By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Dec 21, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET
Outrageous! Lindsay Lohan outdoes herself again!!
I just had an apple bran muffin and coffee for breakfast.
OK…I admit it.
I used a fake Lindsay Lohan lead to get attention because my Facebook status update this morning is my dullest ever, and I was trying to spice it up and pull people in.
Of course, I don’t know Lindsay Lohan and have no idea what she did last night…For all I know, she didn’t …do anything and just had an apple bran muffin and coffee.
Lindsay Lohan NUDE!!!
Which gives me an idea. Here is my new status update:
“Lindsay Lohan and I had apple bran muffins and coffee.”
Again, depending on how you read that sentence it, too, can be misleading. I wasn’t eating an apple bran muffin and coffee at the same time in the presence of Lindsay Lohan, and some could read it that way. And that wouldn’t be accurate.
By Artur Davis, on Tue Dec 20, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET
John Boehner and House Republicans are no winners here. They had a chance to paint a payroll tax cut as a threat to Social Security in early 2009 and they squandered it. Left without a substantive case, they are stuck arguing process and minutiae, and look disorganized on top of it.
But before Democrats salivate too much, the trend in 2011 was that every time Congress descended into bickering, Barack Obama suffered collateral damage. For independents, congressional dysfunction underscored Obama’s failure to alter the gridlock in Washington.
The saving grace for both sides: in a week where the country is finishing its Christmas shopping or making travel plans, it’s a tree falling too far in the forest to make much of a sound.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Dec 19, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET
The American Bar Association recently recommended that KY indefinitely halt all executions after a study showed a high rate of convictions being reversed.
I think this is an excellent idea.
When I was secretary of state I was put in a position to sign off on death warrants ordered by the state. I talked to law professors and attorneys involved with the cases and couldn’t bring myself to sign off in my on hand. I let the office signature machine sign my name. Although my signature was just a formality that the order had been received and filed–not a policy decision I could impact– the symbolism of signing jarred me. The death penalty was no longer an interesting hypothetical question. It was happening and my job was step in the process, albeit administrative only.
I’m not yet willing to say the death penalty should be abolished altogether. But I hope this moratorium brings fresh insight and information to a stale debate on an important criminal justice option available in the Commonwealth—aimed mostly at deterring rather than punishing our most heinous crimes.
Unfortunately for Democrats, when you take into account money, organization, and candidate discipline in addition to polling, Romney was really never not the frontrunner.
But don’t be fooled by Romney’s above-the-fray tack last night. For the next three weeks, Romney will be savaging Gingrich (and anyone else who is rapidly rising in his campaign’s internal polling) on TV, radio, and in the mailbox.
The name of the game for Romney will be to project as positively as possible in his own appearances while, underneath the seemingly placid surface, his ad campaign and his surrogates will be as nasty as necessary until he regains his lead in national polls.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Dec 16, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET
Grandparents and grandchildren have a special bond.
They share a common enemy. Today’s hovering helicopter parents have, in their zest to simulate the perfect developmental environment, forgotten some important ingredients to creating a whole and fully functional child.
Sometimes, if we are lucky, a contrarian grandfather (who still hasn’t gotten around to reading Dr. Spock’s Baby and Childcare – or anything written since on child rearing) can be just what is needed to help create a well-rounded child. My 13 year old daughter and 17 year old son spent time with my 78 year old father earlier this week, and helped bring this lesson home for me. And so, with that, I offer this appreciation…..
Here’s to grandfathers, especially the fun ones.
The ones who never realized there was a time to stop rebelling, exploring or experimenting.
Who in the eyes of some never quite finished growing up…but upon closer observation merely never forgot how to have fun–or listened when told “You’re too old for that.”
The ones who are maddening enigmas on the bad days but wonderfully surprising on the be…tter days.
The ones who live close to the heartbeat of life because they don’t know how to live any other way….who showed up one day in their childhood at the local carnival and think they never left.
Who feel retirement is as about as appealing as taking an extra AP course in high school.
And who, when out with two teenage kids, can make the teenagers question their personal sense of coolness and how they view the world.
Who give surprising answers that ring true to conventional questions with conventional answers that ring hollow.
And who know that sometimes all a 13 year old and a 17 year old need to make them feel good about their world is a 78 year old with the right attitude.
Those grandfathers don’t always get the credit they deserve in our media and literature…but they have a lot to teach us. They possess a lot of important wisdom about, as Thoreau wrote, how to suck all the marrow out of life…and do it with gusto and a grin.
Thank goodness for the grandfathers who teach us the things we need to know. But thank goodness, too, for the ones who teach us what we want to know– but may not know how to ask. The skills that some scoff at but the wiser know are the AP equivalents of life courses that will take us farther than even advanced chemistry—and possibly even farther than Calculus III.
Contributing RP Tom Allen, former Congressman from Maine is promoting local efforts to promote math and science education in public schools:
Former U.S. Rep. Tom Allen said providing Maine students with more engaging math and science programs is a pathway to a stronger economy Tuesday during the official unveiling of The Reach Center, a new organization aiming to do just that.
