By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jan 13, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET My wife and I have just endured the worst flu virus either of us has ever experienced.
This was no ordinary “Stay-in-bed-and-watch-TV- flu.”
This was more of a “Don’t-speak-to-me-for-three-days-except-to-bring-me-a-cup-of-tea-on-the-third-day-or-a-copy-of-Albert-Camus’-The-Plague-but-preferably-tea-because-I-don’t-have-the-physical-strength-to-read-and-I-was-serious-about-not-speaking-to-me-seriously-oh- no-I-have-to-throw-up-again-please-just-leave-me-alone-like-I-already-asked-several-times-but-do-leave-the-book-on-Bubonic-plague-and-know–I-love-you-and–I-am-sorry-about-this-and-also-sorry-about-that-thing-I-said-several-years-ago-but-can’t-remember-now-I-will-make-it-up-to-you-if-I-survive.”
By Artur Davis, on Mon Jan 13, 2014 at 10:00 AM ET To be sure, there are numerous things that Marco Rubio’s anti-poverty speech this week failed to do: the list of omissions run frominsisting on budget neutrality for his proposals without giving any hint exactly how and what he would cut to support them; to not addressing whether his plan to block grant antipoverty programs would end up with the red-state, blue-state disparity that characterizes Medicaid and TANF; to vagueness on how his job training condition for extended unemployment benefits would function in distressed communities that have no reliable higher wage jobs available.
These aren’t quibbles, and some of them leave Rubio’s ideas vulnerable to the charge that they would in practice gut or outright eliminate subsistence for millions of low income Americans in the name of “upgrading” the War on Poverty.
But to enlarge the discussion beyond policy specifics, there are arguably two broader dimensions to the Rubio address, each of which illustrates the challenges Republicans face when they venture into this arena. First, the senator’s context from start to finish was that a (relatively) bipartisan generation of antipoverty legislation amounts to a massive systems failure. Liberal commentators were correct to shoot this overstatement down: a country stripped of Medicaid, SSI disability, Title I education funding and food stamps would not only be fundamentally crueler, it would have inevitably fractured into revolt under the strains of the Great Recession. In the same way that De Blasio style liberals have glossed over the contributions the Giuliani/Bloomberg run made to a safer, more livable New York City, the “failure” critique that Rubio and most conservatives advance regarding the War on Poverty is too glib, too shallow.
 This criticism, by the way, isn’t just finding fault with rhetoric. The legislative challenge for a President Rubio would be assembling a coalition of a unified Republican Party and more centrist Democrats to enact a new anti-poverty agenda: and one of the primary requirements for attracting any Democrats into that coalition would be the preservation of most of the anti-poverty regime that exists today. Could Rubio even begin to sell the right wing of his party on such a trade-off if his premise has been that the status quo is a disaster?
And that leads to the second challenge that Rubio tackled, but not forcefully enough. The leading ideological sensibilities of today’s GOP voters are that (1) poverty is not really systemic and is a product of either inept economic management by Barack Obama or of weak individual choices and that (2) stirring up public interest in poverty or income inequality is usually “class warfare” based pandering. Rubio has earned credit for implicitly rebuking this mindset by bringing up the issue at all.
Read the rest of…
Artur Davis: What Rubio Did and Did Not Say About Poverty
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Jan 13, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET “Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire” W.B. Yeats
Excuse the rant but I am outraged by the state of the U.S. education system. We have let the pilot light go out and we are failing our youth. Particularly egregious is the way we are failing our urban youth.
We must refocus our national and regional innovation conversation on how to solve real world problems. Job number one is to design a better education system that lights a fire for every youth, creating lifelong passionate learners. It is time to move beyond public policy debates and institutional rugby scrums to try new solutions. What we are doing now isn’t working, and far too much of the federal stimulus investment in education is being spent to sustain the current system.
A report last year from the nonprofit network America’s Promise Alliance showed that 1.2 million students drop out of high school each year. Only about half of the students served by school systems in the nation’s 50 largest cities graduate from high school. The U.S. public education system, especially in the country’s urban centers, must be transformed.
