Running for Your Life: ‘REPORTER’

Here’s the best takeaway from one of the best memoirs of the reporting life I’ve ever read:

From Sy Hersh’s simply named, “REPORTER,” in characterizing the circa-2013 state of the US media”

“Twenty-four-hour cable news was devouring the news-reporting business, TV panelist by TV panelist.”

Next: Running for Your Life: Routine 66

Running for Your Life: Hot Weather Mullings

What comes to mind during a long run (in July). Hot but not too humid.

See the Revel moped and consider this straight talk, shoutout.

Download and ride, all you need is a valid driver’s license.

Am struck by the idea when it comes to roadway rules and regulations, the paramountcy of capitalism, the advance of these ‘sharing” transportation businesses overrides the concerns of public safety.

Certainly that is the mark of the self-driving thrust.

Imagine a day when people take to their pedal bikes or mopeds and find themselves in danger of being in a collision with a “robot” car. What guilt, or compunction, does the robot “feel” for running into and killing a human aboard one of these unregulated contraptions ...

Could these developments will yield more rather than fewer traffic deaths? Isn’t it possible that the unemployed or underemployed person, chronically depressed and high on prescription drugs, will be aboard one of these downloadable, unregulated vehicles and when presented with the opportunity swing their rig in front of a fast-moving robot-controlled car, choosing this way – not a bridge leap or a gun or a pill overdose – to end it all, knowing full well that they won’t be leaving their vale of tears with any guilt feelings they may have had for the poor innocent soul driving on our highways today.

It would be a clear conscience way to go; remember the old wood burned shingle hanging in a family cottage back in the day: “Goodbye Cruel World” of a man standing inside a toilet throne, with his hand on the pull chain …

Next: Running for Your Life: Routine 66

Running for Your Life: Summer Screen Screams

Here’s a short film idea:
  • ·      Cast a small comedian as a Harp Marx lookalike who is dressed in exaggerated runner’s wear.
He is attempting to run along a designated jogging path in an urban park that is chock full of people staring blithely, obliviously, into their smartphones/gadgets and he continually “blats” his rubber-bulb horn to clear a path in their startled midst so that he can run a relatively straight line through them.
  • ·        Consider the problem of doing a remake of “Candid Camera.”
Alas, it wouldn’t fly because such footage of behavior that embarrasses or calls out social and personal gaffes is no longer of interest, cannot be seen to be entertainment, not in a culture in which the majority of people have moved beyond being shamed for conducting themselves in a way that would shock their mothers.

Next: Running for Your Life: Routine 66

Running for Your Life: “We Give to the Point of Extinction”: Country Porch Notes

I was sitting on the recently screened-in sun porch of a historic country house this past holiday weekend (July 4-7) in Cuddebackville, New York, thinking about men, spiritualism and empathy.

The superstitions of warrior-men. What they carry with them. Consider re-reading “What They “Carried” by Tim O’Brien. Think of the ecstasy of Ryan O’Reilly, winning the sports medal of sports medals, the Stanley Cup.

How men, poor sodden souls, cannot help but be seduced by the idea of help that comes from somewhere beyond now. So much asked of you, the universal man, the household god, grow into the role, not just of provider but for the love of mother, the need of wife, the respect of daughter.

When we stop we die so we never stop. The sun begins to fall into the rectangular spaces of the porch, the sun the top of the dog’s head. He wants something from me, this coonhound, the feel of his paw on my leg like a soldier’s grasp. Pay attention, man. Yield to what’s necessary. Now the sun is overhead. From here the front door is open and I’m content to think that the cabin was never more than a three-room space with the sitting, sleeping room built off the fireplace/stove on the other side of the central fireplace, a place to hang a kettle (pot) to boil water, erect a grille to fix meat and vegetables, a country sink for rinsing food, washing up. Your outhouse, I like the idea of the half-moon cut in the window, wondering where it was located, high ground, of course.

Imagine a love nest, the children arriving like animals secure in their owned life in this special hollow, a valley, a sling of living and ghostly things, you being just one with them, all you need do is sit and listen, and, thank God, empathize, taste the tongue feels, touch at your fingertips. What is country when ownership is the furthest thing from your mind? Sin of pride? Absent.

Empathy …. What’s the distinguishing factor that defines man. Ergo, that we would defy the law of nature, and risk our lives for others. Jumping in to save a drowning stranger; the body chemicals that engage when a traveler comes to our door, seeking advice, assistance. We give to the point of our own extinction …

Next: Running for Your Life: Routine 66

Running for Your Life: New York Therapy Insight

Overheard during Sunday, June 30, 2019, run in Prospect Park, near the twin-skating surfaces:

Mother/Distressed Daughter (3-ish years old)

Mother (staring hard at Distressed Daughter, while pulling her along by the hand): You are so lucky that it was nice family who found you! Imagine if it were a mean man …

Distressed Daughter: Wah!

Mother: You should feel bad. I want you to feel bad.

DD: Wah!

Mother: Cry! That’s it, cry! It’s the one thing you’ve got right today.

DD: Wah!

Mother: Scared? You should be scared!

(One would expect, given Mother’s mood, she was a long way from saying all she was going to say about Distressed Daughter’s day, but I was running at the time and only caught this portion of the dialogue [monologue?].)

Next: Running for Your Life: Rigidity Lesson