By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Oct 22, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET  Click here to BUY MY BOOK! Two of my favorite books are The Bible and Musings from the Middle.
You are probably saying to yourself, “John, I know you wrote one of those books, right?”
Well, yes. I sure did. And thanks for remembering. (It was the latter book, of course.)
Now, I am not saying that the two books have anything even remotely in common. They don’t.
Is Musings from the Middle a great book? No. An important book? No. Not at all. A well written book? Not really. A good book? Not if you are sober while reading it. Is it even an insignificant book (as opposed to a book completely devoid of any substance)? Arguably but it is a very weak argument and, frankly, more of a frivolous musing.
But here’s the thing. The Bible has, I believe, 66 Books. And at times can get a little heavy trodding reading it. Wouldn’t it have helped to have had an extra book –just one–called “Musings?” If for no other reason just to break things up a little?
Maybe “Musings from Mathusula.” He lived a long time and would have had lots to muse about.
Imagine kids learning the books of the Bible. “Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Musings, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, Ruth.” It just flows, doesn’t it? OK, maybe not the first time you read it but conceivably it could grow on you over time.
Granted it is impossible to compete with Genesis and Exodus but most Biblical scholars would surely agree we could all use a mental break and a few laughs after Leviticus and before plowing into Numbers.
The Book of Musings wouldn’t teach anything. Just serve as a kind of a palette cleanser.
Well, an extra book of the Bible titled Musings is not going to happen. But you can still get the book Musings from the Middle, albeit completely separate from the Bible. And that is unfortunately probably the only way it will ever be sold.
And even though it wasn’t written by Mathusela people tell me I have Mathusula’s sense of humor.
Not really. I just made that up. But it is already a shameless sales pitch, so why not throw that in. Mostly I am just trying to get my sales rank on Amazon.com higher than 2000 times Mathusela’s age and figured since the Bible is selling so well…..
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Oct 22, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
 JYB Sr., JYB Jr. and JYB III circa 1972 My grandfather Brown was (and still is –posthumously 28 years later) the family patriarch. And for pretty good reason. He was very disciplined, accomplished, learned, pulled himself from poverty as the son of a tenant farmer to achieve renown as a trial lawyer and being in debt like most well-to-do people, and –most of all–was a character with a seeming limitless number of memorable stories about him. Many of them true.
A story my mother liked to tell about him was when she had just married my father she sat in on one of his biggest trials that year. It was a packed courtroom and when a crucial piece of evidence was admitted against his client, my grandfather said, “Judge, that is inadmissible according to KRE 802 (11).” This impressed everyone attending with his encyclopaedic memory of the rules of evidence.
 Afterwards, my mom asked him, “Mr Brown, do you really know what KRE 802 (11) says?” And my grandfather responded, “No, honey. But neither does the judge.”
Love that story. Even if it isn’t true or entirely true. As Mark Twain said,
“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
By Michael Steele, on Tue Oct 22, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET Look ma, no federal government!
At some point the entire BS that is the government shutdown sinks in and we have to deal with reality: We have elected a bunch of children to run our government.
One reality that must not change about America and the free enterprise economy is that the root of America’s success has always sprung out of the hard labor of its entrepreneurs: the men and women who risk it all on a dream. Government doesn’t do that; government can’t do that. When a job is created by a small business owner they make an investment in people in a way that government can’t match. So when those same business owners have legitimate concerns about government policies that affect them, elected officials must listen in order to preserve the conditions that allow small businesses to thrive.
 The fact that politicians in Washington have lost sight of that tells me we can longer trust them to do this by themselves. Each one of us must be prepared to help set the nation’s priorities for the immediate future. We must decide what price we’re prepared to pay for a strong national defense and better schools; how much are we truly ready to spend for our children’s healthcare and to secure our nation’s borders? Which programs are we prepared to cut in order to get our financial house in order, and by how much? While these are difficult questions, they are not either/or choices, but rather complementary opportunities.
The White House and the Congress need to take a time out from the silliness of politics and the drama of blaming one or the other for shutting down the government—both political parties, the White House and Congress are to blame. Stupid lives at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue in this mess.
Read the rest of…
Michael Steele: We Have Elected a Bunch of Children to Run Our Government
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Oct 21, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
I have found that, as a general rule of thumb, people usually have to “feel the heat” before “they see the light.”
Nothing seems more conducive to the attainment of wisdom than the receipt (or threat of receipt) of a painfully humiliating lesson.
Which means that, as a general rule of thumb, the wisest among us are also the ones among us who have accumulated the highest number of painfully humiliating lessons in the course of their lives.
So, if you want to be a wise person, ask yourself What painfully humiliating lesson am I pursuing today?
Or perhaps experiencing right now without even knowing it?
By Artur Davis, on Mon Oct 21, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET Count me as skeptical that for all of the damage Republicans have incurred from the failed shutdown, the lesson has genuinely been learned. Not when there is an emerging narrative that the House GOP simply picked the wrong fight (allegedly, either draconian cuts to income support programs , or perhaps, a balanced budget amendment would have been more costly for Barack Obama to reject); not when a majority of the House GOP caucus still voted to perpetuate the shut-down; not when critics inside the party are framing the scope of the party’s dilemma almost entirely in terms of one specific faction, and therefore limiting their solutions to well funded primary interventions against the Tea Partiers.
