By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jun 13, 2012 at 1:00 PM ET
(ORLANDO) Yesterday, my daughter tried out and made the first round of auditions for American Idol at Disney. And decided to stop before continuing. But not before making me promise to audition today–with her joining me at the audition.
Maggie and I went in a small room with a really friendlye auditioner who asked us a lot of very friendly questions.
I was a liltte nervous and explained I was Oliver in the play named, well, Oliver, at camp when I was 12 and choked when signing “Where is Love,” and that today–37 years later–was my chance to vindicate myself. The auditioner lady, Katie, told me to stand on the star and sing for 30 seconds acapello.
My daughter nudged me toward the star. I cleared my throat and bagan. My voice quivered at first, but I immediately broke out and was nailing the song –just like I did practicing it at age 12. But the finale approached and I swung for the fences but missed the final note. I didn’t think I missed it too badly and hoped that the auditioner didn’t notice. Even though my daughter was laughing uncontrollably just a few feet away.
Katie complemented me and my musical ear and asked if I played any instruments. I answered her, but mostly just wanted to know if I had made it to the second round.
I explained that my daughter –the one laughing really hard–made it to the second round yesterday. Hinting that we had the same genes, so, you know….that should count for something.
And I mentioned again that I’d been waiting for 37 years to make this right.
A pic of me at Disney today. Hanging my head in shame after failing to make it past the first audition at American Idol.
Katie asked me my name and began writing. I was hopeful.
It was a Disney button with my name on it. A consolation prize for not making the second round. The equivalent of a giant loser button you can wear for the rest of the rrip so people will know you didn’t make it past the first round at the American Idol audition.
As she handed it to me I imagined Chuck Berry gonging me from the old Gong Show and saying someting insulting.
I took the button and threw it away as soon as I was outside– as I munbled “Bitch” under my breath 15 minutes later my daughter is still laughing.
It was a magical experience, still. Becuase I learned that when I choked at age 12 and refused to sing “Where is Love” solo in the play Oliver, I made the right decision. Today vindicated me.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jun 13, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
On airplane Tarmac about to take off. And for a moment was so preoccjpied I couldn’t recall where I was going. And for those few seconds, it was exciting. Anything was possible…
I propose a “Big and Tall” airline for non-anorexics people over 5 ft tall…
I support TSA security measures to combat terrorist threats. And I applaud airlines role in discouraging planes for terrorist purposes by offering cramped seating, delays, and poor service. You are patriots!…
On a plane flight today I noticed the woman next to me doing needlepoint the entire flight. She was an older lady but her hands moved like a precise and steady machine repeating stitch after stitch after stitch. I watched with almost hypnotized interest…it had a calming effect and got me to thinking about more profound things that her knitting represented. In life, we often believe we are the hands doing the frantic and laborious knitting. In fact, I believe we are more like the design waiting for the Divine Knitter to use us in His pattern as we patiently discover how can be most useful to the world.
At least, that’s my hope…
Traveling again today and feel compelled to share TSA humorous interaction of the day. Got selected for a pat down. Yes! That’s right! Me….who never wins anything.
A large male official patted me down and told me to “move ahead” -all clear. A female official came up next with a wand. I whispered, “I’m not sure he really had his heart into it. You may want to do a once over on me to make sure.” She laughed!! Yay!!
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Jun 13, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
The Politics of Love
The picture at the left of two Israel Defense Forces soldiers walking hand in hand at a Tel Aviv gay pride rally has caused a sensation on the Internet tubes. The reaction in Israel? Meh. What’s the big deal? Happens all the time! [JTA]
American Idol champ and country music superstar Carrie Underwood came out last week for gay marriage, citing…wait for it…her Christian values. Love it! [Huffington Post]
Want another excuse to love the Miami Heat as they play for the NBA Championship? Check out this article on the controversial owner of the Oklahoma City Thunder. [Financial Post]
By Krystal Ball, on Wed Jun 13, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
Women’s health and birth control access have sparked a contentious political firestorm in American politics as Republicans have unleashed a barrage of restrictive and damaging legislation. As we fight back against these historic attempts to undermine women’s health and family planning access here in the US, let’s not lose sight of our sisters around the world. Access to family planning education and contraception is one of the global keys to improving health, economic development, and security.
While fertility rates have declined dramatically in most of the world, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia have resisted the trend toward fewer lifetime births per mother. From 1950 to 2000, the average fertility rate in developing countries was cut in half, from 6 to 3.
Fertility rates, however, in many African countries have remained stubbornly high. In Nigeria, the rate is 5.5, in Chad and Uganda it’s over 6. With a fertility rate over 7, Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of childbirth in the world. The fact that it is also poor, uneducated and prone to extremist movements is no accident.