Only about 40 percent of the U.S. adult population earns a college degree. That may have been fine in the 20th century when an industrial economy supplied good jobs to those without post-secondary education. It is not fine today when a college degree is a necessity for a good job.
 Our education system was built for the 20th century.
Everyone loves to point fingers at other players in the system as the cause of the problem. Observing our education system today is like watching an intense rugby scrum that is moving in slow motion hoping the ball will pop out. We have finger pointing and incessant public policy debates galore. We love to admire the problems: It’s the unions that are getting in the way. Teachers are resisting change in the classroom. Administrators don’t understand what is going on in the classroom. Parents are not engaged. Public policy makers can’t make up their minds. If only private sector companies were more engaged. Students are unruly, undisciplined and disrespectful. Everyone gets blamed and nothing changes.
Read the rest of…
Saul Kaplan: Education Rant
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Jan 10, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
If you are in your 20s or 30s –or even early 40s–and feel overwhelmed and under-appreciated, I implore you to hang in there and not give up.
If you can make it to 50, everything changes. Being 50 is awesome. It’s no accident they call it “the prime of your life.” Everything comes together and you finally feel like you are, indeed, master of your fate; captain of your soul.
Being 50 is like being a senior classmen (after your parents held you back two years in kindergarten to give you an edge over the other kids). You know how everything works–and others look to you to show them. You are truly on top of your world. Finally.
Everyday you feel like you are a BMOC (Big Man On Campus) Except it’s not a campus; it’s your life. Which is even better.
The only problem with being 50 and feeling on top of the world is you have trouble remembering why you feel so together and invincible.
I have found writing down all the reasons (like the ones I just listed above) and keeping the list handy on the notepad of your smartphone or on a piece of notepaper you keep in your pocket is very helpful, if not essential.
Otherwise you just look like a blissfully happy idiot who has no idea what is going on and others will start to suspect you aren’t as together as they initially believed.
So, if you are a young adult and stressed out and depressed, the good news is it will get much easier and much better. Even if you can’t remember why.
Just hang in there. And copy this list to your smartphone notepad. Trust me on this. This list is the difference between being a C level executive at 50 and a greeter at Walmart. The two positions require the same basic skill set, except the former exudes a great deal of confidence and cocksureness. And carries a list like this in their pocket.
By Julie Rath, on Fri Jan 10, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET How did 2013 go for you style-wise? Were you totally on point, or was there room for improvement? I’ve been traveling over the past month visiting out of town clients and doing some serious people-watching while on the road. I was sitting in LaGuardia Airport at 6AM one day, and I started a list of don’ts, which grew at each of my stops (Minneapolis, Chicago, North Dakota, and Palm Springs), evolving into the New Year’s Bad Style Cleanse below. Read on for 14 habits to purge from your style diet.
1) Don’t wear a crewneck undershirt with your button-up shirt. Showing your undershirt collar is like showing your underwear, something you don’t want to do in public (I hope). This goes for both casual and dress button-ups. I like Tommy John for great undershirts with v-necks that are low enough not to be visible. Here is my review of the brand.
2) Even if you’re traveling, you shouldn’t wear loafers with a suit. Try monk straps instead, as they can slip on and off easily when going through security (tip: packing a travel-size shoe horn will make your life easier).
3) You can leave the top button of your dress shirt undone with a tie, but don’t have the tie hanging down below your collarbone. Your tie knot should be no more than an inch lower than the top of where your shirt collar closes.
4) Never wear a backpack with a suit or sportcoat. It’s terrible for the shoulders. Also, you are going to work, not for a trail run.
Read the rest of…
Julie Rath: New Year’s Style Cleanse: 14 Bad Habits that Get the Axe in 2014
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Jan 9, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET Tom Mabe’s most popular –and depressing—prank yet.
Louisvillian Tom Mabe is a very talented and funny guy. He’s the ultimate social media prankster and very clever and provocative as he pushes the comedic envelope.
