This story about contributing RP Rod Jetton appeared in The Fine Printblog, giving an interview about his past and recovery to Eric Olsen:
It’s old news, really. But in the context of awarding a sales and marketing honor, I had to ask Rod Jetton about allegations that he battered a woman during a sexual encounter in 2009 and how the process has affected his career – one that was in the public eye for eight years as a state representative and four years as House speaker.
Jetton pleaded guilty to a lesser misdemeanor charge in May 2011, more than a year after Poplar Bluff-based Schultz & Summers Engineering Inc. hired him to lead its marketing efforts. Jetton’s impact on the company has been evident as 2011 revenues came in at a record $6.2 million. By comparison, the year before Jetton’s arrival, the company posted $3.5 million. Attend Springfield Business Journal’s March 1 Dynamic Dozen awards ceremony or read the March 5 issue to learn Jetton’s role in moving those numbers.
During our interview for the Dynamic Dozen issue, Jetton spoke candidly about the legal situation.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Mar 6, 2012 at 3:30 PM ET
Profile in Courage or just a national teaching moment?
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.
I love it when we can take an unfortunate event and turn it into a powerfully positive opportunity to bring people together—and think this could be one of those times.
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.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Mar 6, 2012 at 2:00 PM ET
“Rush”
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.
Rush is like The Fool in King Lear, who babbles and observes and talks incessantly to himself but is listened to by others as a form entertainment. But in this modern Act some in our society have confused The Fool for Lear. Rush is not the king. He is the king’s fool. A court jester. And so he can be relied upon to say foolish things…as fools and court jesters are want to do. And to do so with regularity and alacrity.
Read the rest of… John Y. Brown, III: On Rush Limbaugh
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Mar 6, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Great fails in family myth making opportunities.
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.
I’ve written previously about the challenges Barack Obama and other liberals have in building a communitarian case for their politics. I share William Galston’s perspective that the strains and dislocation in our society are at odds with the ideal of mutual obligation, and would add that a number of liberal-approved policies have contributed to that polarization. It’s worth pondering though, whether today’s conservatives do much better.
The short answer is that they don’t and often don’t try. At worst, most of the right fears that communitarian rhetoric is a cover for imposing an elite set of values over theirs, and for redistributionist tax and spend policies. To the extent there are conservative sympathizers (a Ross Douthat comes to mind), theirs is an enthusiasm for a localized brand of community, that relies on the vigor of private associations and faith based institutions. It’s a long way from the canvass Mario Cuomo was painting about a national “family”, or Obama’s contemporary efforts to draw from the unifying experience of the military or the mobilization of resources to build our national infrastructure.
On one hand, the conservative skepticism makes perfect sense. At a visceral level, the political right realizes that the cohesiveness liberals are invoking has pretty one-sided policy aims: realigning the tax burden, reaffirming the vitality of entitlements, and growing government’s reach into the economy, from capital markets to health-care to the energy sector. Conservatives also sense that liberals are not exactly agnostic in their viewpoints about the social values of a national “community”—it’s a pro-choice, pro gay marriage sensibility that openly distrusts any argument that incorporates, references, or elevates tradition or overt faith. Conservatives are quick to puncture the contradiction of embracing community while rolling eyeballs over some of its most conventional elements.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: Conservatives and Community
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Mar 5, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Always liked this song, wondered what the meaning was….and felt I could somehow relate. In some profound way.
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.
By Krystal Ball, on Mon Mar 5, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
Rush Limbaugh issued an apology this weekend for calling Sandra Fluke a prostitute and a slut after she testified before Congress on women’s health care. This “apology” occurs after three days of Limbaugh slut shaming Ms. Fluke, insulting her parents and saying that Fluke should make a pornographic movie for his titillation.
On the fourth day, after a public outcry and the loss of at least six national sponsorships due to BoycottRush.organd similar efforts, Mr. Limbaugh now regrets his choice of words. This was too little, way too late. Especially since Mr. Limbaugh has a long history of offensive and vulgar comments.
No business should associate itself with such a pattern of repeated, reckless, personal abuse. If Rush wants to continue to have the opportunity to demean women in the future, that is his right. Good companies have many opportunities to promote their businesses without having to subsidize the denigration of women. Sandra Fluke wasn’t the first woman to be smeared by Rush Limbaugh, but she needs to be the last.
Two weeks ago, the House of Representatives held a hearing on access to contraception that included no women. Chairman Daryl Issa denied a Georgetown law student, Sandra Fluke, permission to speak on the absurd grounds that the hearing was about religious freedom, not birth control. After Democrats held their own hearing in which Fluke gave passionate, thoughtful testimony about a friend who lost an ovary because she couldn’t afford the birth control pills that would have reduced her ovarian cysts, Rush Limbaugh apparently felt the need to weigh in and decided to do so in the shameful, loathsome way that only Rush could. As I could never improve upon the words themselves for a distillation of the soul of Rush Limbaugh, here they are:
“What does that make her (Fluke)? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute,” he said. “She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception.” As if that wasn’t enough, he had to insult the most powerful woman in the legislative branch and Sandra’s parents:
“Can you imagine if you’re her parents how proud of Sandra Fluke you would be?” he said. “Your daughter goes up to a congressional hearing conducted by the Botox-filled Nancy Pelosi and testifies she’s having so much sex she can’t afford her own birth control pills and she agrees that Obama should provide them, or the Pope.”
Martin Bashir said he was left speechless on Thursday after hearing what he called “idiotic comments” made by Rush Limbaugh about Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student who was denied the right to speak at acontroversial Republican hearing on contraception.
“So, Miss Fluke and the rest of you feminazis. Here’s the deal. If we’re going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch,” Limbaugh said.
Bashir reread what he called Limbaugh’s ludicrous thoughts and asked his panel to comment. Democratic strategist Krystal Ball called Limbaugh “despicable,” “disgusting,” and a “loathsome individual.” She also defended Fluke and said Limbaugh was trying to shame her.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Mar 2, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Biblical origins of Democrats and Republicans?
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.
