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John Y. Brown, III Photo HereRecovering PoliticianTHEN: 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   
After 43 years of continuing to misspell “you’re” as “your,” I am giving up. I will no longer attempt to spell “you’re” correctly. It’s become a poor use of resources and energy. I will from here forward use “your” to mean either “you’re” or “your.” Thank you for understanding.
Facebook is a place where millions of people seemingly give advice to millions of other people daily but are really just using others as an excuse to give—and hopefully take—their own advice. And I think that’s a very good thing. The advice is communicated in status updates containing inspirational quotes, wise advice, clever slogans, and touching stories. Which seems lately to be on the rise. We are telling ourselves that we need to adopt that particular thought or this mindset or take that action. It’s always easier to take advice ourselves if we can do so under the guise of giving that advice to others. It’s easier to hear, to accept, and ultimately to take. And FB gives us that always ready third-party, i.e. the FB world. So, maybe, through all the status updates where we are seemingly nudging the world to become a little bit better place is actually working. By allowing us more often to nudge ourselves to each become a little bit better person. And so maybe that isn’t so much a Facebook secret as much as it is the secret to Facebook.
Rush’s raw, heartfelt apology to a young female student for calling her a “slut” and a “prostitute” was just what the nation needed to begin healing after this unfortunate miscommunication “that distracted from the point I was trying to make,” as Rush bravely put it. This magnanimous act of humility and recompense not only touched us all but inspired me to look within myself and think about young people I had recently called a “slut” or “round heel” or just an ordinary “prostitute” —and made me want to offer them an apology too. “For distracting from my point.” And I have Rush Limbaugh to thank for that.
In fact, I’d like to call on all Americans who have recently defamed a young person they didn’t know by calling them a vulgar and despicable name, to reconsider your words and offer that young person a heartfelt apology. In honor of Rush’s statesman-like profile in courage and teaching example that no matter how right you are, you shouldn’t share every personal insult publicly.
Think of it. The person that would chose to identify himself with this crashing, jarring adjective would be a person more naturally aligned with the showmanship of Barnum & Bailey than with the thoughtful commentary of, say, McNeill/Lehrer. Which is why I didn’t consider Rush calling a young lady a “slut” reason enough to be up in arms. When Rush is not attempting to offend and provoke, he is committing a form of carnival malpractice. That is his venue and his point….to shock, inflame, and thrust through his enemy….but we forget Rush is not really a gladiator. He is more of a vaudevillian. He is like an immobile and aging warrior who has become a form of public curiosity by his knack for squeezing all of his internal frustrations to the pointy tip of his tongue. We want to watch and hear what that looks and sounds like. So we watch Rush, the secluded man in a cage, so it seems, talk to himself on his jerky webcam. And gladly pay. It is the “Bearded Lady” except instead of a physical oddity breaching the bounds of human decency it is the “Shouting Man” who seems almost crazed at times and who with his eruptive personal pronouncements against perceived enemies breaches the bounds of human decency in a different way. R Read the rest of…
All families need stories that make them better than they really are. The key is that the have to be believable (or willing to be believed) and told by a credible elder of the family. Usually repeatedly. When I was about 14 and felt about as confused and insecure as, well, a 14 year old should, I was alone with my grandmother (Mamaw) and struck up a conversation that had great potential. We were watching TV at her house and she was eating a PB&J sandwich and half paying attention to me. I loved her more than about anyone. She told things like they were. She lived in Muhlenberg County and although she never finished high school, I always felt she was smarter and wiser than my other grandma who was Phi Beta Kappa. Plus, I was her favorite grandchild. I’d been hearing about other kids at school who were making straight A’s and were National Merit Scholars and geniuses so on. “Mamaw,” I asked, “You know how some kids are gifted intellectually?” “Oh, I suppose. Your Uncle Jim Bob was.” (Jim Bob was her son and she liked him more than even me.), she replied predictably. “What about the grandchildren, though?” Mamaw? “What do you mean?” she asked. “Well, when we were younger did any of us seem, you know, kinda gifted or especially bright or special in some way?” My grandmother took a bite of her sandwich and without ever looking away from the TV responded lovingly (in her own way), “Well, none of you were retarded or anything like that, if that’s what you mean.” That ended the conversation as well as my hopes of being gifted at anything. I never got to tell her that wasn’t what I meant. But I always loved her—even after that. And sometimes the gift of loving candor is better than being gifted at some random skill anyway.