His latest exploit …didn’t feel as funny as usual to me, though. Perhaps his most popular prank to date (at least in YouTube views, now over 17 million), Mabe tricks a hard drinking buddy who has passed out from intoxication (again) that he has been in a coma for 10 years and missed out on a lot of important life moments due to his excessive drinking.
It’s tough love that overlaps into cringe humor.
It is a brilliantly clever prank that was hopefully going to scare Mabe’s friend straight. The friend already has 5 DUIs and wasn’t changing his drinking habits. Tom was trying to help a friend, help protect others, and create a viral video at the same time. And I hope he succeeded with all three objectives.. The video’s viral popularity is already established.
But did it help his friend? I’m not so sure. In my view, a prank like that, by itself, rarely has a long term impact on the drinker. But the 17 million views of this video means that the secret on this heavy drinker is now out—something that most everyone knows or will soon hear about in this gentlemen’s home town.
That public intolerance for his alcohol abuse will mean he’ll have to change to stay in his current community or live elsewhere. But a few more days passed and the video prank continued to gnaw at me for some reason. My self-righteous conclusions weren’t enough to satisfy me.
There was something else going on in this video that was vaguely haunting me. And, I suspect, vaguely haunting others because several friends brought it up to me. For me the metaphor of going into a coma for 10 years and missing out on important life moments, saddened me. In some ways I am guilty of that. And I am not in a medical coma and don’t drink alcohol. But that doesn’t mean I (we) can’t go on auto-pilot, get too obsessed with work, hobbies, other distractions and miss out on some important memories with our children, spouse and friends. And that, in the end, is what I learned most from this video. It’s unintended consequences.
A prank to scare a heavy drinker straight by outing him was a very funny scheme. But what was profound –and perhaps ultimately more socially beneficial from this video–is that as much as we 17 million viewers want to laugh and feel superior to the drunken foil in this prank, I suspect a significant portion of us were simultaneously trying to conceal our sadness that we’d been outed too.
I hope Mabe’s friend does get help and get sober or at least stop driving while drinking. But whatever happens to Tom Mabe’s boozing friend, I hope this video helps change me in ways so that 10 years from now I don’t feel like portions of that time were spent in my own metaphorical coma.
Because, thanks to Tom Mabe’s prank, I now have a clearer idea of what that looks like and how horrifyingly tragic it can be.
By RP Nation, on Thu Jan 9, 2014 at 10:00 AM ET For me, as for most Americans, the words of Martin Luther King have been and will always be inspiring.
In my hometown, as many other cities, the life and accomplishments Martin Luther King are celebrated, in may different ways, by many different segments of our community. Later this month, for the Jewish community and for all who wish to attend, Temple Adath Israel, will be offering a uniquely special remembrance of not only the life of Martin Luther King, but also pausing to remember the contributions of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel whose life is intertwined with Dr. King’s.
Rabbi Heschel, met King in 1963. King asked Heschel to help lead “prayer services” for civil rights during a march in Alabama. Rabbi Heschel had to receive permission from the Jewish theological seminary where he was teaching, A few days later, the Rabbi called the seminary to ask for money to bail him out of jail. They asked, aren’t you suppose to be leading prayer services for civil rights. Rabbi Heschel said he was doing just that, “his legs” were praying. For eleven years, Temple Adath Israel has acknowledged the life cycle coincidence in time of these two great men” with a special Shabbat service of righteousness and peace.
Rabbi Marc Kline of Temple Adath Israel, told me “Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was not about about racial equality but the divine dignity equal in every human. King’s fight was for social justice, economic justice, racial equality, anti-war, and more”. Rabbi Kline went on to say “Oppression is when one person asserts power over another, thus diminishing their dignity. King’s dream was for equality. Prayer is what we do, not only what we say”. In a similar vein, a book, I once read entitled, “God is the Good We Do” echoes what Rabbi Kline is saying. With these thoughts in mind, is it not appropriate for the “spirit” of Martin Luther King be used for the launch of a new social justice, economic and political movement known as the Worldwide Wave of Action.
Plans for the Worldwide Wave of Action are beginning to take shape.