Take a look at this list of countries by fertility rate. A quick glance confirms that poor countries tend to have high rates and rich countries tend to have low rates. Is this simple correlation or causation? In other words, which comes first, the economic development or the declining fertility rate? It’s probably some of both but there’s good reason to believe that access to contraception, even in a poor country, can decrease fertility rates and improve economic development.
Researchers in Bangladesh studied the impact of access to birth control, in Matlab district, over the course of 20 years. They found that in villages with family planning, every measure of well-being, including health, earnings and assets, improved. While cultural preferences for large families remain, an increasing amount of research also shows that couples in developing countries desire fewer children. Marie Stopes International surveyed Afghan families and found that the ideal size for most Afghan families was 4 or 5 children, in other words, 2 or 3 children less than their current fertility rate would dictate. Afghan couples also seemed to understand the benefits of limiting family size. One man commented that: “Three to five (children) is perfect in order to feed and educate them well.” Another study found that more African women said they wanted contraception but had no access than said that they actually use contraception. Most poignant however was the reaction of one woman, a mother of 17, upon receiving birth control for the first time. The woman was reportedly so delighted that she “hugged and kissed Aziza (the provider), ripped open a package and swallowed a pill with a gulp of water.”
Increased access to contraception is not just good for families, it also contributes to a stable and sustainable world. While the link between poverty and terrorism has been difficult to tease out, the growth for example of the deadly Boko Haram terrorist group in Nigeria appears directly tied to grievances about poverty and inequality, economic stress that is worsened by large families.
All of this is to say nothing of the burden that climate change puts on our world and the strain and conflict it creates. The Department of Defense calls climate change an “accelerant of instability” that exacerbates volatile situations.
Warmer temperatures and increased incidences of severe weather lead to more natural disasters, dislocation, and disease. This stress and hardship in turn fuels extremism. Smaller families consuming fewer resources can be a step on the road to lessening the impact of extreme weather events on global security.
Read the rest of… Krystal Ball: Women’s Health is Key to Global Health, Economic Development, Security
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Jun 12, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
On June 26th, there will be an election in Brooklyn between Hakeem Jeffries, a New York State Assemblyman and New York City Councilman, Charles Barron. While the Daily News this week endorsed Jeffries in the Democratic Primary (which will essentially be the election in this heavily-Democratic district), the retiring Member of Congress Ed Towns, and the Amsterdam News, have endorsed Barron. This race is neck in neck and the turnout will be lowimmediately.
Barron has questioned the legitimacy of Israel’s existence, calling the Israeli government “the biggest terrorist in the world.” In 2009, hejoined former anti-Israel congresswoman Cynthia McKinney on a Viva Palestine convoy to undermine the Israeli blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, which he has compared to a “concentration death camp.” He said, “There’s too many children and women and innocent men of Gaza dying because you’re isolating them and not allowing anything in. It’s like having a concentration death camp.”
At a 2002 rally in support of reparations for slavery, Barron said: “I want to go up to the closest white person and say, ‘You can’t understand this, it’s a black thing’ and then slap him, just for my mental health.”
For a compilation of Barron’s statements, click here:
And be sure to watch this stunning video:
If any of this makes you want to jump to action, click here to support Barron’s primary opponent, Hakeem Jeffries.
By Patrick Derocher, on Tue Jun 12, 2012 at 12:30 PM ET
Florida has run afoul of the US DoJ for at least the second time under governor Rick Scott, this time for the purgation of some 100,000 Floridians from voting rolls.
Florida finds itself in hot water with the US Justice Department yet again after purging some 100,000 names from its voting rolls. Although states re allowed to remove ineligible voters from the roll, DoJ has said that Florida did not comply with legal standards, citing “critical imperfections, which lead to errors that harm and confuse eligible voters.” Moreover, some are arguing that the purge targeted minorities and other Democratic-leaning voters ahead of what is sure to be a very tight presidential race in Florida this November. [CNN]
It’s not just Wisconsin. California is entertaining the possibility of a regulation that would ban corporations and labor unions from contributing directly to campaigns. Additionally, it would stop paycheck reductions from being used for political purposes. Unions, who use paycheck deductions to fund the majority of their political endeavors, would see their influence slashed dramatically, and all this on the heels of the Wisconsin recall vote that was seen by many as an affirmation of unions’ diminishing power. [Sacramento Bee]
Illinois politicians’ struggles with the law are well known. It is, after all, the state with not one but two former governors in jail. What is less well known is the bipartisan pair of State Representatives who have been sitting on ethics panels together. After presiding over the investigation into former governor Rod Blagojevich, Barbara Flynn Currie, a Chicago Democrat, and Jim Durkin, a Republican from suburban Cook County, will investigate ethics charges being brought against Derrick Smith, also a Chicago Democrat. [State Register-Journal]
Rick Perry may not even belong in Texas at this point. The governor and former Presidential candidate was booed at the state convention last week after declaring his support for Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, who is running for US Senate in a run-off with Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz. [CBS Houston]
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Jun 12, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
“Wassup esse, Juan Brown?”
