THEN: Secretary of State (KY), 1996-2004; Candidate for Lieutenant Governor, 2007
NOW: JYB3 Group (Owner) -public affairs consulting firm; Miller Wells law firm (Of counsel)
Full Biography:link
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Apr 1, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Biblical interpretation. (My all-time favorite)
When my daughter Maggie was about 6 or 7 years old, I tried reading portions of the Children’s Bible to her.
The first story, of course, was Adam and Eve.
… Always multitasking and preoccupied, Maggie was only half-listening until I mentioned both Adam and Eve were “naked.”
“Naked?!” Maggie’s questioned incredulously as her head whipped around and eye brows furrowed.
“I know, right?” I said. And trying to teach her to think for herself added, “So what’s up with that? Why do you think they would be, you know, naked?”
Maggie squinted her eyes as she pondered the question and then shot back an answer I wasn’t expecting.
She shrugged, and explained, “Maybe they hadn’t invented looking down yet.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Apr 1, 2013 at 10:30 AM ET
Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, and US Senator Mitch McConnell are teaming up for the sequel to the romantic comedy hit “Friends With Benefits” titled “Friends with Benefits and Super PACs”
Here’s a clip of a video from the new movie with a cameos from JayZ and Sen McConnell.
See if you can pick out which back up dancer is a US Senator.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Mar 29, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
I don’t like to brag and it really is against my nature to do so…but I just couldn’t resist.
After several days of promoting my new eBook, not only have I broken through the almost impenetrable sales threshold of selling into the doubledigits (10 or more), I have actually skyrocketed all the way up to the highest teen number (19!) as of an hour ago.
Now, yeah, sure…that counts my own purchase and my mom’s.
But that doesn’t take away from these staggering runaway sales numbers that now seemed to have leveled off —but fortunately for now anyway– seem to be holding steady and not dropping.
Which means…maybe, just maybe, I should hold on to my day job.
On the other hand, the report below tells the tale.
What kind of tale? I’m not so sure. Just a tale where the number 19 is becoming increasingly my favorite new number and a number I haven’t ever given enough of a chance.
Hey, and look at the irony. Even my favorite band, Steely Dan, sang an entire song about the number 19. You and I both know it wasn’t about my eBook sales. But the fact that it could have been, means a lot to me. And makes me really proud in that mysterious, magical, low sales, Karma kind of way…. Very cool. And, again, forgive my hubris! ; )
“Latest report: # Net Units Sold Musings from the Middle 19”
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Mar 27, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Is my bank in trouble and trying to tell me something
I just made a deposit at my bank and noticed the sign above the teller
“We were here for you yesterday
We are here for you today
We will be here for you tomorrow”
Ok. Ok. That’s great and all. But what about the day after tomorrow? Or early or mid next week? Does this mean next Friday I am on my own and without a bank?
Or am I just reading too much into this?
Regardless, there seems to be an opening in the Louisville market that will be here “The day after tomorrow…and all of next week.” Granted, not a great sounding tag line but the opening seems to be there.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Mar 26, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
If Nicolo Machiavelli had been born several hundred years later and written a TV series, he would have written House of Cards
If you are a political junkie and worry that you may fall into the political abyss and want to know how to survive (at least according to Hollywood’s version), you can’t do much better than the new Netflix series House of Cards.
Is it a true reflection of the rough-and-tumble, all too human, sausage-making political and policy process in DC? The answer I would offer up is, Not as much as the series would have you believe. But more than DC’s real players would want you to believe.
It isn’t art reflecting reality as much as an artful presentation of the high drama of DC’s inner workings. And as dramatic TV goes, it’s about as good as it gets.
The morale of the series? I’m only a few episodes in but would say that it’s a play on the idea of a House of Cards. Sure, it means an unstable structure that could collapse at any moment. But according to the series, it’s not the structural problems that are of primary interest. But how one plays the hand of the cards they hold. In hopes of surviving regardless of what happens to the house itself.
It’s not a drama that captures politics as it is– but captures the caricature of politics shrewdly and subtly.
It’s a drama that, if you aren’t politically inclined, is hard to watch and impossible to look away from. And if you are politically inclined, easy to watch and you won’t want to look away.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Mar 26, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
About once or twice a year I go through a full service car wash
The first time I knew they existed I was a small boy with my mom and she explained what was going on as I watched on with wonder from the lobby area.
I much prefer the self-service car washes because you don’t have to get out of your car and wait 10–15 min in a wait area.
Which can be awkward
I am in the waiting area now and have watched two grown men (one about 60 and the other mid 40s) stand with their back to the rest of us pretending to watch the car wash process with the wonder of a small boy
I have to assume they aren’t really entranced by this process which –though still remarkable in many ways—losses much of its mystery by ones teen years
I suspect instead it is a defense mechanism to the awkward waiting room. What do you talk about to fellow customers?
“So, have a dirty car today, do ya?
Me too”
So instead we pretend to watch the washing process like we did as children
But I am different. I don’t have the need to pretend to be busy so I don’t have to make conversation. Oh, wait a minute. A new customer just sat down next to me. I need to walk outside and pretend like I am making a phone call.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Mar 25, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Working, working, working.