You know what I mean? You feel you can related to a song without having any idea what the meaning is? I speculated it could be stuck in the middle of life or middle of an important metaphorical dilemma or just stuck and waiting for some existential meaning or spiritual breakthough and learning to make the most of it (and grateful to have the person next to you to help make the journey worthwhile, a sort of Waiting for Godot) Well, turns out the lyrics are based on an actual negotiation at a restaurant where the singer/songwriter was stuck between two others who were part of the negotiation. Much like the video. Oh well. I can relate to that too. Was just hoping the song, and my life, had more profound meaning that this. But the older I get, the more I’m beginning to realize it may not. And that I better enjoy the music, the good food, the conversation with the joker and the clown. And even the annoying negotations.
A few years ago I had the honor of sitting next to former Ohio Representative Tony Hall who spoke at Kentucky’s prayer breakfast. He’s a faithful and inspirational leader and we discussed a range of serious topics before I inevitably had to try to inject some humor into our heavy topics. Rep. Hall had a wonderful sense of humor and inevitably the discussion turned to the bitter partisanship that was dividing our country. There was a mix of Republicans and Democrats at the dinner. Actually more Republicans…and we wondered aloud where this division started. I offered my theory that the Biblical story of the Prodigal Son may help answer that question. The Prodigal Son was wasteful and extravagant and disrespectful but returned home humbled and wiser and was embraced and forgiven by his father who welcomed the lost son back and called for a celebration at his son’s return. The Prodigal Son also had a brother–an elder brother–who had stayed home, worked hard and was respectful and not wasteful but who watched on with jealousy and bitterness as the father embraced the formerly wayward younger son. My theory is that Democrats descended from the Prodigal Son. And Republicans descended from his brother.  Sometimes when I’m in a long line at Starbucks and in a hurry, I wonder to myself, “Who was the annoying customer who kept complaining that the Barista never asked if he wanted ‘room for cream?'”That person was probably the cause of the blanket Starbucks policy to ask every customer ever time that same question ad nauseum.
That question, repeated millions of times a day seems to take a lot of time for the Barista to ask, the customer to think about, the customer to answer, the Barista to process and the Barista to respond to. And I’m not sure it’s an important enough question to ask millions of times daily.
I think Starbucks should post a “Room for cream opt out” policy. In other words, it will be assumed that all Starbucks customers want room for cream unless the order otherwise (e.g. “No room for cream, please” or “I don’t need room for cream” or “I’m utilizing the ‘opt out’ policy for room with cream”—or something like that).
I suggest a pilot project for Louisville. I suspect we’ll see a lot of freed up time to Starbucks customers that is currently time being drained from our local economy. And wouldn’t it be interesting if we discovered that this inane question asked of everyone passing through Starbucks turned out to be the primary cause of our current recession?
Of course, I don’t really believe the “room for cream” question contributed to the recession.
Just aggravated it a little.
I do think that the new additional –and more complicated—Starbucks question, “Would you prefer light or dark roast?” has the potential to seriously undermine out economy.
Remember the old saying, “I feel like a million bucks!”? That was very popular a few decades ago and meant you felt good physically and were on top of the world. I have done an economic analysis based on when that saying was at the height of popular usage and have adjusted for inflation. In today’s monetary terms, the proper saying should be “I feel like $2,435, 721.32” However after adjusting for what each individual on average owes over their lifetime based on our national debt, the new adjusted number is roughly “$6.48.” So, if you are feeling especially good today…and especially positive about the future, cock your head, put back that gleam in our eye and say, “Hey there, pal! I’m feeling like roughly $6.48 today, adjusting for inflation and my portion of the debt!” It’s not quite as catchy as the original line, but spirit of that expression is still in there somewhere. On the other hand, if you aren’t feeling especially good today physically or about your personal future, you will need to adjust further downward if someone asks you to estimate your dollar value based on your frame of mind today. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of wiggle room. I guess what I’m saying is I hope everyone is feeling, as Larry David likes to say, “Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good” about things. Figuratively speaking. ; )
A friend of mine today broached the topic of mid life crisis in men…and wondered if he, at 44, was in the midst of his own midlife crisis. We talked about it and I’m not so sure. I explained that even if he was, he had plenty to be upbeat about. “Like what?” he asked. “Well, look at it this way,” I said. “I had my midlife crisis at around 38….I consider that young for a midlife crisis. I was sort of an AP mild life crisis type—you know, kinda precocious for that stage of development. But here’s the silver lining for you. If that was truly midlife for me, my life expectancy is only 76. You, on the other hand, are a little slower to get around to passing through your midlife crisis “right of passage”–but if 44 is midlife for you, your life expectancy is, well, 88. That means you’ll live 12 years longer than I will based on my mid-life math. Sure you may be more confused and depressed than me this year…and you’ll say silly and pathetic things, maybe even quite your job or buy a tacky looking sports car. But you get to outlive me by over a decade! I guess sometimes it pays to be a slow learner.” |
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