By John Y. Brown III, on Fri May 18, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
When I have dead time I sometimes bide time trying to figure out what acronyms stand for.
Today I decided to tackle MENSA, the high IQ society. After being unable to think of any series of words starting with M E N S and A that signified high intelligence, I finally conceded and looked it up.
It’s not even an acronym. It’s Latin for “table” or “round table.”
I figure Latin for “round table” for a group name must be something really smart and deliberately obscure. Or the founders of MENSA got really drunk the night they voted on a group name–and are too proud to admit it and change to a more fitting name.
I mean, come on folks! Do you really think only 2% of the population can qualify for a group about a furniture shape?
I have a better idea.
I am hereby creating an even more exclusive organization and calling it BAR MENSA.
That is English acronym and Latin for Bigger and Rounder MENSA (or “round table”).
We only accept applicants who believe they are in the top 1.9% of something—but that the right test to measure that ability hasn’t been devised yet. And people who have already actually qualified to be in the tip 2% of something by an actual test that already exists (MENSA members) are ineligible to join.
By Artur Davis, on Fri May 18, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
Who knew that Massachusetts provides an opportunity to add a touch of color to the almost all white US Senate?
Who knew that when Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren tailored her professional biography to cultivate ties with people who are “like I am”, she had in mind not left-leaning academics, or advanced degreed professional women, or bankruptcy policy wonks, but Oklahoma Cherokees? There is a rich vein in humor in the Boston Herald’s revelation that Harvard Law School touted the clearly Caucasian Warren as a Native America and that for nine years, Warren listed her ancestry in the same manner in official law school directories.
To be sure, the Warren campaign handled the damage control front with a skilled deflection: Team Warren has professed much outrage over any insinuation that her climb up the academic ladder was lifted by affirmative action (a claim her Republican opponent, incumbent Senator Scott Brown, has not remotely raised) and the New Republic has equated the whole thing with far-right birtherism regarding Barack Obama’s background. It’s a clever dodge that minimizes Warren’s creative accounting of her ancestry while reviving the liberal meme that Republicans have a beef with achievements that don’t belong to white men.
Here’s one hope that Warren doesn’t get away so easily. For all the mirth that has greeted the disclosures, there is a serious thicket of questions here for the professor and an embarrassing glimpse into the East Coast elite liberalism that she represents. One appropriate line of inquiry is whether Warren’s drive to reestablish her Cherokee roots manifested itself in any more tangible outreach to Native Americans in, say, her home-state of Oklahoma, who may not have perused law school association guides. The marginalized young adults in that community would certainly have relished a connected, powerful role model, and it is fair game to press Warren on whether the ethnic pride she described last week ever led her to be that person. And it is equally legitimate to ask whether Warren ever used the Native American identification in any context other than a directory that would have been a primary resource for law school recruiters and head-hunters.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: Elizabeth Warren, Minority Crusader?
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri May 18, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
The RP’s column this week in The Huffington Post centers around a special organization that promoted bipartisanship, and how its mission is not being fulfilled…yet.
It’s not just that Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning is a great guy: a warm, humble, often hilarious teddy bear of a man who’s the type of person you’d be proud to represent you in Congress.
It’s also because Bruning was our last great hope to break the infernal “Aspen Curse.”
Never heard of the “Aspen Curse”? Don’t worry; only a few dozen sorry sorts have been tracking its metastasization…until now.
The “Aspen Curse” refers to a plague that’s infected the membership of the Inaugural Class of the Aspen Institute’s Rodel Fellowship program. The initiative was launched in 2005, with a stated goal “to enhance our democracy by identifying and bringing together the nation’s most promising young political leaders … committed to sustaining the vision of a political system based on thoughtful and civil bipartisan dialogue; and to help America’s brightest young leaders achieve their fullest potential in public service.”
Eighteen young mid-level elected officials– nine Democrats and nine Republicans from across the country — joined together for a series of events, seminars, and visits to places ranging from New Orleans to Beijing to Jerusalem. (Don’t worry — your tax dollars were not involved.) We studied, debated, argued, drank, told jokes, and built some long-lasting friendships. And when our program ended, we promised to use our bi-partisan spirit and relationships to advance the country’s interests as we moved toward higher office.
And then…the Curse. One by one, we ran for more prominent elected positions. And one by one, we lost.