Almost there , almost there.
But forgetting “there” is only an idea and not a location—it is only a guidepost and figment of our imagination that keeps us moving.
What if we woke up this morning and instead of “closer” to our dreams, we had “arrived”?
Me?
I would go back to bed
Which is why, I suppose, our reach should always exceed our grasp. But not by too much.
As long as we are living, we are merely “in transit” —at times forward; at times backwards; and often just sideways or adrift. And at other times we simply standstill
In this journey oflife we “arrive” not at a final destination –but the moment we realize that life is an endless journey –with maps, and GPS-es and Sherpas and guideposts
But no guarantees.
And, as the sign in the mall says, “You are here” –now.
But not for long.
And we try, for today, not to run in place or swim against the tide
But hopefully to float toward our destiny –which we know when we are doing because it feels like flying.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Mar 22, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Papal Fashion
With all this new Pope buzz and the chatter about the theological and political implications, someone is finally turning to a more practical and more interesting topic.
A good friend asked me (tongue in cheek) if women become priests, do I think they would make female cardinals wear brown?
That’s a great question. Although this issue will be decided in the Vatican it has far reaching implications that could include trademark infringement accusations right here in Louisville, KY with UPS if the Catholic Church ever tries to use the tag line “Brown Deliver”
That is the only real practical risk I see. I do believe based on what little I know about the topic the Pope and Catholic Church will pull off a “Fashion Win” for the Church. Brown is a staid and dignified color –yet also really makes the Roman Collar pop in a reverent way that says “fashionably infallible”
At least that is my best off-the-cuff answer . That is also tongue-in-cheek. ; )
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Mar 21, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
I just went through Chik-fil-A drive through in my hometown in Louisville. Mainly because it’s after 9pm and most their clientele are home for the night —praying with one another, talking about heterosexuality, and getting ready for bed.
At least that’s the media stereotype we have in my mind
I figure that between 9-10pm each night the city’s liberal and hypocritical underbelly slithers through the Chik-fil-A drive-thru wearing sunglasses and masking their real voice as they order. And not making eye contact as they ask for extra ketchup for the Waffle Fries before careening out of the parking lot before one of their liberal brethren recognizes them and turns them into the local Whole Food Market.
But the food is so good at Chik-fil-A, otherwise idealistic Ashley Judd Democrats (it is Kentucky) are, at least during a weak moment (between 9-10pm Mon-Sat, but not Sun) willing to risk everything they stand for to munch on a Spicy Chicken Sandwich or toasted Chicken Salad Sandwich.
Is that really so wrong?
Of course it is!
Rand Paul was willing to talk for 13 consecutive hours last week (4 1/2 hours longer than his typical interview and floor speech) because of what he believed. Period. A conviction politician with a consistent and principled ideological diet. No carry-out order of Dan Dan Noodles from the ultra liberal and multicultural PF Changs would have caused him to waiver.
Shame. Shame. I know your name! John Y Brown III! You Daniel in the Lion’s Den! Or Chik-Fil-A’s double drive-thru line.
But at least I had the decency NOT to park and eat in Chik-fil-A parking lot. I clandestinely drove across the street and parked in the Taco Bell parking lot where I noticed two other cars parked with Chik-Fil-A bags on the dashboard with incognito drivers wolfing down a chicken pot pie.
But then I saw something truly shocking. It was, if true, reminiscent of the moment when Sen Joe McCarthy was castigated by the Army Colonel and General Counsel, “At long last, sir, have you no sense of decency?” Only worse because it was more brazen and nakedly hypocritical.
It was a high profile and celebrated local republican operative, whose name I’ll leave anonymous for now (or someone who looks just like him) wearing dark sunglasses in a corner booth eating a Bacon Club Chalupa inside Taco Bell. As he chewed blissfully he simultaneously belied his party’s rigid policy position on immigration, symbolically anyway. “What a sanctimonious hypocrite!” I thought to myself.
Sure,I was outraged and wanted to lash out at this blatant policy hypocrisy. But I thought to myself, maybe –just maybe—all this hyper partisanship had gone a step too far. Instead I asked myself what would Democratic Patron Saint US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan do if he were alive and found himself in this identical situation? Easy. He was discreetly walk inside Taco Bell and quietly offer his political nemesis his now empty Chick-Fil-A bag to disguise the rest of his Taco Bell order.
But Daniel Patrick Moynihan was a better man than I am. I left the scene and am posting the entire episode on the Recovering Politician blog! For sake of our children and our children’s children’s future. Or something like that.
As Grover Norquist taught us, “Bipartisanship is another name for date rape.” Or, I would add, an unreported partisan breach involving a Taco Bell Bacon Club Chalupa or Chik-fil-A Charbroiled Chicken Wrap.
When my daughter Maggie was about 6 or 7 years old, I tried reading portions of the Children’s Bible to her.
“I know, right?” I said. And trying to teach her to think for herself added, “So what’s up with that? Why do you think they would be, you know, naked?”
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