve been asked this question: “Are you still running?”

I say, yes, of course. To the literal question. God bless, I am still running. I turn 65 next October and have been running since my early 20s. For the most part, every other day: Nine marathons, seven finishers (and six of those in a row).

Lately, though, I am thinking about my mental state when I run. Never with headphones, always just me and the road. Much slower and deliberate than I was years ago.

Still, that is. Still running. As in that word definition: deep silence and calm, as in the “still” of the night.

And so I hope it will continue. As it does in my other pursuits: still reading, still writing …

Next: Running for Your Life: Lonely Hearts

Running for Your Life: Alt Right Readies for the MF of All Political Campaigns

OK, so the other day I saw it, the weaponizing of political campaign messaging, a bumper sticker on a truck in my neighborhood, Park Slope, known as one of the most left-wing Democratic neighborhoods in New York City. Usual voting record: 94 percent blue.

The bumper sticker? Get this:

FIGHT FOR TRUTH/PUNCH A JOURNALIST

That, combined with this, from the gut-wrenching nonfiction book by Douglas E. Schoen, called “Putin’s Master Plan,” published 2016 (before Trump) by Encounter Books, page 68, makes for a woolly time ahead, 51 weeks and counting till America Votes 2020.

“RT (formerly known as Russia Today, which Putin started in 2005 and which has expanded substantially since its original English-language-only focus. RT now broadcasts in French, German, Arabic and Spanish; it has dedicated stations in the US and English; and it has styled itself as an alternative news source to Western media. The Kremlin invests $136 million a year in promoting Russian media abroad, with considerable success: RT has close to 1.2 billion views on YouTube, second only to the BBC. RT’s video arm, Ruptly, looks to compete with Reuters and the Associated Press.”

I can hazard a guess that the “journalist” targeted in the bumper stick doesn’t work for RT ….

Buckle up, folks. This isn’t going to be pretty.

Next: Running for Your Life: Still Running

Running for Your Life: Remembrance Day Mood

Remembrance Day stirs different emotions for me from its brother event in the US, Veterans Day.

In Canada, where Remembrance Day is commemorated (never celebrated), on this date, Nov. 11, people pause to reflect on the impact of war on family members.

Growing up in small town Ontario, Canada, I literally didn’t know of a single family who did not suffer significant loss(es) from the horrors of foreign wars.

In my case, my Uncle Earl, whom I never met, died as a young man, leaving his wife and baby children without a husband and father, when the troop ship he was on was attacked and sunk in the North Atlantic.

My childhood memories are of my grandfather, a veteran of the WWI parading on our small city’s main street, wearing his dress war uniform with attached medals. We watched solemnly, silently from street side. Proudly, yes, but also deeply saddened by the grim, resigned look on the faces of all those straight-backed older men and women marching past.

Tis in Remembrance that Canadians gather still in honor of those who served, and in that the day mirrors the respect shown in the United States for those who fought to uphold our way of life.

But it is a deeper “Remembrance” that resonates with me, and it is why, generations later, millions of Canadians wear pins today (Nov. 11) in the colour and shape of red poppies to honor the untold number to those – many of whom were of the age of today’s millennials and Gen Z’ers – who died and are buried in European soil where I’ve been blessed enough to see the poppies growing across fields as vast as the feelings I’m writing about.  

Next: Running for Your Life: Alt Right Readies for the MF of All Political Campaigns