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu May 17, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
The Politics of Tech
HBO co-president Eric Kessler responds to concerns about HBO’s access to content as well as the “cord-cutting” phenomenon. [Forbes]
Staying on point with the previous story – HBO’s Game of Thrones is on track to become the pirated show of all time. [TechDirt]
In keeping with the theme – Time Warner’s CEO has stated that in order to combat piracy DVDs need to be released very soon after a movie leaves theaters. [Deadline New York]
“Apple has to patch Siri to stop saying the Nokia Lumia 900 is the ‘best smartphone ever’” [The Verge]
Police in Chicago have purchased a sound cannon in anticipation of protests surrounding this weekend’s NATO summit. [Salon]
The first ever attempt for a privately-owned rocket to dock with the International Space Station is set to happen on May 19, SpaceX and NASA have announced. [CNET]
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu May 17, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
The Politics of Pigskin
Brandon Jacobs and Mario Manningham chose to skip the Giants’ championship ceremony in favor of meeting with the 49ers. [49ers.com]
Minnesota’s governor has signed the bill that will give the Vikings a new stadium to play in. Finally. [ESPN]
The Vikings’ new stadium deal means they are officially out of the running to relocate to Los Angeles and give LA a team once again. The next team in line? The Rams. [PFT]
Drew Brees is growing more and more frustrated at contract negotiations with the Saints. [NOLA.com]
Jay Cutler acknowledges that the NFL is a rough game and that he understands the risks of playing, particularly concussions. [PFT]
Indianapolis reportedly lost $1.1 million hosting the Super Bowl. [ESPN]
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu May 17, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
The mathematics of dieting (or the value of a rationalizing mind)
Apparently–and this is important if you didn’t learn this in school–addition and subtraction; multiplication and division all can have nuanced exceptions apply to their normal functions when calculating caloric intake.
For example, let’s say you buy a pastry at Starbucks that you know has 400 calories.
For dieting purposes that is potentially 300 calories you will need to record for yourself if you eat the entire pastry (because you aren’t really exactly sure it’s 400 calories and it’s a smaller than usual looking pastry–and you are just trying to be honest with yourself).
However, if you only eat half the pasty, that only counts as about 100 calories (not the usual 150 or even 200 you might assume would apply using “regular non-dieting math.”
Why?
You look at the pastry and feel you ate the “smaller half.”
But, if you come back to the pastry and decide to eat 3/4ths of it (and not just 1/2), you must add another 10 calories (because the math has gotten so complicated and hard to remember that it’s OK to use shorthand at this point). So, you eat another 1/4 of the pastry and duly note the additional 10 calories. (The fact that it is 1/4th of the “bigger half” isn’t necessary to factor in at this point because you really forgot about this small fact anyway.)
And if you decide a few minutes later, “Screw it , I’m eating the whole thing” and pop the last tiny morsel in your mouth (or final 1/4 of the pastry), you will have to make yet another adjustment. Since you will recall that you just added 10 calories from eating an additional quarter of the pastry a few minutes earlier–and since you have to remain mathematically consistent— you must add another 10 calories for the final quarter of the pastry.
At this point, all you can remember is that you just added 10 calories for eating the final quarter (1/4) of the punier than usual pastry–and can’t recall what the old total calories calculation was to add to.
But that’s the beauty of math. You don’t have to remember. There’s a shortcut. If you know that one quarter (1/4th) of the pastry is 10 calories, you can be sure that the entire pastry (4/4ths) is exactly 4 times that number–or 40 calories.
So, write down 40 calories for eating that entire Starbucks pastry that was really 400 calories.
This is why so many people fail at their diets.
It not only takes willpower to succeed dieting. But you have to be really good at math, too.
20 years as a senior-level executive with three Fortune 500 companies, a high-level governmental official, a political player rubbing elbows with governors, members of congress and even private visits with the President.
However, after 20 years of climbing the corporate ladder, extensive travel and a cell phone permanently in my ear, I started to feel that while I had achieved some level of “success,” I was lacking “significance.”
While playing corporate musical chairs, the music suddenly stopped one Friday afternoon and I found myself without a chair in that ivory tower I had grown so comfortable in occupying. But it was a 300 year old story that would not only be redemptive; it would provide the purpose I had been seeking and the means to help others in similar situations find their purpose.
Ironically, I had delivered thousands of speeches over the years about the power of purpose. Included in those speeches was a simple yet powerful story of a bystander observing two people laying bricks. The first person when asked what he was doing responded, “I’m laying bricks.” The second responded, “I’m building a cathedral.” Naturally, the “cathedral builder” had resonated more with me than the “bricklayer,” but after 20 years of playing the corporate game, pushing my way to the front of the room, I was starting to feel more like that “bricklayer.” And unfortunately, I wasn’t alone.
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Numerousstudies report that less than halfof employees are actually satisfied with their jobs and feel a sense of purpose. Other surveys suggest that a high number of employees would leave their companies today if the economy were better. And with one in ten Americans currently unemployed, six of those ten unemployed say the next job they get will most likely not provide purpose; instead, they expect to have to settle for something less.
A women and workplace survey from “More Magazine” revealed that 43% of the women surveyed say they are less ambitious now than they were a decade ago. And only a quarter of the 500 women ages 35 to 60 say they’re working toward their next promotion. Three out of the four of women in the survey, 73%, say they would not apply for their boss’ job, reporting the stress, office politics and lack of purpose make the leap simply not worth it. In fact, two of three women said they would accept considerably less money for more free time and more flexibility. The bottom line is, there’s never been a time when Americans, male and female, young and old, public and private sector, need a sense of purpose.
Read the rest of… Greg Coker: The Recovering Bricklayer
Yesterday, the RP was back on Wall Street Journal Radio’s “The Daily Wrap with Michael Castner” to discuss John Boehner’s recent threat to tie any debt ceiling modifications to spending cuts.
When I have dead time I sometimes bide time trying to figure out what acronyms stand for.
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