Allen touted the new organization, which hopes to provide individual student mentorships and a central clearinghouse for innovative math and science programs around the state, as poised to play a key role in Maine’s economic future.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Dec 14, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET
Today, we introduce an exciting new feature at The RP: John Y.’s “Musings from the Middle.”Contributing RP and former Kentucky Secretary of State John Y. Brown, III, has set Facebook on fire the past few months with his thoughtful, often hilarious posts on his Facebook page. Having reached the limit of 5000 friends, John Y. is now sharing his wit and wisdom with the RP Nation as well. Enjoy, and be sure to fire away in the comments section.
New habits are almost always achieved incrementally.
A handy tool is the “stages of development” between an old habit and the adoption of a new habit. For example, the stages for adopting a fitness regimen. For me, the 8 Stages have been as follows.
Disgust. Hitting bottom with one’s weight and/or appearance.
Joining a gym. Purchasing a gym membership.
Circling. Driving to the gym and circling it several times in your car before leaving.
Entering. Going inside gym and meeting person at front desk and using restroom. Before leaving.
Augmentation. Joining a second gym.
Canceling. Terminating both gym memberships
Acceptance. Making peace with your weight and appearance as it is.
Contrition. Doing an act that salves a sense of guilt and failure (e.g., joining a morning mens accountability group—but one that serves doughnuts.)
By Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, on Wed Dec 14, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET
Even though 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use birth control during their reproductive years, U.S. bishops are fighting it
Last month, the Vatican issued a clarion call to all people of conscience. It wasn’t about contraception or masturbation or gay marriage or any of the other aspects of peoples’ love lives have drawn religious ire through the ages. Instead, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace stepped forward to question the morality of a global economic system that relentlessly enriches a privileged few while the rest of humanity struggles to keep their heads above water.
The council reaffirmed the notion highlighted in Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical on the economy, arguing that open markets — usually the engines of prosperity — can foster poverty and inequality when unscrupulously exploited for selfish ends. As a counterbalance, the council called for international standards and safeguards to stem the world’s worsening inequities in the concentration of wealth.
With millions of Americans looking for jobs and struggling in this economy, you might expect the nation’s Catholic bishops to join the Vatican’s quest to level the economic playing field. However, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have other priorities. They are consumed just now with the subject of birth control. The bishops’ leadership is unhappy about a new national policy that includes birth control under preventive health care: a designation that requires new health plans to cover it in full, without the co-payments and deductibles that keep many women from using it effectively. This policy, which was adopted last summer and goes into effect next August, is both laudable and common-sense.
With yesterday, the 8th day of December, marking the Feast of the Immaculate Conception — which refers to Mary’s being conceived free of original sin, not the conception of Jesus — it would be wise of the bishops to realize that the conception of Mary by her human parents, Saint Joachim and Saint Anne, is a reminder that woman are people of conscience and can decide for themselves when it is best to conceive. In fact, birth control use is universal, even among Catholic women: 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use birth control during their reproductive years.
Read the rest of… Kathleen Kennedy Townsend: Out of Step With the Flock
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET
Mitt is like the perfectly-behaved boy with straight As who’s taken the cheerleader on dates every weekend for a year and can’t close the deal, and now the roguish drop-out has swooped in and gained traction despite the urgings of the cheerleader’s parents (i.e., the Republican establishment) to beware.
How can she not realize what a huge mistake she’s making?? This guy is a total dead-ender! I just got admitted to Harvard, and this guy’s got no future….It’s plain as day! How can she not see it?
Mitt has spent the last few weeks trying unsuccessfully to conspire with her parents and it’s backfired – because the more a 17-year-old girl’s parents like a guy, the less she will. Just like tea partiers and the Republican establishment.
With the president’s approval ratings in the low 40s, these voters are feeling their oats. They want to take a walk on the wild side!
So now young Mitt, usually so cool and collected, is getting desperate. This ad is his most direct attempt yet to show the cheerleader the error of her ways. And I suspect that Republican voters, like the cheerleader, aren’t going to listen to reason. They’re going to have to learn this lesson for themselves.
Contributing RP Tom Allen, a former Congressman from Maine, is working on a new political book, reports Seth Koenig of the Bangor Daily News:
Former U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, a Democrat, and I happened to be leaving a media event in South Portland at the same time Tuesday. We chatted for just a few moments before he hopped into the passenger seat of a waiting sedan, undoubtedly off to another obligation (as president of the Association of American Publishers and a member of several organization boards, he keeps busy).
I asked how he’s liking life outside of the “political crossfire.”
He said he’s loving it. But he’s not staying out of the political crossfire forever.
Allen, who served 12 years in the House before giving up the seat to challenge Republican Susan Collins in 2008 for her Senate seat (unsuccessfully), said he’s working on a book about politics he hopes will hit shelves next year.
“It’s about the ideas that separate Rs and Ds,” the former Portland mayor said. “It explains everything.”
Allen still has strong opinions about politics, as evidenced by guest columns he’s written for the website The Recovering Politician (click here or here for some of his recent opinions about the atmosphere in Congress — he’s not ambiguous about which political movement he feels is to blame for ongoing Capitol Hill hostility).