David DeGraw, is one of the organizers behind the Wav. David, recently wrote in an email that when he “pressed play on the new Worldwide Wave of Action video, the voice of Martin Luther King rang out crystal clear with a message that could not be timelier”. Dr. King went on, “We have come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”
 DeGraw said, he thought he had slipped into a vortex and transported into a new dimension as Dr. King went on to say, “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom. ”. David then wrote, “I had fallen down the rabbit hole declaring” as Dr. King did “let freedom ring!.”
The Worldwide Wave of Action has already inspired several other videos (see some here, here, here & here) and has just launched a new organizing site at WaveOfAction.org. The call to action found there, states, “this will be a decentralized crowdsourced movement open to all willing to engage in a wide diversity of nonviolent tactics”.
As their homepage pleads: “Be the change. What are you waiting for? This is your movement! Let’s create a culture of transformation. Share an action or event that you are organizing. Whether it’s a large-scale demonstration or a small personal act, tell the world what you are doing to be the change we need….”
It is obvious, The Worldwide Wave of Action, has been influenced by the Anonymous, Occupy and 99% movements. David DeGraw, who was involved back then, said “building on the foundation of these movements provides a powerful opportunity to regain momentum and recapture mass consciousness. Considering that the social conditions, economic inequality and corruption of the political process have become even more severe than they were in 2011, when the Occupy Movement was born”
To me, the timing seems right. Many more people are now aware of the injustice and exploitative nature of the present system. Even the new Pope is now reciting from the Gospel of Occupy, and Gartner, the respected technology research firm, has predicted, “A larger-scale version of an Occupy Wall Street-type movement” in 2014. Other research also reports that it only takes 3.5% of the population to create significant change. With the communications power of the Internet, is it not a viable movement possible? I can’t help but think back to the two Viet Nam demonstrations I attended and results they had.
Is this movement more than naive wishful thinking? It seems the facts indicate otherwise, but organizing and coordinating in a more coherent and unified manner will be needed, not like the loosely knitted Occupy movement.
The organizers have picked a three-month span of time for action. beginning on the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King, on April 4, 2014, to ignite and unite their collective actions into what they call “an unprecedented Worldwide Wave that cannot be ignored by anyone”.
Rabbi Kline, often says, “if not now, when?” referring to social justice participation, but is the tipping point near? Will there be critical mass? Is there a turning tide to ride? Can a wave of transformation rise over the horizon? In time, these questions will be answered and reported here. Are you going to ride the Worldwide Wave of Action?
Gary Yarus is a freelance writer, a student of political movements, an escapee from the Democratic Party, a progressive populist, a Green Party pro-democracy advocate and the curator of an online magazine, devoted to democracy, ecology, peace and social justice called “The Beacon” ( http://bit.ly/TheBeacon ). Email: garyyarus@yahoo.com
By Josh Bowen, on Thu Jan 9, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET “Procrastination is the assassination of motivation”
Time is something you can never get back. Once it is gone, it is gone forever. It is our most precious resource. So why wait? Why wait for anything, knowing what we know. The answer probably falls down to priorities and things that get pushed to the back of the line, tend to be less of a priority than others. I do this with opening the mail. It is literally, one of my top three most hated things. I will push off checking my mail for days, sometimes weeks. Why? Because it is not a priority to me. If it were, I would open my mailbox everyday and sort through it. People treat fitness, like I treat the mail. Its something we can do tomorrow, or Monday or the first of the month or the FIRST of the year! People treat it like the red headed step child of their lives or like I treat the mail. The bad part about it is, I can open my mail anytime and it will always be the same, YOUR time on earth is precious, there won’t always be tomorrow.
