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 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 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.
Ross Douthat has a striking observation on the futile Wisconsin recall: rather than echo the conventional Republican theme that the effort was an ill-conceived liberal putsch, aimed at overturning the fruits of both the electoral and legislative process, he compares the saga to 2009-10, when Barack Obama’s Democrats rammed through sweeping domestic legislation and the Right decisively counterattacked in the midterms. Provocatively, he calls them “mirror image exercises in reverse shock and awe, and…backlash.”
Fascinating stuff. Of course, it’s a message some conservatives will blanche at for the simple reason that a recall is an extremely unprecedented gesture—three governors in our history have fallen victim—while the 2010 off year races were obviously a regularly scheduled democratic exercise. But Douthat surely has the ultimate conclusion right: both sides have gotten well schooled in the gymnastics of cut and slash opposition; it’s just that Republicans are getting the better of it. And as Douthat allows, the outcome in a bluish state that Democrats are still favored to carry underscores the political pull of reeling in outsized spending and the relative weakness of the liberal alternative, when both are put to the test.
I would even go one major step further: in the post LBJ era, the public has arguably never validated a specific, identifiable liberal agenda at the ballot box. The winning Democrats in that time frame—Carter, Clinton and Obama—have won on a tightly crafted appeal that stressed economic anxiety and blurred ideological content. Even the one congressional landslide for Democrats in memory, the 2006 midterms, were linked primarily to fatigue with Iraq and Republican overreach on Social Security. If one reads the post Reagan era as a closely matched siege over time, the left owes its victories to negative referenda on incumbents and a couple of superstar performers. In other words, liberals have been cursed to plot a course identical to the one they dismissively suggested accounted for Ronald Reagan.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: One Cautious Take on Wisconsin
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jun 11, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Commit to goals ahead of time so you have no choice but to achieve them!
A short story by Flannery O’Conner has a scene where a character throws his hat over the high fence so he’ll have no choice but to climb over it as part of the story’s adventure.
I love that.
And try to replicate that in my life.
For example, this morning I put on and comfortably fastened a new pair of pants for the first time. The pants were purchased two sizes smaller than my usual waist size. Because I wanted to be sure I had no choice but to achieve my goal.
It was a great feeling of success for being so goal oriented.
Even though I bought the pants nearly 3 years ago.
By Jimmy Dahroug, on Mon Jun 11, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
You’ll have the rest of your life to be conventional graduates. Now is the time to chase your dreams, while you’re still young enough to start over if you fall.
“This is maybe your one shot when you come outta here, so don’t blow it by jumping at money, by doing the things that everybody thinks you should do because it seems successful, figure out where your heart is and try to go with that.”
Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball and The Blind Side, offered this advice to college graduates on Meet the Press when discussing guidance he has offered at commencement addresses. It may be the best advice for any college graduates that I have ever heard. Platitudes about “going for it” are easy to dismiss unless you consider that time is running out quicker than you realize. The first year or so after college may be your last, best shot to take risks to pursue to the job you love.
For most of you, this is the rare few years before family needs and the responsibilities of a stable career consume your daily lives. If there ever was a time to risk pursuing a dream career instead of taking the comfortable path, that time is now.
Earlier this year I was privileged to attend an event where Marty Rouse, National Field Director for the Human Rights Campaign, was honored for his significant work in helping pass marriage equality in New York State. With a career of stories to tell an audience hanging on his every word, Marty chose to share that pivotal choice he made shortly after college to leave a comfortable job and devote his life to the work he loved.
Shortly after college, Marty was moving up the ladder at a promising job in New York City. One day his boss pulled him aside and told Marty that while he was great at the day job, it was clear that Marty’s passion was in his work as an LGBT rights advocate. He advised Marty to quit and at least try to make a living doing the work he loved because in ten years Marty would likely be in his boss’s shoes: too comfortable and too risk-averse to leave that job to do what he loved.
Read the rest of… Jimmy Dahroug: Class of 2012 –This May Be Your Last Best Chance
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Jun 8, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Monkey Mind—according to Buddhists a term meaning “unsettled; restless; capricious; whimsical; fanciful; inconstant; confused; indecisive; uncontrollable”
For those of us who read this less as an interesting factoid and more as a diagnosis, fear not.
There are two apparently successful approaches for treating Monkey Mind.
1) Ratchet down with meditation, yoga, diet, lifestyle changes, and medication.
2) Ratchet up. Like The Stones. And become a Monkey Man.
Although the first option is preferred, there is merit to option two as well.
(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.
