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The Inescapable Return of Donald Trump

Donald Trump is a disgrace to America and a verified liar in the specific; and yet, I cannot get over this obligation of wonder that he has never left the consciousness of America. He is resurrected. He will return. Vengeance against us will be his. Trump still rules us from afar. He decides us. His hold over the feeble-minded, and the uneducated, is as strong as ever after his election loss and yet, for some reason, he is immaculately venerated by those he reviles. Does any reasonable person paying attention to abortion rights, the evisceration of voting rights, and the incongruous dismantling of OSHA worker protections not believe the game is already set and staged for a victorious Trump return in 2024? It appears to be all but inevitable now. The one chance we had to stop him — by standing up to the GOP in the Senate — failed miserably and miraculously. The Democrats are a proud, but unwily, gang of magnificent losers.

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How to Write A Lifetime Network Murder Movie of the Week

In my work as a Script Doctor, I take dramatic stories for television, the movies, and the stage, and I make them structurally better. That sort of work isn’t formulaic, but there are common touchstones that must always be considered and then incorporated — what I remember the great Joseph Campbell loosely calling, “the natural rhythms of human storytelling shared with the reliability of a heartbeat” — and that’s what I do; I provide an unpacked redirection of the concentric condition that we are all innately accustomed to sending and receiving in a performance communication dyad, in the acknowledgement of, and in the often unwitting acceptance of, “The Holy Triad.” The Creator, The Object and The Observer.

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Toss Aways

There have always always been disposable people in a limited-use society, but it’s worse now. We, as a nation of lonesome people found alone in a decaying world, have become much more than merely disposable. We have become the toss aways. We have lost our value. We have forfeited the way forward. We find ourselves teetering on the precipice between the living, and the dismayed, and the balance of the affair solely belongs to us — the us of us.

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The Us of Us: Aristotelian Politics in the Age of Unreason

We live in odd and curious times where politics are more performance than punditry and more perfunctory than professional. How did we get in such a mess of unequal consequences? We won’t just rise or fall and find the mean when this comet ride is over — we’re heading into a catastrophic tumble of immortal termination — just as the Gods before us fell from the temple and humankind stopped looking to the heavens for confirmation of the merits of their lives in the glow of the clouds and decided to forgive their own sins while skipping the punishments.

In critical moments, I turn to my training, and seek the greater mind, and the more universally sophisticated aesthetic for guidance and comfort. As, Aristotle wrote, in “Politics” —

Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.

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The 1968 Columbia University Riots

The 1968 riot and takeover on the Columbia University campus is still a rotting sore that ruins the day.  The matter drowns in infamy and many wish it soon to be forgotten — much like the student strike of 1932 that took over the campus — but if we hope not to repeat the mistakes of the past, we must remember them, share the facts of the moment, and preserve the truth into the future.

It is interesting that, just as during the campus strike in 1932, the 1968 riot centered on athletics at Columbia university.

I was able to purchase the historic images you see in this article, and I’m sharing them all with you now to help set the definitive timeline of what happened in Morningside Heights in the Spring of 1968 — and why the riot happened, and how Columbia, still to this day, wrestles with the hard matters had at hand half a century later.

Some of the dates and captions may seem off — I offer them to you directly as they appear in situ — no editorializing or changing of the information has occurred.

Some ghosts never die — they remain, haunting you, forever; not from the shadows — but from the bright sunlight of College Walk.

4.14.68

SCHOOL DAY
New York: Statue of Alexander Hamilton looms above students outside Hamilton Hall during a protest rally at Columbia University April 24th.  Hanging from the balcony are photos of Stokely Carmichael and a Viet Cong flag.  Acting dean Harry S. Coleman and two other Columbia officials have been barricaded inside the building since April 23rd. One target of the student sit-ins is the university’s plan to construct a gymnasium in a Harlem park, which Negro students contend will deprive residents of a recreation area.

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Jersey City Salutes Police Officer Melvin Santiago

Rookie Jersey City Police Office Melvin Santiago was assassinated on Sunday responding to a call at a local Walgreens.  Yesterday, over a 1,000 people lined up outside a funeral home to salute an officer who gave his life in service to a city in the hard, urban core.  Officer Santiago was 23 and — during his wake — was promoted to the rank of Detective and given the Medal of Honor in death by the Mayor of Jersey City.

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Donny vs. Derrick: Big Brother 16 Brands Your Morality

It’s that time of year again — to lament the downfall and the displeasure in how the most recent incarnation of CBS’ Big Brother “reality” television show is, once again, unfolding before us — and the thing that bites me today is the sort of person CBS lures onto the show to live an exposed life 24/7 for 90 days.

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