Some of the “what if” shadow dancing mimics the misreading of public opinion that has haunted the right since the successes of the 2010 midterms: conservatives have consistently confused swing voter angst over Obamacare with a broad based rejection of a government “power grab” over healthcare as opposed to a notably specific distaste for aspects of the law: from scaled back coverage dictated by the “Cadillac tax” on high value policies; to diminished consumer autonomy to enroll spouses in employer plans; to the pressure on small businesses to pare their full-time workforce to avoid mandates. And the shift from declaring the Affordable Care Act so toxic that it would validate the shutdown strategy to suggestions that a softer political target like low income groups or a “support that is a mile wide and an inch deep” variation like the balanced budget amendment would have paid Republicans more dividends? The haziness of wishful thinking, overshadowed by a deeper failure to appreciate that shutdown itself validates the obstructionist label, the impression of being too inflexible to govern, that so threatens the party nationally and is even starting to creep into red states like Georgia and Louisiana.
 There is a different kind of miscalculation driving the…take your pick..more responsible, more establishment, more centrist…wing of the party (which, as the one silver lining of this fortnight, seems finally emboldened). It is the assumption that mobilizing to downsize the Tea Party is an endgame by itself. The 144 Republican no notes that emerged in the House may be minimized as “throwaways” who were trying to forestall primary contests and could do so with the knowledge that their votes were not essential: but that misses the reality that such a sizable portion of the party’s elected representatives, well more than the 40 to 50 members of the Tea Party Caucus, felt so constrained politically, and evidence that the sensibilities behind the shutdown have much greater currency in the party than Republicans are comfortable acknowledging.
Read the rest of…
Artur Davis: Lesson Learned?
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Oct 18, 2013 at 1:30 PM ET  I joke a lot about being 50. But that isn’t the only age I consider myself.
A few hours ago, it was 2:30am on October 18th which is about the exact time I had my last drink of alcohol 28 years ago.
We each, if we are lucky, have our actual birth date and another birth date when we are, some would say, “re-born.” Not necessarily in the religious sense…although it often is.
A line I love which captures this truth well comes from the movie The Natural with Robert Redford playing an aging and ailing baseball superstar. “We live two lives. The life we learn from and the life we live after that.”
I believe that. It’s not a perfect demarcation but it is a profound one. Maybe more crudely put it is the “life we tried to lead” and failed at and the “life we built up from those ashes.” It isn’t really a failure as much as a right of passage.
Most young people are full of vim and vigor and have a limited and self-absorbed view of the the world. Sometimes they crash and burn early, as I did. Sometimes the crash and burn later after having tremendous success. Sometimes they smolder for years until they careen off the road and into a ditch. This is our first life. The war years. The wild years when anything was possible.
Then there is the next life. The reality years. You don’t sell out but integrate and find your place and hopefully a place where you can be and do what you are meant to be and do. Until a person has hit their own self-imposed wall, they may be fun but aren’t terribly useful. Being useful is not a priority during this first life anyway, not really.
The “wall” introduces a person to him or herself. And soon after that a new life, based on the realm of the possible begins. It is a better and more useful life. Not less passionate or less fun or less exciting. But a grown-up (in the best sense of the word) has joined your “road trip” and turned it into a lifelong metaphorical journey. My wall. My old and sated life ending. My new and more useful life beginning all started about this time 28 years ago.
Here’s the post from last year describing the night. Hope it helps someone else in some small way. New lives are like that.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Oct 18, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Little help, please.
I just thought of an extremely wise and hilariously funny post.
But now, for the life of me, can’t remember what it was.
Please do me a favor and pretend like I posted it.
You know, just “like” it if you are inclined to like extremely wise abd hilariously funny posts.
And maybe a comment about how thoughtful and funny this post is.
And how you hope next time I don’t forget what I was going to say.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Oct 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET The 3% secret.
When you meet someone fir the first time and look them up and down, side to side, and even try peering into their soul (the shallow and deep ends) and get that awkward vibe that you only like about 3% of them, here’s the trick: Focus in and focus hard on just that 3% and somehow–almost magically–you will find another 3% that you like before the end of your first conversation.
And here is the bonus part.
If you meet someone new and at first glance only like about 3% of them, chances are good that they only like about 2.5% of you.
And by doubling the amount you like them by to 6%, that almost always doubles the amount they like you by to a full 5%.
Which gives them more things they like about you that they can focus on.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Oct 16, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Bad cropping doesn’t mean a picture is useless.
For example, in this badly mangled cropping job, I get an idea of what I would look like in a Bhurka.
And reinforces that I should never try to wear one.
And I learn that my right eyebrow looks about a decade younger than my left and that I should favor my confident and younger-looking eyebrow the next decade until it catches up with the wiser-looking but withered left eyebrow.
By Jason Atkinson, on Wed Oct 16, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
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