I’ve wondered what it would feel like to hear that sentence said to me by one of my friends, assuming he was a Hispanic tough guy who was from the streets of East LA.
And I admit, there’s a good chance I’ll never hear it since I don’t live in East LA.
But I can be dangerous. I really can be.
Not like Ving Rhames “going medieval” dangerous….but dangerous in my own way…. I don’t carry a gun or anything like that, for example. But I do keep pepper spray in my glove compartment that my mother bought me years ago. And I still have it. And could conceivably use it under the right circumstances.
We all have a dark side–and a breaking point— that could cause us to break the law to make a point because it was the right thing to do and it was up to us to do it.
That’s right, Friendo.
A personal example came up today when I was pushed to the limits of exasperation and decided to take the law into my own hands. I was at a convenience station filing up my car with unleaded and went inside to get my usual, a small coffee with lots of cream and sugar and a cinnamon roll. I took my place in line behind a large and tough looking man who seemed a lot hungrier and frankly more dangerous than me. So there were two of us. Together. The woman with the cashier was asking for directions and buying lottery tickets. And was taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r (a really, really long time) to complete her purchase.
My friend in front of me looked at me twice and rolled his eyes in frustration. He was confused and frustrated. But I wasn’t. I knew what to do. I waited until the lady at the cash register caught my eye and I slowly raised the cinnamon roll to my mouth and took a small bite of it. Before I had paid for it! Sending the message, “We’re in a hurry back here and we’re not fooling around.”
And then I took a second bite. She wasn’t looking the second time. I just had been surprised at how fresh and delicious the cinnamon roll was the first bite. But I wasn’t finished toying with her yet. We continued to wait and this time I lifted my cup and took a slow pull off my small coffee as if to say, “I have about ….umm….I’m…please hurry. Please. I’m…I really hate lines.”
Another minute past and the sales lady looked at me once more, and I went a place I didn’t think I was capable. I took a large symbolic bite that left less than half the cinnamon roll.
And I didn’t flinch.
I was feeling that any second I might hear the words, “Wassup esse, Juan Brown.”
But instead the sales clerk smiled at someone behind me and I turned to see who. It was two police officers sitting at a table drinking coffee. I swallowed hard. I had really gone too far this time and was going to have to apologize once it was my turn to pay. “One small coffee and a cinnamon roll” I cheerfully chirped. “Haha….the cinnamon roll started off a lot bigger. I’m sorry. I was so hungry”
She never even looked me in the eye. I nodded as I walked by the police officers and breathed a sigh of relief nothing more happened. And I even threw away my pepper spray once I got to my car.
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Jun 12, 2012 at 11:00 AM ET
One of the “Crazy Lies” that I have debunked in my new book, “The Liberal Case for Israel: Debunking Eight Crazy Lies About the Jewish State,” is the pernicious charge of “pinkwashing”: anti-Zionists perniciously claim that Israel’s extraordinary LGBT record is merely a pink smokescreen for its other failures. [Click here to read an excerpt from my book on “pinkwashing” charge.]
Fortunately, I am not the only one up and arms about the claim. Last week, a Trustee of the City University of New York lambasted that school’s decision to hold a conference on pinkwashing. As The Algemeiner reports:
The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at City University of New York plans to hold a conference on “Homonationalism and Pinkwashing” next year, which intends to accuse Israel of using their strong record on gay rights to detract from the “oppression of Palestinians”, while ignoring “the existence of Palestinian gay-rights organizations”, according to a release from CLAGS.
Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, who sits on the Board of CUNY Trustees calls the conference “disgusting” and plans to bring the issue to the Chancellor’s office, which he believes may be unaware of the issue.
“It’s just amazing to me that one of the few free societies in the world like the state of Israel should be a target for people so stupid that they can’t recognize what their fate would be in any other nation in the Middle East,” Wiesenfeld told The Algemeiner.
(ORLANDO) Yesterday, my daughter tried out and made the first round of auditions for American Idol at Disney. And decided to stop before continuing. But not before making me promise to audition today–with her joining me at the audition.