Now, not to get morbid because that is not the point but procrastinating doesn’t get you anywhere. It wastes time. And by wasting time, we get further and further away from where we want to be. Today is December 4th, 2013 and I know there will be a large percentage of people that read this that are waiting until January 1 to start their fitness program. Why wait? I won’t bore you with trite statistics about New Years Resolutions but the proof is in the pudding. More people fail than succeed. I’m here to help you succeed and take action now so when 2014 makes its appearance you are already on the road to success. Here are some action steps to take:
“A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step”
Step 1- Start. There is nothing magical about starting on the first, a Monday or a new year. Literally nothing, other than psychological. Get out and start moving. You don’t have to go purchase a gym membership or buy fancy workout equipment, but do something. Walk, run, bike, lift weights, yard work, something, anything to get you moving.
Step 2- Start small. There is no need to go all out. Life is all about momentum. Instead of committing to working out everyday, try 2-3 days. Build up your tolerance and your confidence. If going to gym is not your thing, start working out at home. Just do something.
 Step 3- No analysis by paralysis. Google fitness and you’ll find anything and everything you could ever want to know. Theres too much information out there. Hence the reason why I wrote the “12 Steps to Fitness Freedom” In my book I take all the jar gain and all the rhetoric and condense it to a nice 12 step process. Shameless plug, available January 7th!
Step 4- Have fun. Do something you like to do. You like to dance try Zumba, you like to life heavy things (best way to get into shape in my opinion) do that. The point is to do something. Obviously some thing’s are better than others but my suggestion is always to get started now, never to wait.
Bonus
Step 5- Personalized fitness. Everyone needs guidance particularly with things we don’t know much about or can’t seem to motivate ourselves towards. Even I need help with my fitness. Go see a personal trainer. Interview them and see if it may be a good fit. If you want more information about me click on this link
2014 is right around the corner but 2013 still has some legs to it. Make the most of the time we have.
Now drop and give me 20!
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jan 8, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET  One day, I am confident, I will come to understand the female species.
At least if reincarnation really exists.
Because doing so in this lifetime isn’t looking likely, even though I have felt at numerous times that I was on the cusp of “getting it.”
But these times that I believed I was on the verge of a breakthrough of complete comprehension of the distaff side turned out instead to be what psychologists call “a delusion.” And made me feel like a marathon runner who believes he just caught sight of the finish line but as he gets closer realizes it is just another starting line.
Which is probably just as well.
As much as underatanding the female psyche sounds like a desireble goal, it would take a lot of fun out of life. And be depressing to think that they were no more mysterious than my half of our species.
===
Great seques in spousal conversations.
Dec 21st 2013 10:30pm: “You have been in a mid-life crisis for a long time now, haven’t you? You think it will ever end or just keep dragging on and on?”
(Note: In case you weren’t sure, that question was posed by my wife to me, not the other way around.)
My response:
“I dunno. At some point it no longer makes sense to ever finish it.”
By Lauren Mayer, on Wed Jan 8, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET We’ve all been guilty of it – the inside-out logic of deliberate self-delusion, to try to convince ourselves of something we really wish were true, such as
– “I’ll get there on time as long as I hit every light and there’s no traffic”
– “I can quit drinking/smoking/bingewatching Downton Abbey whenever I want”
– “If you eat leftover dessert standing up, it doesn’t have any calories”
– “How can global warming be real if it’s snowing?”
So I’d like to give the GOP the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their objection to extending longterm unemployment benefits, spearheaded by Senator Rand Paul. His explanation is one of the all-time classic inside-out rationalizations, “Extending benefits does a disservice to the unemployed.” See, they’d be out looking for a job, even though there are 3 unemployed people for every available job, except that $200 weekly check is making them way too comfy, and so they’ll be grateful for the kick in the pants they need to go out and get a job that doesn’t exist.
And let’s assume their objection is also out of concern for the economy – even though most economists say that every dollar in unemploment benefits adds more than a dollar to the economy (because unemployed people will spend the money on frivolous items like food, housing and utilities), and even though the shutdown last fall cost just about the same as extending benefits would. It’s just that in Rand Paul land, up means down, and numbers work backwards. (Either that, or he’s too busy footnoting every single word he says, so that we mean liberals won’t accuse him of plagiarizing again.)
In that spirit, I’m only likening Paul to a certain Seussian green-skinned character because they’re both so cuddly and cute!
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